Japanese example for Russia

On Saturday, the Kizuna Internet provider was launched into orbit.

We are so accustomed to satellite radio, television and telephones that it is already difficult to understand how to receive a picture or sound without the help of broadcast devices. Japan decided to go further and develop satellite Internet. On Saturday, February 23, the H-2A launch vehicle with the Kizuna satellite launched from the Tanegashima Cosmodrome. The second name of the device is winds (translated as “winds”). This, traditionally, is an abbreviation of the English name Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite. Kizuna should provide broadband Internet access in Japan, the Pacific region and Southeast Asian countries.

Of course, there is nothing technologically new or unusual in this device. In the end, there is no fundamental difference between transmitting a television signal via satellite or, on the contrary, data packets from an Internet site. In both cases, there is a stationary dish and a signal coming from orbit. Except that in the case of television the signal is incoming, and in the case of the Internet it is both incoming and outgoing. But satellite phones both receive and transmit radio waves, so the technology is mature. Moreover, the “dish” Internet circuit with transmitters installed, for example, on television towers is now in full use. Well, in this case, the communication center simply turns out to be a little further away - not hundreds of meters above the ground, but hundreds or rather thousands of kilometers. But for a radio wave this is not very significant.

Allegedly, Kizuna can provide an incoming data stream to a computer at a speed of 1.2 gigabits per second, which is indeed a very decent result. True, for this there must be a very massive receiving dish on Earth - five meters in diameter. If you install an antenna of a standard size, like those television pancakes with which the walls of apartment buildings are hung (45 cm), then the speed will drop to 155 megabits per second (outgoing traffic goes at a speed of 6 Mbit/s). Nevertheless, such indicators are quite sufficient for most applied tasks.

However, experts, as usual, doubt the economic feasibility of Kizuna. An anonymous expert told Reuters that 95% of households in Japan now already have access to broadband Internet. What the satellite will add to this is indeed not entirely clear. For other countries in the region, it probably makes sense, but where the Network is not as accessible as in Japan, perhaps the market for space providers is not as attractive. However, the Japan Aerospace Agency (JAXA) and its partners have big plans for Kizuna. For example, they are going to use it to create a warning network for typhoons and earthquakes (an extremely pressing problem for the Pacific region), for educational Internet programs and even for medical purposes. The results of patient examinations will be sent via satellite to large clinics, and a qualified diagnosis and treatment recommendations should be sent back.

As for the fact that JAXA was somewhat late with broadband orbital Internet, the reason for this was, surprisingly, technical problems. In the most technologically advanced country in the world, there is an entire industry that has lagged behind the leading powers for many years. We are, naturally, talking about the aerospace sector: the Japanese have now practically forgotten how to make airplanes and have only just created a normally functioning launch vehicle. According to Reuters, the $490 million project took 12 years of work. It should be admitted that if Kizuna had been made for 5-7 years, then it would have had a much greater chance of market success. But even now it is likely that satellite Internet in the region will become very popular. Which will most likely lead to the number of plates on buildings increasing many times over.

By the way, if there is a state on the planet that should take a closer look at the fate of “Kizuna”, then, perhaps, this power is not called Japan, but Russia. The Land of the Rising Sun, although significant in terms of its engineering achievements, is not so large in territory. And that 95% penetration of broadband Internet was achieved not least due to the fact that cables do not need to be pulled far. For us, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, no metal and no fiber optics are enough to cover the territory. And if the issue with television was somehow resolved back in Soviet times (all kinds of “Orbits” were inherited from the great space era of the 60s-80s of the last century), then about broadband Internet from orbit, available from Baltiysk to Uelen , so far, it seems, they haven’t thought about it.

Mikhail MANSKOY