I’m not familiar with all details of how the hardware components will operate since I am working on the software components, and many things are still in early stages of development.
Abyway, here is the very rough overview of how it will work:
End users submit content requests from various online and offline channels like mixit, SMS, facebook 0, facebook USSD, voice, etc. Some of these requests are transcribed and/or translated by community members and then stored in the database. Community then goes out to find content that is appropriate for the requests.
Alternatively, community members can suggest content that aren’t being requested.
Once the content is found (we call this part of the process ‘content discovery’), all content is voted up by community members and the content with most votes end up in what we call the ‘content pool’. Every day, a playlist is compiled from the content pool. The playlists will probably be compiled manually by Outernet staff and volunteers because there are many issues that cannot be automated (e.g., legal requirements for content broadcast, etc).
The playlist is transmitted to the mission control where it is uploaded to the satellites. Satellites emit the content towards the Earth, and receivers on the ground pick it up and store it. User will then be able to select the content they would like to keep, share content with others, and so on.
Again, this is still just a rough sketch. As we finalize drafts for various components, we will put them online for discussion.
