Satellite internet is in the spotlight a lot these days. After seemingly already having passed its heyday, it appears to be making a comeback, thanks to work being done by a lot of major tech players such as SpaceX. But in order to understand what it is and how it works, let’s first talk about how the internet works in the first place.
如今，卫星互联网备受瞩目。 在似乎已经过去了鼎盛时期之后，由于许多主要技术公司(例如SpaceX)所做的工作，它似乎正在卷土重来。 但是，为了了解它是什么以及它是如何工作的，首先让我们先谈谈互联网的工作方式。
When you really break it down, the internet is just a collection of files on a bunch of computers spread all over the world. When you visit a website, all you’re trying to do is access the contents of a file that is stored on a computer located potentially thousands of kilometers away. This file makes its way to you by traveling in the form of electric transmissions through physical cables.
当您真正分解它时，互联网只是分布在世界各地的一堆计算机上文件的集合。 当您访问网站时，您要做的就是访问存储在可能位于数千公里之外的计算机上的文件的内容。 该文件通过物理电缆以电传输的形式传送给您。
Even when you’re connected to the internet wirelessly, either through WiFi or cellular data, there is a physical point of contact between you and “the rest of the internet”. This could be the cell tower maintained by your data provider or the modem inside your house. These devices connect to other routers on the internet through a wired connection.
即使当您通过WiFi或蜂窝数据无线连接到Internet时，您与“ Internet的其余部分”之间仍然存在物理联系。 这可能是由数据提供商维护的蜂窝塔，也可能是房屋内部的调制解调器。 这些设备通过有线连接连接到Internet上的其他路由器。
The exact form of that connection could vary. If you are old enough, you probably remember the days of Dial-Up internet when you couldn’t access the telephone lines in your house if someone else was connected to the internet. This is because the telephone and internet would share the same cable so that only one of them could be used at once. These days Cable Internet and DSL both work in a similar manner by sharing infrastructure with your Cable TV and telephone lines (but manage to bypass the limitations of dial-up).
该连接的确切形式可能有所不同。 如果年龄足够大，您可能还记得拨号上网的日子，那时如果有人连接到互联网，则无法访问房屋中的电话线。 这是因为电话和互联网将共享同一条电缆，因此一次只能使用其中之一。 如今，通过与有线电视和电话线共享基础架构，有线互联网和DSL都以类似的方式工作(但设法绕过了拨号限制)。
Fiber internet has also gained a lot of popularity lately. Unlike DSL and Cable, fiber optics rely on the transmission of light in glass cables to relay signals from one end to the other, which is typically a lot faster than electronic transmission through copper cables, resulting in faster internet speeds.
光纤互联网最近也很受欢迎。 与DSL和电缆不同，光纤依靠玻璃电缆中的光传输将信号从一端传递到另一端，通常比通过铜电缆进行电子传输要快得多，从而加快了互联网速度。
However, the downside to all these approaches is that they require a huge amount of physical infrastructure to carry signals all over the world. The so-called “Internet Backbone” consists of millions of kilometers worth of fiber cables laid all over the world along with a set of powerful routers known as Internet Exchange Points. There are even cables buried in the deep sea that move signals across continents!
但是，所有这些方法的不利之处在于，它们需要大量的物理基础结构来承载全世界的信号。 所谓的“ Internet骨干网 ”由遍布全球的数百万公里的光缆以及一系列功能强大的路由器(称为Internet交换点)组成。 甚至还有埋在深海中的电缆，可以在各大洲之间传送信号！
The cost of building this infrastructure is a major factor in the internet speeds you get access to. And it gets worse in rural, remote regions where it is usually isn’t worth the investment to build all this expensive infrastructure, resulting in slow or no internet at all.
建立此基础架构的成本是您访问互联网速度的主要因素。 而且在偏远的农村偏远地区，情况变得更糟，在这些偏远地区通常不值得投资来建设所有这些昂贵的基础设施，从而导致互联网速度缓慢或根本没有互联网。
And this is exactly the problem that satellite internet aims to solve. Rather than rely on connections here on Earth, satellite internet aims to move them up into the sky.
而这正是卫星互联网旨在解决的问题。 卫星互联网不是依靠地球上的连接，而是将它们向上移动到空中。
Instead of connecting to a modem/router in your house, you would instead connect to a satellite transmitter/receiver which communicates with the satellite. The satellite would then, in turn, communicate with other satellites in the sky, similar to how signals on the ground move from one point to the other, until finally reaching the destination computer.
您可以连接到与卫星通信的卫星发送器/接收器，而不是连接到住宅中的调制解调器/路由器。 然后，卫星将与天空中的其他卫星进行通信，类似于地面上的信号如何从一个点移动到另一点，直到最终到达目标计算机。
The benefit is that even though the transmission of the signal from the dish to the satellite might be slow, the transmission between satellites is extremely fast. This is because light travels fastest when inside a vacuum. Almost 1.5 times faster.
好处是，即使从碟形天线到卫星的信号传输可能很慢，但卫星之间的传输却非常快。 这是因为光在真空中传播最快。 快将近1.5倍。
This is especially great when you consider that the only thing you really need to access the internet is a satellite receiver. Meaning you could get online even if you live in a small, rural town that would otherwise have very limited internet access — or none at all.
当您认为真正需要访问互联网的唯一一件事就是卫星接收器时，这特别好。 这意味着即使您住在一个乡村小镇上，也可以上网，否则小镇的互联网访问将非常有限-甚至根本没有。
The downside now is that because there is no physical medium of transportation involved, the signals are traveling completely wirelessly. Meaning that they are a lot more susceptible to things like weather interference. There is also the additional risk of polluting the night sky by littering it with so many satellites (this is not even taking account of the obvious limitation that the earth is flat and none of this is supposed to work in the first place).
现在的缺点是，由于不涉及物理传输介质，因此信号完全以无线方式传播。 这意味着它们有很多的东西如天气干扰更敏感。 还存在通过撒上太多卫星来污染夜空的额外风险(这甚至没有考虑到地球平坦的明显局限性，而这首先都不应该起作用)。
But regardless, if you’ve ever owned a satellite-based TV, you also probably know how frustrating it can be to get the dish to point in just right the direction to maximize the signal quality. But again, if you consider that the alternative for a lot of people would be no internet at all, then the benefits should quickly outweigh the risks.
但无论如何，如果你曾经拥有的卫星电视，你也大概知道怎么折腾它可以拿到菜点恰到好处的方向，以最大限度地提高信号质量。 但是，如果您认为对于很多人来说，替代方法是根本不使用互联网，那么收益应该很快超过风险。
Satellite internet is not a new concept, of course. It has been around for quite some time. However, current implementations rely on satellites in the so-called Greater Earth Orbit (GEO) which is much further away from us and rely on a handful of satellites at most.
卫星互联网当然不是一个新概念。 它已经存在了一段时间。 但是，当前的实现方式依赖于所谓的大地球轨道(GEO)中的卫星，该轨道离我们更远，并且最多依赖少数卫星。
But off late, this form of internet delivery has been seeing a lot of traction again thanks to investments by some large players, looking to build satellite constellations much closer to us, in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Whether or not these investments will materialize is hard to say, but it is hard to argue that all this is anything but futuristic.
但是最近，由于一些大型公司的投资，这种形式的互联网交付再次受到了广泛的关注，这些公司希望在近地轨道(LEO)中建立离我们更近的卫星星座。 无论这些投资将兑现还很难说，但很难说这一切是什么，但未来。
翻译自: https://medium.com/bits-n-pieces/how-does-satellite-internet-work-f115dbfa6396
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