It seems there are still phases you could do. Instead of trying to bring up an entire constellation at once doing two-way communications covering the entire globe, you could start with just a few broadcast-only satellites. Not competitive with at my house in urban North America where wifi and LTE is ubiquitous, but that's never going to be your market anyway.
The receiver on the ground is going to have to be specialized hardware anyway, so build in a battery and a real time clock so it can wake itself up when one of the satellites is in range, and then record everything the satelite is transmitting. Send the entire contents of Wikipedia once a week, send technical manuals, send the week's news, Windows updates, Linux distros; the Internet is so ubiquitous these days but fast access to it is still elusive in remote parts of the world.
This wouldn't have been useful in 2000 but 15 years later, a box with an wifi access point and a 1 TB hard drive chock full of information that's relatively up to date?
Not as cool as "internet anywhere in the world", but a start. Phase in delayed 2-way communication next, reusing the physical antenna from version 1; adding more satellites as you go.
Of course, 15 years later, the cost of putting 1 kg in orbit has also shrunk, and having a WiFi-capable computer in my pocket to look up information on is "normal" - which wasn't so, 15 years ago.
It seems there are still phases you could do. Instead of trying to bring up an entire constellation at once doing two-way communications covering the entire globe, you could start with just a few broadcast-only satellites. Not competitive with at my house in urban North America where wifi and LTE is ubiquitous, but that's never going to be your market anyway.
The receiver on the ground is going to have to be specialized hardware anyway, so build in a battery and a real time clock so it can wake itself up when one of the satellites is in range, and then record everything the satelite is transmitting. Send the entire contents of Wikipedia once a week, send technical manuals, send the week's news, Windows updates, Linux distros; the Internet is so ubiquitous these days but fast access to it is still elusive in remote parts of the world.
This wouldn't have been useful in 2000 but 15 years later, a box with an wifi access point and a 1 TB hard drive chock full of information that's relatively up to date?
Not as cool as "internet anywhere in the world", but a start. Phase in delayed 2-way communication next, reusing the physical antenna from version 1; adding more satellites as you go.
Of course, 15 years later, the cost of putting 1 kg in orbit has also shrunk, and having a WiFi-capable computer in my pocket to look up information on is "normal" - which wasn't so, 15 years ago.