Othernet Inc is a broadcast data company that was previously known as Outernet. Due to trademark issues, the name of the company and service was changed in July 2018. Othernet sells a portable satellite data receiver that combines an amplifier, radio, and CPU in a single unit. The company's goal is to make news, information, and education accessible to everyone.
Othernet's stated goal is to provide free access to content from the web through geostationary and
low Earth orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...
satellites, made available effectively to all parts of the world. The project currently uses
datacasting
Datacasting (data broadcasting) is the broadcasting of data over a wide area via radio waves. It most often refers to supplemental information sent by television stations along with digital terrestrial television (DTT), but may also be applied ...
conventional
geostationary communications satellites in a
satellite constellation
A satellite constellation is a group of artificial satellites working together as a system. Unlike a single satellite, a constellation can provide permanent global or near-global coverage, such that at any time everywhere on Earth at least one s ...
network.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
enabled devices would communicate with the satellite
hotspots, which receive data broadcasts from satellites.
It received its initial investment from the
Media Development Investment Fund
Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), formerly Media Development Loan Fund, is a New York-registered non-profit 501(c)(3) organization and mission-driven investment fund that provides low-cost financing to independent news and information busin ...
, a
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
-based impact investment fund and
non-profit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
established in 1995 by
Saša Vučinić
Saša Vučinić is a Serbian journalism, journalist and is the co-founder of North Base Media VC, and co-founder and former CEO and Managing Director of the Media Development Loan Fund.
Early life and education
Vučinić graduated with a degree ...
and Stuart Auerbach. In 2015, Outernet (now Othernet) also launched an
IndieGogo campaign, which raised $697,552 to finance the development of the Lantern receiver which was never completed and delivered to backers.
History
Othernet turned on their first public satellite signal on 11 August 2014.
[Test Signal](_blank)
(press release) Othernet transmitted 20 Mbits per day when it was using the
L-band
The L band is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz). This is at the top end of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, at the lower ...
. Othernet provided instructions for users to build their own receivers and encouraged people to do so, then to share their results with Othernet. Othernet's first signal was broadcast over
Galaxy 19
Galaxy 19 is a communications satellite owned by Intelsat located at 97° West longitude, serving the North American market. Galaxy 19 replaced Galaxy 25 which is nearing the end of its design life and has been moved to 93.1°W longitude. It was ...
and
Hot Bird, covering North America, Europe, and parts of the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
.
On 1 October 2014, Othernet released a major update that included a redesign of the Othernet website and the release of Whiteboard, their content suggestion platform that allows anyone to suggest a URL for broadcast. Once a URL is submitted, other visitors may vote on it with the URLs receiving the most votes entering the Othernet broadcast carousel.
The Othernet broadcast is broken into three categories: the Queue, Sponsored Content, and the Core Archive. Content in the Queue is decided via votes on Whiteboard as well as requests via the Othernet Facebook page. Othernet plans to expand the avenues through which it is able to receive requests for content. Anyone can view what is being broadcast on Othernet at any time.
[
According to MDIF, the initial content access includes international and local news, crop prices for farmers, ]Teachers Without Borders
Teachers Without Borders (TWB) is an international organization launched in 2000 with a mission to connect teachers to information and each other in order to close the education divide and based upon the premise that teachers are community change a ...
, emergency communications such as disaster relief, applications and content such as Ubuntu
Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
, movies, music, games, and Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
in its entirety.
Requests to NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
to use the International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...
to test their technology were declined in June 2014 due to, as stated by a letter sent by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a non-profit organization, is the manager of the International Space Station United States National Laboratory, a US government-funded laboratory with principal research facilities locat ...
(CASIS) to the staff working for Othernet, both inaccuracies within the proposition, such as "it is assumed that the NanoLab housing will be provided by the CASIS program outside the budget", and costs ranging from US$150,000 to $175,000. This resulted in the CASIS operations review stating in the letter that "the likelihood for mission success as proposed is not probable".
Signal reception
Originally a device called the "Lantern" (previously known as Pillar), a data receiver and media storage system, was designed and developed by Othernet that is a "completely self-contained, high-speed receiver" that is "solar-powered, weatherproof, and creates a wireless hotspot to allow WiFi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...
-enabled devices to access content." The purpose of the Lantern, as stated by Othernet, is to provide free access to the media archive, weather, news, and other resources, through Outernet, in high traffic public locations, such as schools.
Another way to access the transmissions sent by Othernet was to build a receiver, which requires certain components, including an L-band
The L band is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz). This is at the top end of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band, at the lower ...
antenna, low-noise amplifier, and DVB-T dongle with a special RTL-SDR
Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been traditionally implemented in analog hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/ demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by m ...
driver to open up its debug mode SDR reception, the data received was stored on a user supplied computing device with the othernet decoding software, the received and stored content was then made accessible when a Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
dongle is connected to the hotspot, though this L-band signal service has now been discontinued though the hardware is still able to receive other L-band INMARSAT signals.
The current Outernet/Othernet system which is a series of hardware testing versions currently codenamed Dreamcatcher of the eventual final Lantern is using the Ku-band with a LNB which interfaces with and is decoded by a LoRa
Lora is a female given name and family name in the Spanish language of French origin meaning from Lorraine, a region in Northeastern France.
As a given name, Lora may also be a variant of Laura or derived from an Italian hypocoristic of either E ...
circuit on the ARM architecture based receiver board which downloads to update the onboard stored content and resources from the satellite at 20 kbit/s, this constantly updating content cache is accessible by connecting to the Othernet receiver's Wi-Fi using Wi-Fi equipped devices and viewed using that device's web browser and not requiring any special app. Ku-band service to North America is provided by SES-2
SES-2 is a communications satellite operated by SES World Skies. It was launched alongside the Arabsat-5C satellite.
Spacecraft
The platform is home to the first hosted payload, a mechanism by which governmental entities can fly modules on ...
at 87° West and for Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
by Astra 3B
Astra 3B is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES, launched in 2010 to the Astra 23.5°E orbital position providing digital television and radio for direct-to-home (DTH), and the AstraConnect two-way satellite ...
at 23.5° East geostationary orbit locations.
Availability
The Othernet project is raising funds to expand globally, in order to reach third world countries or populations lacking basic access to the Internet. The amount of funds necessary to kickstart the project was US$200,000. By 8 June 2015, $628,305 had been raised.
Purpose
Othernet has stated three specific goals when developing Othernet: to provide information without censorship for educational and emergency purposes. They have stated that they plan to provide information about "news, civic information, commodity prices, weather, construction plans for open source farm machinery" and other types of information. They also have stated that they will be providing access to "courseware", which includes textbooks, videos, and software. Othernet will be available also when access to regular Internet connection is down for any reason.[
]
Media coverage
Media coverage over the Othernet has ranged from excitement to skepticism. A CNN video released on February 24, 2014, goes into detail of how the idea seems great, but has many drawbacks due to costs and the feasibility of the project. Other media outlets that have brought up the Othernet include the ''Washington Post'' and NBC.[ Media coverage has also gone into other competing projects that have surfaced, such as Google's ]Project Loon
Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of to to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbi ...
and Facebook's Internet.org.
There has also been debate over the politics involved in the introduction of the Othernet to the public. Many fears exist over whether "the major telecom companies worldwide will fight the plans for space-based broadcasting of information readily available on the Internet."
A BBC News report summarized Karim's ''TEDGlobal
TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sa ...
'' talk, observing that illiteracy will be a limiting factor for rural adoption.
See also
* Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
* Internet.org, a partnership that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries.
* Project Loon
Loon LLC was an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary working on providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The company used high-altitude balloons in the stratosphere at an altitude of to to create an aerial wireless network with up to 1 Mbi ...
, working on providing Internet access to rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descri ...
and remote areas. The company uses high-altitude balloon
High-altitude balloons are crewed or uncrewed balloons, usually filled with helium or hydrogen, that are released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between above sea level. In 2002, a balloon named BU60-1 reached a record altitude of .
...
s.
* Wikipedia Zero
Wikipedia Zero was a project by the Wikimedia Foundation to provide access to Wikipedia free of charge on mobile phones via zero-rating, particularly in developing markets. The objective of the program was to facilitate access to free knowled ...
, a project by the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...
to provide Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
free of charge on mobile phones via zero-rating
Zero-rating is the practice of providing Internet access without financial cost under certain conditions, such as by permitting access to only certain websites or by subsidizing the service with advertising or by exempting certain websites from ...
, ended in 2018.
* Toosheh (Knapsack for Hope), A similar satellite data down-streaming NGO service which uses common satellite TV equipment to record the data signal then decode it with a computer or mobile device.
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://www.othernet.is/
Satellite Internet access
Information Age
American companies established in 2014
Digital technology
Mass media technology
Scientific revolution
Telegraphy