When we first talked about Starlink back in 2019 , we saw in the video that the concept involved laser communication to communicate between the satellites. While the initially launched satellites did not have the laser communication mechanism built in, it looks like they are being added to the newer ones. A report from Fast Company in late 2021 said: One of the next big upgrades in telecom will involve satellites firing lasers at each other—to beam data, not blow stuff up. The upside of replacing traditional radio-frequency communication with lasers, that encode data as pulses of light, can be much like that of deploying fiber-optic cable for terrestrial broadband: much faster speeds and much lower latency. “Laser links in orbit can reduce long-distance latency by as much as 50%, due to higher speed of light in vacuum & shorter path than undersea fiber,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted in July about the upgrade now beginning for that firm’s Starlink satellite constellation. The
This is a very nice and easy description of technology evolution.
ReplyDeleteCan you please help understand why USSD is not part of the 4G (EPC) and 5G (NGCN)? Will USSD get obsolete as the mobile networks phase out 2G and 3G? Would it not be challenging, considering that mobile banking as an evolving service is highly dependent on USSD? Thanks
There is an equivalent feature in LTE called USSI. Unfortunately it's not been implemented by many networks.
DeleteThank you Zahid. Why is that so? I am trying to evaluate from a third party perspective, whether investing in new USSD gateways is worth undertaking, or is it at a risk of obsolesce?
ReplyDeleteDepends on which part of the world. Areas where 2G and/or 3G will be around (like Sub-Saharan Africa) will continue using USSD. Western world now uses Apps to do the same things.
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