India’s huge population still reside in the rural area with almost no connectivity of Internet or a very little of it available. This is what the Prasad Bhat’s constant complaint whenever he visits his family in Shimoga, which is five to six hours away from Bengaluru. This what frustrates very much specially if any urgent work needed to be done. Entrepreneur Prasad HL Bhat’s is trying to solve this problem and to provide Internet in any corner of India.
Prasad startup Astrome is among a few in the world that is trying to fix all that. The 18-member team, led by Neha Satak and Bhat at a lab in the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), plans to launch 200 micro-satellites into space, which will send you Internet that is ‘fast, reliable, available everywhere, and life-changing’, as the website suggests.
This can be achieved in three ways as illustrated on the website of Astrome.
- Remote Deployment of the cellular tower using satellite as backhaul.
- Connecting local internet to high capacity satellite internet.
- Individuals can buy a set-top box and install an antenna for fixed-point uses.
The company running behind there schedule will be sending their 1st satellite into space next year, and the rest by 2021. The company was started in the year 2015.
Satellite-based internet topic is already hot. ViaSat is offering 100Mbps download speeds in some areas of America. Google is working on project Loon. Facebook also tried the same only to abandoned the project later.
