I wasn’t quite sure how to word the subject line - I hope the right eyes find this.
Anyhow, I’m wondering about the actual distribution of the transmitted data throughout the transmission period. For example, are different blocks of data sent at different times of day? or is is it all random? If one has a good lock on the satellite signal, how long must one remain “connected” and receiving to accumulate the entire day’s worth of data?
I’m asking this from the point of view of any situation where one might not have continuous availability to the satellite signal for one or more of any number of reasons, such as
Limited and/or intermittent power source
“shared” dish (not always aimed at bird with Outernet signal)
Mobile or portable installation (can’t receive satellite signal while in motion)
Geographic, weather, or other intermittent reception challenges
If one cannot stay “connected” 24/7, but can choose when to connect, it would be nice to choose based upon some sort of schedule specifying which files are being sent at what time of day so as to increase likelihood of receiving the data most important to him or her.
Yes, different files are set over the course of a day. Files are repeated if they have their own carousel. For example, our firmware updates are delivered at a speed of 10kbps, which is about 100MB per day. The size of the firmware file is about 70MB, so it is delivered about 1.5x per day. Most other files are only delivered once over the course of a week. As of right now, we have not had any requests for very important information that should be regularly repeated (several times per day).
It is possible to set a schedule for various pieces of content, similar to how the weekly list of content start at 12:01 every Monday.
This is a diagram that shows a client fetching 4 data segments over the course of some time T, when they are only receiving some portion of the total time T. By repeating the broadcast several times over the time T, we increase the chances of a segment being received.
In practice, as Syed says, some files are not broadcast that often. This is currently a manual operation so we don’t set the repeat count per file in a fool-proof way. We will introduce more and more automation such that eventually all files have a minimum repeat count before they are taken down.
Thank you! That clarifies things, and makes it apparent that (at least for now) Outernet is most suitable for use with a fixed dish and continuous power source. Which is likely the norm for most installations anyway.
