[time-nuts] From GPS World - Lightsquared has been given thegoahead

[Mike S]

At 05:04 PM 2/3/2011, Bob Camp wrote...
>I would by no means argue with any of those points. The only thing I 
>would
>add is that 40,000 transmitters is a *lot* of hardware to fill in 
>gaps.

Which is precisely why that characterization is wrong. "ground stations 
are 'fill in' for heavy use areas" makes no sense - a satellite doesn't 
care about whether there are 1000 users in NYC or 1000 users spread 
across the whole NE seaboard. It is the satellite which fills the gaps 
between ground stations.

The preferred comm link will be through the local terrestrial station, 
because with 40,000 of them, you have possibly 80,000 times the 
available bandwidth of the satellite (satellite has to talk both ways 
over RF), in addition to having lower latency and operating cost.