The test apparently achieved upload
speeds of 19.44 megabits per second and download speeds of 622 megabits per second over the 384,633km between Earth and the moon; faster, the Optical Society said, than any conventional (read: radio) method of transmitting data between here and the blue-black infinity of space.
What is an Internet speed?
A high-speed internet connection can refer to many different things. On average, broadband connections now cover about 10-12mbps (megabits per second) in terms of upload and download speeds. However, actual performance depends on factors such as distance from the nearest fibre-optic connection, the electrical characteristics of the line that your ISP is using, the size of your house (for example, if you have a basement you may not get as much throughput as someone with a tower box), the type of modem your ISP is using, and more. So how is this a big deal? Because it puts the very notion of true high-speed internet connectivity out there for anyone to even try to achieve.
Earth to the Moon
The teams behind the research plan to turn the data received from their lunar base into a live video stream. That should be a new way to contact extraterrestrial life-forms and aliens, who always enjoy a good selfie. The tests came after the first round of Google Lunar XPrize, which required private companies to design a vehicle and rocket for the purpose of soft-landing a spacecraft on the moon and then shooting it off again in less than 30 days, clocking as much as 500 metres a second. So far only three teams have made it to the moon: the Synergy Moon lander, TeamIndus and Team Thuban.
How fast is the internet on the moon?
It's a standard roundabout way of saying that while the internet is obviously available, it is extremely slow compared with what we're used to. How many gigabits per second are we talking about? According to the Nasa test video, the upload and download speed were, respectively, 100 times and 512 times faster than the best broadband in the US. How long do you need to upload and download a one-gigabyte file, by the way? A three-minute, 1.6GB high-definition movie takes just over a minute to download from the moon to Earth. And the upload speed? A 38-minute 1.6GB high-definition movie would take just over an hour to upload from the moon to Earth. That's just over 13 minutes for the whole film. How much could you watch in 13 minutes?
Conclusion
When asked if the moon could ever be connected to the internet, the ASTRON executive was very clear: "At the moment, the light speed to the moon is at least one million times slower than what we experience on earth." They may have to reach those speeds a bit faster than their local fibre lines, but they can dream. And maybe that's all we can ask for. "> If you've ever travelled to the moon, you'll likely have woken up well before dawn, aching from some type of jet lag; you're very likely also very tired and starving, you've had the scariest dream, and you're in need of some water. Well, a team of Swiss and French researchers recently discovered that the inter-planetary journey wasn't as bad as they feared, and they hope to set up an internet connection there.