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Thanks, great comment. Mark my words, SpaceX is quietly working toward nothing less than a revolution in global data infrastructure, just as Tesla is working t

Thanks, great comment. Mark my words, SpaceX is quietly working toward nothing less than a revolution in global data infrastructure, just as Tesla is working to accelerate a revolution in global energy infrastructure. Sneaking in some software, onboard storage, putting them on all Tesla cars, mesh networking the terrestrial base stations with MIMO links, etc. Cars suddenly become a global peer-to-peer mesh sneakernet. It would be fun if Tesla distributed data via "pulses" between passing cars... (signed high resolution maps? deep learning connectomes? the latest Netflix original series? :D) >Phased array flat panel antennas cannot be purely software steered sufficiently to track a low earth orbit satellite from horizon to horizon. Righto. SpaceX plans to steer the beam down to 40° from the horizon. This also minimized path losses. Drawing from the SpaceX filing: http://i.imgur.com/7zOZ7kr.png http://i.imgur.com/7zOZ7kr.png >All Ku-band downlink spot beams on each SpaceX satellite are independently steerable over the full field of view of the Earth. However, user terminals at the customers’ premises communicate only with satellites at an elevation angle of at least 40 degrees. Consequently, as shown in Figure A.3.1-1 below, each satellite operating at an altitude of 1,150 km will provide service only up to 40.46 degrees away from boresight (nadir), covering an area of about 3.5 million square kilometers (1,060 km radius) source: Figure A.3.1-1 on pp6 of the FCC technical information document, currently 404, via /u/SkywayCheerios https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/5d9724/spacex_has_filed_for_their_massive_constellation/da2qjj7/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/5d9724/spacex_has_f... https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=1158350 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Alicensing.fcc.gov%2Fmyibfs%2Fdownload.do%3Fattachment_key%3D1158350 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Alicen...

walrus01 10y ago
yeah, I tried to retrieve the docs from the FCC website and gave up. it appears to be suffering under a severe slashdot effect at the moment.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
walrus01 10y ago
> SpaceX is quietly working toward nothing less than a revolution in global data infrastructure I mean, that's a really cool 40,000 ft view idea and all, but global data infrastructure is made up of things like the Hibernia Atlantic cable, its several dozen cousins of post-2000 transatlantic and transpacific cables with DWDM terminals on both ends, and cool things like 100, 200, 400Gbps per wavelength coherent QPSK/16QAM DWDM terminals. And major terrestrial traffic exchange points of existing Internet infrastructure where ISPs put $150,000 core routers (example: 60 Hudson, NAP of the Americas, Telehouse Docklands, Otemachi Building in Tokyo, One Wilshire, 350 E. Cermak, etc). Satellite traffic is a pretty tiny drop in the bucket compared to terrestrial backbone infrastructure. It's a truly admirable goal to bring affordable broadband to really impossible to reach locations via satellite. On the other hand there are a lot of emerging terrestrial WISP technologies and PTP microwave technologies that can be used in rural areas to provide bandwidth without the need to pipe it up into space and back. It's a lot cheaper to establish a tower site on top of a mountain, even if you need to bulldoze a road to the top, and spend $30,000 on routers and PTP/PTMP radio gear. In some of the areas of the rural western US where my network engineering job touches, there are WISPs which are rapidly eating into the customer base of people who are (rightfully so) dissatisfied with highly oversubscribed consumer grade VSAT satellite systems. In the end there will be a combination of many things. The next generation of high capacity Ka-band geostationary satellites (ViaSat-2, etc) are a lot higher capacity. Services like o3b allow ISPs to buy a dedicated 1:1 high capacity pipe to places that can't be reached by PTP microwave and are uneconomical to reach by submarine or terrestrial fiber (example, all of o3b's new pacific island nation state customers). There's traditional geostationary c and ku band capacity from SES, Eutelsat, Intelsat, AsiaSat, russian companies, etc. And of course terrestrial fiber. You don't need a huge amount of money to run singlemode these days, assuming aerial wood poles and a mostly rural area, you need two guys, a bucket truck and about $10,000 worth of tools.
- schiffern 10y ago
  Completely agree on WISPs. I think SpaceX will be pursuing mesh networking too. Could an OTA update (and repointing 90°) turn a satellite terminal into an auto/calibrating point-to-point MIMO link? >global data infrastructure is made up of things like the Hibernia Atlantic cable Surprisingly the stated primary goal of the SpaceX constellation is actually to compete with long-distance fiber backhauls. Their sell for satellite backhaul is that it's lower latency (no need to avoid continents, 50% faster speed of light, fewer hops) and works everywhere. Giving global gigabit internet to rural areas and ~10% of urban customers (with the rest on fiber) is only a bonus. :) Most of what we know about the plan comes from this video. Timestamp is to the start of the juicy bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=2m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=2m10s

walrus01 10y ago

yeah, I tried to retrieve the docs from the FCC website and gave up. it appears to be suffering under a severe slashdot effect at the moment.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

walrus01 10y ago

> SpaceX is quietly working toward nothing less than a revolution in global data infrastructure I mean, that's a really cool 40,000 ft view idea and all, but global data infrastructure is made up of things like the Hibernia Atlantic cable, its several dozen cousins of post-2000 transatlantic and transpacific cables with DWDM terminals on both ends, and cool things like 100, 200, 400Gbps per wavelength coherent QPSK/16QAM DWDM terminals. And major terrestrial traffic exchange points of existing Internet infrastructure where ISPs put $150,000 core routers (example: 60 Hudson, NAP of the Americas, Telehouse Docklands, Otemachi Building in Tokyo, One Wilshire, 350 E. Cermak, etc). Satellite traffic is a pretty tiny drop in the bucket compared to terrestrial backbone infrastructure. It's a truly admirable goal to bring affordable broadband to really impossible to reach locations via satellite. On the other hand there are a lot of emerging terrestrial WISP technologies and PTP microwave technologies that can be used in rural areas to provide bandwidth without the need to pipe it up into space and back. It's a lot cheaper to establish a tower site on top of a mountain, even if you need to bulldoze a road to the top, and spend $30,000 on routers and PTP/PTMP radio gear. In some of the areas of the rural western US where my network engineering job touches, there are WISPs which are rapidly eating into the customer base of people who are (rightfully so) dissatisfied with highly oversubscribed consumer grade VSAT satellite systems. In the end there will be a combination of many things. The next generation of high capacity Ka-band geostationary satellites (ViaSat-2, etc) are a lot higher capacity. Services like o3b allow ISPs to buy a dedicated 1:1 high capacity pipe to places that can't be reached by PTP microwave and are uneconomical to reach by submarine or terrestrial fiber (example, all of o3b's new pacific island nation state customers). There's traditional geostationary c and ku band capacity from SES, Eutelsat, Intelsat, AsiaSat, russian companies, etc. And of course terrestrial fiber. You don't need a huge amount of money to run singlemode these days, assuming aerial wood poles and a mostly rural area, you need two guys, a bucket truck and about $10,000 worth of tools.

schiffern 10y ago
Completely agree on WISPs. I think SpaceX will be pursuing mesh networking too. Could an OTA update (and repointing 90°) turn a satellite terminal into an auto/calibrating point-to-point MIMO link? >global data infrastructure is made up of things like the Hibernia Atlantic cable Surprisingly the stated primary goal of the SpaceX constellation is actually to compete with long-distance fiber backhauls. Their sell for satellite backhaul is that it's lower latency (no need to avoid continents, 50% faster speed of light, fewer hops) and works everywhere. Giving global gigabit internet to rural areas and ~10% of urban customers (with the rest on fiber) is only a bonus. :) Most of what we know about the plan comes from this video. Timestamp is to the start of the juicy bits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=2m10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4&t=2m10s