Samsung's next project could take it out of this world as the South Korean tech firm proposes global internet by launching thousands of micro satellites into orbit.
Farooq Khan, the company's Texas R&D head wrote a paper titled, "Mobile Internet from the Heavens."
"The report lays out the case for and basic structure of a future Samsung space-based internet program," ExtremeTech said.
In it, Khan projected that demand for data will have increased so much in the following years that the whole world would use up one zetabyte (about 200 gigabytes per month) by the year 2028.
Khan's proposal calls for around 4,600 micro satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to get around latency issues and meet humanity's appetite for data. ExtremeTech wrote that the low orbit is the reason behind the sheer number of satellites "since no one individual unit will remain fixed over a particular patch of ground."
Samsung Global Internet will require different swathes of the RF spectrum for coverage and bandwidth.
"The total spectrum availability would include 57.75GHz for uplink, 56.2GHz for downlink and 38.75GHz for inter-satellite communication," Popular Science said.
But the Seoul-based tech giant isn't the first to imagine space-based Internet. Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sir Richard Branson via SpaceX and OneWeb, respectively are also in the game. Even Facebook and Google are experimenting with ways to bring web access to remote communities.
But why would Samsung even bother providing Internet access to the world? ExtremeTech said beyond philanthropy, bringing the information superhighway to the majority of people who still don't have it could also give the company's consumer electronics business a boost.
But don't expect the project to start rolling out soon though. As Engadget pointed out, Khan's paper "is a proposal, not a firm roadmap."
"It's not clear that Samsung is even working on these satellites in the first place, let alone that they'll be ready by the next decade or so," it added.
Whether the satellite-based Samsung global internet ever comes to life remains to be seen.
