(exerpts from a lengthy mail I sent to you, but maybe it’s interesting for everybody:)
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I suggest making a staggered system for the broadcasts:
On the one end: important, small, high-frequency data broadcasts
On the other end: low frequency, big, broadcasts.
As an extreme, this can range from real-time event coverage to nightly deep and text-only broadcasts with a whole lot in it (e.g. the whole english wikipedia is only 9,5gb). -
If we take the deep broadcast Idea even further, we can send a full update only every week or month (people can still get it from a friend in between) and do incremental updates (maybe at night).
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this enables a lot: now we can distribute a large, fairly up-to date database. More than anyone can ever read.
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signing everything via pgp is good against spoofing
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You can broadcast region specific data for more efficiancy (probably with 50% bandwidth cost to distribute with overlaps, but at the same time you gain a lot when only sending out relevant stuff)
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if you plan on providing an open publishing platform, it would be good to enable the creation of upload bulk files. Everything an offline user wants to distribute can than travel on a usb-stick to someone with internet.
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space is magic to people. maybe you can have a kickstarer-like perk for donators and physically put their names on to the satelites. (tiny tiny laser engravings or prints on the hull)
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to consider: if you use amateur only frequencies for wifi broadcasting, you might not be allowed to finance through advertisements (or subscriptions, but I guess that’s out question) i think
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maybe the final client software can bundle some ad-hoc mesh network like the B.A.T.M.A.N protocol, to attempt to keep alive an uplink through regular internet.
Hot-spots are also good for rebroadcasting to devices without a client application or insufficient hardware drivers. But i know… this is not your main concern now (: -
if you go open-source: build an open standard, so people can port or write clients for different platforms.
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I think the main benefit is time critical data, as most other data can travel on hard drives and usb sticks (things you list on your website as news+info and emergency communications)
so much for now. if this is useful to you, I will think of a little more 