The Space Above
Be prepared for a hyper local Internet
I still have the bad habit of capitalizing the i in Internet. It’s still a big deal to me, from the days I would call our local Freenet through a 2400 baud modem. The connection would die if someone picked up the phone. I don’t remember all the other little rules but I remember early ISPs had a time limit on the connection.
Now, not only is the Internet available through cable, fiber, and mobile, but satellite. SpaceX and soon Amazon will have this service, hopscotching over non-US governments’ control of access — maybe.
Satellite Internet is not new but the scale that SpaceX and Amazon provide will make it accessible. While these services are still aimed at the residential market, there are several areas where they could be expanded:
- Hand held devices
- Small tracking devices
- Consumer and business IoT
Amazon is especially positioned to be able to offer hyper-localized services. Imagine if your application was running on an edge that was literally above the user’s heads. These virtual edges can hop from one satellite to another as they pass over.
We should expect space clouds to be a things very soon.
