lets blow it up!

I was expecting a more gundam look to it.

WTH?! They already have blazing high-speed internet connections that put the U.S. to shame, but yet they are always striving to improve the speeds. What the heck have the ISP companies in the U.S. done to improve our speeds? Oooooooh, FIOS up to 20 Mbps (prob. like 10 Mbps in actual use). Yes, let's keep rolling out improvements of 2-5 Mbps every two years. Sheesh.

Never underestimate a country's desire for faster access to manga porn.

@kodo: <3 Hentai

I wonder if these are symmetric, or asymmetrical connections, how big an antenna are we talking about, is this a geosynchronous satellite, and what the speeds will be in application. With all of that said, why to go Japs.

"Users will need to install an antenna to be able to receive a signal"
Did that really need to be explained?

"Having a satellite in space means natural disasters on Earth are not going to have any ramifications on the country's connectivity, which can be imperative in disaster zones."
No, not really. There still needs to be a buttload of equipment on the ground to connect the satellite to the Internet backbones. Unless you're suggesting they put their backbone outside the country.

@jkr "is this a geosynchronous satellite"

How would it work if it wasn't? You'd have an hour or two of connectivity until the satellite went past the horizon again. And then what? Would they allow the Western countries to have a turn?

@ittekimasu: that made my day
but now everybody near me in the library is looking at me, wondering why I just spit my coke all over my papers...

@Sheemo44: Why blow it up? Just highjack it and use it for ourselves! I'm really sick of DSL and my .00000003 mbps connection.

Latency, much? Geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles above the equator. This might be useful for requesting large files from central repositories, or for any user that doesn't care about "teh snappy" (aka, a computer, not a person).

Next weeks story:

Kizuna satellite dead, falling out of orbit, Japan to use Gundam to blow it up.

..doesn't the low satellite orbits signal take like 200ms to travel one way? :F

@nym-ph: Something like that. Your throughput is fine, so surfing isnt a big deal, but playing games would be horrible at best. Take that internet from outer space!

@packetsniffer: I wasn't sure if this would be one in a network of satellites that would be deployed at a later date.

We got any more of those 10mil $$$ missiles?

which begs the question...wtf are these people doing that requires that fast of an internet connection?

2008: Japan launches high tech satellite into orbit. Reap great benefits.

2009: Japan discovers intelligent life on another planet. They proceed to name them Heavensmileface Millions..or some equally nonsensical amalgamation of abstract english words.

2010: We all get personal Veritech Fighters.

Everybody Wins!

When they say 1.2Gbps, they mean 'total capacity' not 1.2Gbps per subscriber.

In which case the Ipstar (Thaicom 4) Satellite launched in 2005, with a capacity of 45Gbps totally blows the Kizuna out of the water, (or sky as it may be).

Sory guys but a 1.2Gbps connection is just a 'pipe dream' for now.

South Korea also has much faster speeds than the US. We're just to busy spending money we don't have on our military. Is it really necessary for the US to spend as much on its military as the rest of the world COMBINED? Could we not, say, improve our infrastructure at home?

Umm... wouldn't you have more outages with a satellite internet connection? Isn't that the problem with satellite TV? You lose signal when it's raining. So wouldn't it be even more prone to outages than a hardwired connection? You'll still have the outages you get when punk bitches go and cut the fiber optic cables in the ocean and now when ever it rains you'll lose your internet too.

rmeehan17, I guess you're still on a dial-up.
1.2 Gbps is what we need to even get a decent internet experience in this century, thank you very much. You sound like those old fogies who used to ask, "wot in da heck do we even need to go above 55 mph fer". By the way, the correct phrase is 'raise the question' not beg the question. Do a a wikipedia search on it for the difference.

Let me give you a hint to Japan's secret- competition. In Japan there are approximately 20 providers. All have 100Mbps symmetric at <$100 because the developers have to sell bandwidth at a reasonable price to other competitors. In America there is only one- Verizon. Because of a (stupid, if you ask me) court ruling of some sort Verizon's FiOS is exempt from the same regulations. Our fiber network sits at about 1/5 of that, and not even symmetric, either.

berribrand: the is answer is yes. Its what keeps America from becoming anything else...

Serve your country and you too can figure it all out.

@ab3: Wow, switch to Dialup.

I wonder if they have solved the Latency issue.. 1GB/sec is nice but when your ping times are 180ms+ it doesn't feel like broadband unless your just surfing the web.

@berribrand:

Total non-sequitor. The government's military spending does not take any money away from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc., nor prevent any of them from improving their infrastructure. You must be thinking of a socialist country or something.

@Candyman: No, actually I am thinking of the government's ability to provide tax incentives to improve broadband access. I wasn't suggesting that the government directly gives AT&T/Verizon/etc. money.

@knappoleon: Thanks, but I serve my country every day by practicing democracy to the fullest extent possible.

At an altitude of 22,240 statute miles, one way light time is .11 seconds so latency is a show stopper.