Chapter 594: Free Wi-fi!
Translator: Min Editor: Rundi
There were previously two telecommunication providers from New Zealand that provided Xin’s cellular service, but followed by Celestial Trade’s quantum communication satellite launch that provided free wifi service to all of Xin, the two foreign competitors’ businesses there were instantly crashed.
Who would be willing to pay if there is a free equivalent service?
While 20 Mbps speed was not the fastest internationally, it was enough. 20 ping of latency was an impeccable experience for most users. A value lower than that would be indistinguishable by the naked eye.
A quantum communication satellite has a life of 5-10 years with a cost around 100-200 million USD, Celestial Trade was expected to launch 36 satellites to the geosynchronous orbit. Combined with the cost of launch, Celestial Trade’s yearly aerospace budget was around 1.5 billion USD.
Because of the scarce amount of resources in the apocalypse, Jiang Chen didn’t want Jiang Lin to waste his time producing this, therefore he transferred the quantum communication satellite production line to the modern world. Considering that the quantum communication technology must be kept confidential, the production line became currently the most automated product line in Future Group with an automation rate of 85% completed by drones.
Although the design caused the cost to the production line to double, it decreased the labor cost in producing the satellite.
From a long term perspective, the investment was worthwhile!
But regardless, anything project related to aerospace still burned through money.
Perhaps when the space elevator is built, the situation would become better.
With the foreign telecommunication providers exiting the market, Jiang Chen used the principle of not wasting anything and purchased the New Zealand Telecom subsidiary in Xin with a floor price of 210 million USD and took over all the talents and assets. The business was restructured and merged into Celestial Trade’s Web project team to provide internet port services to Xin.
Due to the limitation in number, quantum communication satellite functionality only acted as a giant router. Although this “router” could use the quantum entanglement effect to “observe” the weak electromagnetic signals tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Earth in order to achieve the data exchange between satellite and conventional cellphones, but ultimately, the router still must be connected with the signal stations on the ground.
If Xin’s user wanted to visit a UA website, although they used the satellite, the data still must be transferred from the signal stations through the submarine cable.
The innovation of the quantum communication satellite exist in that it changed the conventional “user-cable (or Wi-Fi + cable)-server” data transferring method to “user-satellite-server” And the ability to accept user upload data could be viewed an upgrade to Google’s global Wi-Fi plan.
When all 36 of Celestial Trade’s satellites ascend and the “Wi-FI signal” covered the entire Earth, it would be time when the submarine cable start to exit from history.
Disregarding the technological aspect, while Celestial Trade’s cheap meteorological service didn’t make the Xin citizen feel any convenience, the free Wi-Fi plan quickly gathered overwhelmingly positive support. Whether you were home or fishing on the sea, as long as you were within the borders of Xin, you could connect with the Wi-Fi signal.
From the start, when Celestial Trade announced to Xin through the satellite that it will provide free Wi-Fi to the entire region, the international experts were quick to dismiss the idea. But when they discovered Celestial Trade really did it, the experts and professors were dumbfounded. All the university and research institute almost blew up Celestial Trade’s phone.
Celestial Trade’s response was suave.
What’s funny was, the era-defining technology did not scare the professors and experts first, but the telecommunication providers thousands of kilometers away.
Although the satellite must rely on a group port to provide user with Wi-Fi service, the port didn’t have to be located domestically, it could be placed anywhere on Earth.
Therefore, Celestial Trade only need to maintain a large enough port to be able to use the quantum communication satellite to provide Wi-Fi to any region with signal coverage. And the users will be connecting from Xin’s port and it’ll have nothing to do with the country the user is located in.
It was terrible news for some people!
Free Wi-Fi? Full coverage? It is rubbish!
CTV and other medias made statements overnight questioning Celestial Trade’s free Wi-Fi project could perhaps violate the laws of neighboring countries. Even if Liu family wanted to help out, they couldn’t. The telecommunication industry was connected with too many people’s interest, even as the Liu family, they could not stand up against the opposing voice alone.
When the state media made their comment, Liu Xiangguo called Jiang Chen.
“What you did lacked consideration.”
Lacked consideration?
When Jiang Chen picked up the phone, he was a bit confused. He didn’t remember starting any projects in Han, could it be Ning Jianhua that did something wrong?
When he finished listening to Liu Xiangguo, he realized it was not that at all. So he began to explain with a dumbfounded emotion. “The free Wi-Fi will only be available in Xin as part of the benefits to Xin citizens; it will not be available in other countries. We have currently entered in an agreement with Atria’s telecommunication provider to provide monthly Wi-Fi service at a cost of 15 AUD”
15 AUD was approximately 11.6 USD which was competitive for the Atria citizens with an average cost of data service of 60 AUD. Only a small area could enjoy unlimited, high speed internet service because of the NBN project.
Liu Xiangguo was somewhat relieved when he heard Jiang Chen’s explanation.
“Let me ask another question. In the agreement with Australia, which port are they using?”
“It could be Xin or it could be Australia, but the Australia telecommunication provider did suggest that we can leave the port maintenance work to them, so we did just that. It is not a small cost to maintain the web port.” Jiang Chen sunk into his chair.He habitually spun the pen in his right hand while holding the phone with his left hand and explained to Uncle Liu.
He was still confused since Celestial Trade had no active business in Hua. The only two international projects were the civil war between Moro and Country F and the Wi-Fi service in Australia.
“So you’re saying, if Australia people wanted to use Celestial Trade’s Wi-Fi, it still must go through the port of Australiatelecommunication provider?”
It was funny since neither Liu Xiangguo nor Jiang Chen understood the technical knowledge behind this; their communication sounded like both were pretending that they knew.
“In theory, yes.” Jiang Chen forcefully nodded.
While he wanted to add that it was not necessary, he got rid of the idea after giving it some thought.
Liu Xiangguo laughed when he received confirmation from Jiang Chen.
“I see. Now I’m assured. But your Wi-Fi… just do it outside if you know what I mean.”
“Don’t you want free internet?” Jiang Chen asked with an odd expression.
“Do you think the Liu family lacks the money to pay for internet?”
Jiang Chen took a moment to process and understood what the elder referred to, so he started to laugh along.
“That makes sense.”
After catching up with Uncle Liu, he hung up the phone.
With Future Group’s billion to support them, the Liu family really didn’t need worry about the family’s finances. As long as Future Group didn’t do anything too over the line, the Liu family’s power could easily deflect any criticism. Therefore, they could have the inflow for a long time…
A few hundred dollars in internet bills? It was like a drop in the vast sea.