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Comment by tarnquil | Hacker News Reader

I wonder whether China would consider any internet-supplying geosynchronous satellites over their borders as an affront to their sovereignty. Satellite internet (without a land-based backhaul) is surely the most effective way of subverting the Great Firewall.

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They will probably be able to convince the service providers not to offer service within China. Flying the satellites over the country is fine, various international treaties take care of that, but once you start actually doing business in the country (even at a remove) then you'll run into trouble. It would be interesting for an outside company with no ties to China to just say "screw it" and ignore Chinese demands for restrictions or bans, but no company large enough to provide this service would start a fight like that in the first place.

You can see this at work already with existing services. Random example, check out the satellite coverage map here:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/wif...

Note the distinctly China-shaped hole in East Asia.

> Note the distinctly China-shaped hole in East Asia.

Quote: "Please note: Satellite coverage may experience outages for reasons such as government regulations"

I guess this is intentional because China may retaliate against violators (e.g. prohibit fly-overs).

People would still have to subscribe to the service, and I'm sure China could control their population's purchases to prevent them from paying for it. They could also use detectors (or jammers) and threaten their population enough to keep them from utilizing the service.

> People would still have to subscribe to the service, and I'm sure China could control their population's purchases to prevent them from paying for it.

China is iirc (one of) the biggest Bitcoin usage countries.

> They could also use detectors (or jammers)

Jamming doesn't work with a proper directional dish, and detecting who in the country surfs via satellite doesn't work if there is proper encryption on the air protocol.

Geosynchronous wouldn't be over their borders. They fly around the equator.

Geosynchronous satellites don't have to be over the equator. Geosynchronous satellites that are over the equator are called geostationary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_satellite#Defin...

Interesting. Til I guess. But what's the purpose of not being geostationary?

Covering areas far from the equator ?

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