How Satellite Internet Services Work

Satellite Internet access is the system that lets you get Internet connection through communication satellites. Internet access services are typically brought to users by means of geostationary satellites, capable of providing high data speeds.
The whole system relies on the following primary components:

• A satellite in a geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO);
• Several gateways (ground stations) that relay Internet information via radio waves;
• A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) dish antenna located at the premises of the subscriber.

Other components of satellite Internet systems include a modem that links the network of the user with the VSAT antenna, and a NOC (network operations center) that monitors the entire system. The satellite works with a Star network topology that allows a practically limitless number of VSATs to be connected to the network.

The Satellite as the Central Piece of the Satellite Internet Puzzle

The broadband satellite networks have GEO satellites of the latest generation at their center. These satellites are positioned 35,786 km above the equator and operate in Ka-band mode (18.3-30GHz). They are designed for broadband applications and use narrow spot beams meant to target a smaller area compared to the earlier communication satellites that used broad beams. This technology allows the assigned bandwidth to be used multiple times, and the capacity is higher than what conventional satellites could offer.
The satellite works as a bridge, allowing the connection between points situated on the ground. It is the middle of the so called bent-pipe architecture. This term describes the shape that the data path takes between antennas, with a satellite placed at the bend point.
There is also a set of antennas at the satellite, receiving communication signals from the Earth and transmitting signals to target locations.

Gateways to the Sky

Following the important changes in satellite technology that took place over the recent years, ground equipment has also evolved, as a consequence of higher integration and increased processing power.
The Gateway Earth Station, or simply Gateway, is also known as a teleport, ground station, or hub. Sometimes, the term is used to describe just the portion including the antenna dish, or it can describe the entire system, with all the associated components.
The gateway receives the radio wave signals emitted by the satellite. A modem situated at the gateway location performs a demodulation of the incoming signal into IP packets that are then sent to the local network.
The gateways manage traffic to or from the Internet. The system of gateways provides all the services necessary for satellite and terrestrial connectivity. In the continental part of the United States, the gateways must have a direct unobstructed view to the southern sky. Since the satellite’s orbit is geostationary, the antenna can point at a fixed position.

What Are the Dishes Good for?

In order to get satellite Internet access, a user must have some additional components installed, besides a PC and a router.
The outdoor unit is a reflective radio antenna having the form of a dish, constructed from a variety of materials. It must have a direct view to the sky, in order to allow adequate line-of-sight to the satellite. The antenna must be positioned correctly and, therefore, a set of four parameters is necessary: azimuth, elevation, polarization and skew.
The indoor unit necessary to get satellite Internet connectivity is a modem that acts as an interface between the outdoor unit and the customer’s equipment. It controls satellite reception and transmission.
If you want to know more about satellite Internet reviews, here you will all the details that might be of interest to you.

Written by Robert Kleymore
Internet technology expert, MIT graduate and a passionate blogger.

Yahoo is working on its own video streaming service

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer starts again an attack on rival Google. Now let forth it’s own video streaming service. CEO Marissa Mayer has apparently already with some YouTube Stars in conversation. Your goal here is to draw the most popular video - faces with alluring marketing promises and higher advertising revenues on their side.

Yahoo! the great portal, which failed to capture Dailymotion, would have opted for the internal development of a more generous service for content creators as similar to that of YouTube. We know that streaming video is one of the strategic developments of Yahoo. The portal had tried to seize the French Dailymotion in 2013 for 300 million dollars. And a rapprochement with Hulu was also considered but everything was unsuccessful.

Yahoo would therefore consider that it would be best to take things in hand since, Yahoo is developing a service that would arise as a competitor to the Emperor YouTube. To stand out, the group would provide more favorable conditions for the creators of content, the means by Yahoo service to attract the stars of the streaming service.

Moreover, according to sources, this platform is not open to all users but renowned contributors who have already acquired legitimacy on other services can only participate. Another specialty is videos are also published on the pages of the portal to provide greater visibility. The fight will be tough, however, in 2013 YouTube have captured 21 % of the income of video advertising.

 Thus the Yahoo boss may take in a sore spot in the house of Google. For some time now complain numerous popular YouTube artists declining advertising revenue they receive from clicks of the audience. The CNBC Partners even reports that Yahoo had already convinced some artists.

Yahoo cannot capture the video throne very easily therefore it see the strategic considerations before a competing offer that - unlike YouTube - focuses primarily on quality content. To ensure this, Yahoo initially offers only commercial producer the ability to upload videos.

ZTE Grand S II Will Be First Smartphone With 4 GB of RAM

This year 2014 begins with lot of news in technology; the ZTE Grand S II could be the first Smartphone in the world that is equipped with 4 GB of RAM.

Thus, the device would be thanks to Full HD display and Snapdragon processor 800 one of the strongest units in 2014. They introduced Android Smartphone Grand S II ZTE at CES 2014 possibly comes with 4 GB instead of the previously assumed 2 GB of RAM on the market. This information was leaked by Chinese Medical Agency TEENA recently, in which the device is to be seen.

The specifications listed under the name ZTE S291 Smartphones mention, among others, already known features such as a 5.5 inch display with 1080p resolution, a quad- core processor with a clock speed of 2.3 GHz and an 8- megapixel camera. What is new is about the RAM which comes with 4 GB. The Grand S II would be the first Smartphone that comes with more than 3 gigabytes of RAM.

So far, offers among other things are: on the IFA 2013 presented by Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is of 3 GB of RAM. The new Galaxy S 5, the South Korean manufacturer has installed again with 2 GB RAM memory. The Grand S II going to be released will be in two versions. The first version will be with 2 GB RAM and the other one will be with 4 GB of RAM.

ZTE's latest product one of the Top Android Smartphone Nubia X6 will be available with either 2 or 3 GB of RAM in China. The 2 -gigabyte version will appear with 32 or 64 GB of flash memory, the 3 -gigabyte version with 128 GB of flash memory. All models are supposed to have the new Snapdragon processor 801. For prices and the market launch of the Grand S II ZTE has not made any claims. Other special features of the device worth mention here is it’s extensive voice control.

Microsoft Brings Office Suite to Apple’s iPad For Free

Microsoft has just announced the introduction of a new version of its Office package Office for the iPad and other mobile devices. At the same time, the software giant gave an overview of his plans for the “Microsoft Mobile Cloud" too. Office for iPad in the App Store of Apple's iOS will be available now. First, the applications Word, Excel and PowerPoint for the mobile operating system of Microsoft's competitors are released and available now.

Office and Microsoft Excel on the iPad are come with a special numeric keyboard; Microsoft has developed a special surface for Office on the iPad. This combines the design of Apple's operating system with Microsoft's design language and offers other things, from the desktop version Ribbon interface, where various adjustments can be made to the touch controls on the tablet. Among other things, there are special onscreen keyboards for entering data and various editing functions with regard to the touch surface.

In this way, text files, spreadsheets and presentations are supposed to be created in the future on an iPad easily. Microsoft has integrated a function for parallel editing content. In this way, multiple users can work simultaneously on the same document. Files are stored in Microsoft's cloud so that when a connection is lost nothing is lost everything will be intact and you can get the last saved data from the cloud. For basic functionality, of course, also include the various formatting functions with which data, texts and presentations can be prepared.

The real data are used as the basis for preview graphics. PowerPoint also offers the option to use the fingers of the user as a kind of laser pointer, if you want to give the presentation to an audience, making use of the iPad. Microsoft relies on a “freemium" business model, in which the iPad version of Office is available on the App Store for free. However, you can watch with this version only documents and presentations. Who also want to edit the Office documents, an office must complete 365 subscriptions.

For all customers who have already subscribed to Office 365, the iPad app is available as a free supplement to the existing range available. Who wants to try Office for the iPad, you can start a 30 - day trial and should therefore be able to get free Office on your new Apple tablet. In future, the software company plans to market the touch version of Office for Windows and other popular operating systems. From this it is very clear that the software will be available for Android soon.

Nvidia unveils Pascal, its next-gen GPU

Pascal a super computer module was unveiled by Jen Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, at the annual conference of the company. This new architecture optimizes data transfer between the CPU and the GPU and uses a new type of memory arranged in three dimensions. According to NVidia, the module presented, which is one third the size of a PCIe graphics card brings the power of a supercomputer in the area occupied by two credit cards.

 NVidia, the manufacturer of graphics processors for computers and systems on a chip (SoC) that is found in tablets and Smartphones, held its annual conference this week (CWG 2014) in San Jose, California. This is an opportunity to unveil new graphics processor architecture for the next generation of chips, video games, mobile SoC devices and supercomputers. Pascal called in honor of the French scientist Blaise Pascal, this super computer is an important technical milestone with the introduction of several technologies that optimize the use of RAM and reduce bottlenecks for data transfer between the GPU and the central processor CPU.

The first of these is the new 3D memory, which consists of stacked DRAM cells arranged vertically and integrate all on the same semiconductor as the CPU. NVidia announces that the memory should be multiplied by 2.5 with a much larger bandwidth. This 3D architecture also allows you to place voltage regulators near the chip, which has the effect of optimizing the energy efficiency that would be four times higher than a GDDR5 memory solution. NVidia emphasizes that through this, the Pascal module will have one third of the size of a PCIe graphics card.

For its new processor architecture, NVIDIA opted for a RAM in 3D. The memory access is much faster while allowing a more compact design. Another key innovation is a new interconnected technology between the CPU and GPU named NVLink. It was co-developed with IBM with the goal to leverage the speed of data transfer between the two processors. According to NVidia , NVLink is 5-12 times faster than that can offer PCI Express bus third generation, because it leaves the GPU memory access the CPU at full bandwidth and vice versa.

The founder announced a bandwidth of 80 to 200 Gb / s, against 16 GB / s of PCIe 3.0. NVLink also renews the interconnection between the GPUs themselves, which will make creating clustering configurations that may include multiple GPUs. This new type of interconnects will greatly benefit applications that take advantage of hardware acceleration and massively for parallel computing. Through this system of unified memory, NVidia promises developers they will be released for optimizing problematic communication protocols.

IBM plans to integrate this technology into future versions of Power processors. Note that NVidia does not intend to abandon the PCIe bus. All transactions and configuration control initiated by the CPU go through a PCIe connection only. If a CPU is not NVLink supported, may interconnect between the GPU and function to improve the performance rise, or scaling. In other words, NVLink will somehow technical manufacturers of processors may or may not choose to adopt. The first chips from the architecture Pascal arrive in 2016.