5 ms·

Can this satellite network replace 5G? Is the latency good enough for the occasional voice call? We could get rid of the stupid roaming charges, they are an inc

Can this satellite network replace 5G? Is the latency good enough for the occasional voice call? We could get rid of the stupid roaming charges, they are an incredibly stupid concept, especially in Europe or other places which has lots of small countries in a small area and people often travel across borders.

Robotbeat 9y ago
The network is not intended for mobile use. The frequency is too high, thus it doesn't penetrate buildings very well. The idea is to put a lunch box or pizza box sized phased array antenna on your roof. As long as you have a fairly clear view of the sky, you should be able to get good reception with a moderately sized antenna. It probably would work for vehicles, however.
- tankenmate 9y ago
  Actually these days you would probably use a Lens Array rather than a phased array as it has better characteristics for beam steering and multibeam use. That way the array can can communicate with more than one satellite at once.[0] [0] https://dune.ece.wisc.edu/wp-uploads/2015/11/asil2017_ams.pdf https://dune.ece.wisc.edu/wp-uploads/2015/11/asil2017_ams.pd...
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    Sure, I was being sloppy with my language. I meant synthetic beam-forming in the most general sense. (Interesting link, BTW!)
- tillinghast 9y ago
  > It probably would work for vehicles, however. For example, electric cars with roofs that are already solar panels—I'm sure adding an antenna to the mix would be fairly trivial.
baybal2 9y ago
I bet there is a huge market for this for something like cellular backhaul where LOS microwave is not an economically competitive option (which is a big part of the world). Imagine, you are a big telco with a cellular brand. You will not go to a small and remote region where you both have no economic incentive to get to because you will have to pull your own (microwave/VSAT/fibre,) and will most likely have a local competitor who will decidedly beat you on the price that you base on big city demographic buyers. Now, imagine you can simply put a single tower without any extra infrastructure to get a whole city population your captive customers?
- dfox 9y ago
  The latencies are too high for this to be usable as cellular backhaul. Edit: for voice data with "normal" telephone behavior
  - Maybestring 9y ago
    I don't think that's right. Latencies should be better than a landline over some distances. A couple hundred miles up doesn't add that much latency, and transmission speed is higher in a vacuum than a glass fiber.
  - TheSmiddy 9y ago
    Assuming the satellites also talk to each other as backhaul then you're not actually going to be adding that much latency. 340km up + 340 km down = 680km / 299km/ms (c) x2 = 4.5ms added to round trip time. Considering you're doing this instead of running through your local metro loop I wouldn't be surprised of there was actually no additional latency introduced in real world scenarios, most of the latency will likely be introduced by the switching on the actual satellites.
    - ac29 9y ago
      >340km up + 340 km down Wouldnt that be assuming the satellites were always exactly overhead of the receiving terminals? Also, the article claims operational orbits of 1,110km to 1,325km. To be fair, VOIP is pretty usable even with 50-100+ ms of latency and even higher. Intercontinental calls wouldn't be possible otherwise.
Balero 9y ago
The EU already got rid of roaming charges no?
- wereHamster 9y ago
  Eh, good for people living in the EU. Switzerland hasn't, it's not part of the EU :(
  - virgilp 9y ago
    It's always welcome to join :P
  - Faaak 9y ago
    But funily, some french operators (Free, Bouygues), have enabled free roaming in switzerland as if it was the EU. I've got 25Gb of 4G roaming when I got to Switzerland.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  Yes, but operators started charging way more for "international" plans. Not sure how is that legal.

Robotbeat 9y ago

The network is not intended for mobile use. The frequency is too high, thus it doesn't penetrate buildings very well. The idea is to put a lunch box or pizza box sized phased array antenna on your roof. As long as you have a fairly clear view of the sky, you should be able to get good reception with a moderately sized antenna. It probably would work for vehicles, however.

tankenmate 9y ago
Actually these days you would probably use a Lens Array rather than a phased array as it has better characteristics for beam steering and multibeam use. That way the array can can communicate with more than one satellite at once.[0] [0] https://dune.ece.wisc.edu/wp-uploads/2015/11/asil2017_ams.pdf https://dune.ece.wisc.edu/wp-uploads/2015/11/asil2017_ams.pd...
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  Sure, I was being sloppy with my language. I meant synthetic beam-forming in the most general sense. (Interesting link, BTW!)
tillinghast 9y ago
> It probably would work for vehicles, however. For example, electric cars with roofs that are already solar panels—I'm sure adding an antenna to the mix would be fairly trivial.

baybal2 9y ago

I bet there is a huge market for this for something like cellular backhaul where LOS microwave is not an economically competitive option (which is a big part of the world). Imagine, you are a big telco with a cellular brand. You will not go to a small and remote region where you both have no economic incentive to get to because you will have to pull your own (microwave/VSAT/fibre,) and will most likely have a local competitor who will decidedly beat you on the price that you base on big city demographic buyers. Now, imagine you can simply put a single tower without any extra infrastructure to get a whole city population your captive customers?

dfox 9y ago
The latencies are too high for this to be usable as cellular backhaul. Edit: for voice data with "normal" telephone behavior
- Maybestring 9y ago
  I don't think that's right. Latencies should be better than a landline over some distances. A couple hundred miles up doesn't add that much latency, and transmission speed is higher in a vacuum than a glass fiber.
- TheSmiddy 9y ago
  Assuming the satellites also talk to each other as backhaul then you're not actually going to be adding that much latency. 340km up + 340 km down = 680km / 299km/ms (c) x2 = 4.5ms added to round trip time. Considering you're doing this instead of running through your local metro loop I wouldn't be surprised of there was actually no additional latency introduced in real world scenarios, most of the latency will likely be introduced by the switching on the actual satellites.
  - ac29 9y ago
    >340km up + 340 km down Wouldnt that be assuming the satellites were always exactly overhead of the receiving terminals? Also, the article claims operational orbits of 1,110km to 1,325km. To be fair, VOIP is pretty usable even with 50-100+ ms of latency and even higher. Intercontinental calls wouldn't be possible otherwise.

Balero 9y ago

The EU already got rid of roaming charges no?

wereHamster 9y ago
Eh, good for people living in the EU. Switzerland hasn't, it's not part of the EU :(
- virgilp 9y ago
  It's always welcome to join :P
- Faaak 9y ago
  But funily, some french operators (Free, Bouygues), have enabled free roaming in switzerland as if it was the EU. I've got 25Gb of 4G roaming when I got to Switzerland.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
Yes, but operators started charging way more for "international" plans. Not sure how is that legal.