If more of these go up in the next few decades and eventually become a mesh we’ll have much cheaper long distance telecom I think. Add to that even before cheaper telecom comes about, amateur radio operators will be able to communicate further with cheaper equipment, no matter what the weather or solar cycle is like. Cool stuff!
This thing probably weighs 4 pounds at most and is a cube not that much bigger than a coffee cup (excluding the antennas) at about 4 inches on each side and change (again excluding the antennas).
http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/phonesat.html?
Given that weight, they can probably put them up there for ?$30,000 to $40,000. If they last as long as they say they do, that’s great. When the general public can start paying to put these up there, just think about the potential for disaster relief or a shared network of these things. I wonder how many it would take to create a network that would allow round-globe communication, even if that’s only for an hour or two every day. If I could get one that’d be stationary or pay for access to a network at a reasonable monthly fee for voice and another for a reasonable monthly fee to even relatively slow (think IBSN or older DSL) data I’d do it.
Now to see how they manage solar power for continuous use at higher levels than the current equipment