5 ms·

I’m curious to what layer SpaceX will allow application developers access to. If there is to be any hope of having cryptographically secure communications using

I’m curious to what layer SpaceX will allow application developers access to. If there is to be any hope of having cryptographically secure communications using this network, it will be essential that the whole stack is open source. Putting blind faith in SpaceX seems foolish.

walrus01 9y ago
satellite (earth station) systems engineer here: I highly doubt that there will be access at anything other than layer 3. The CPE will have a 1000BaseT port on it, when you connect to it, it'll hand out a DHCP v4 and v6 IP address on it. Maybe if you pay an extra $15 per month you can get a single static v4 address. I am very doubtful that it will be possible for an individual end user with a rooftop terminal to get access to "the network" at what would correspond to layer 2 in the OSI model. It is possible that a more expensive service tier offering might provide L2 ethernet fabric virtual wire adjacency. Similar to the general idea of an VPLS / EoMPLS virtual wire tunnel, where whatever you plug into one end will see the single MAC address (or set of MAC addresses) of your other equipment on the other end. But this will be a managed service and not something that you can build arbitrarily.
- fwgwgwgch 9y ago
  Thank you. You're the only "hacker" here among evangelicals and dreamers. Thanks for your informative comments on "hacker" news.
  - walrus01 9y ago
    Without evangelicals and dreamers major new ISP infrastructure wouldn't get built. But it has to run into practical realities of what a network will look at all the way down the OSI model stack. People want gigabit FTTH to every home in the USA but the construction costs could be $5,000 per house on average.
    - cossray 9y ago
      I followed this closely and thank you for pointing out the cost implications per house connection. While that's a significant amount in the USA,it's far monstrous in the developing countries/rural areas;which from this forum are touted as the major targets of the SpaceX system. Do you see a way of reducing this cost that can practically serve a rural town in, for example, Africa? (I'm from East Africa and trying to make sense of what this new development means for local ISPs)
      - walrus01 9y ago
        If you have a town/city of population 2,500 to 20,000 that has very poor internet connectivity in general at present, this will probably be most useful in its larger version to bring one relatively high capacity DIA/IP link (like 150 Mbps downstream x 50 Mbps upstream) to a single central location, as an ISP POP in the town, and then local distribution throughout a US county-sized area by point-to-point and point-to-multipoint terrestrial microwave in the 2.4, 3.5, 3.65, 5.2 and 5.8 GHz bands. Possibly with some use of low-cost equipment in the traditional licensed (6, 11, 18, 23) GHz bands, unlicensed 24 GHz band PTP, 60 and 80 GHz, etc.
        cossray 9y ago
        Much appreciation for this feedback. I definitely need to dig further, but your comments are painting quite a discernable image of what the system means from an end user POV. We still got almost 5 years to its realization but something worth keeping tabs on.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
GordonS 9y ago
What benefits would a lower-level encryption protocol provide over TLS (or anything else on top of layer 3/4)?
- walrus01 9y ago
  None, really, this can be treated like any other ISP connection. Build things with solid RSA+SHA384 TLS1.2 and 1.3, battle tested VPN tech, etc. There is no need for anything special unique to it being a satellite link.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    That's what I thought too - I was just wondering what the parent had in mind.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

walrus01 9y ago

satellite (earth station) systems engineer here: I highly doubt that there will be access at anything other than layer 3. The CPE will have a 1000BaseT port on it, when you connect to it, it'll hand out a DHCP v4 and v6 IP address on it. Maybe if you pay an extra $15 per month you can get a single static v4 address. I am very doubtful that it will be possible for an individual end user with a rooftop terminal to get access to "the network" at what would correspond to layer 2 in the OSI model. It is possible that a more expensive service tier offering might provide L2 ethernet fabric virtual wire adjacency. Similar to the general idea of an VPLS / EoMPLS virtual wire tunnel, where whatever you plug into one end will see the single MAC address (or set of MAC addresses) of your other equipment on the other end. But this will be a managed service and not something that you can build arbitrarily.

fwgwgwgch 9y ago
Thank you. You're the only "hacker" here among evangelicals and dreamers. Thanks for your informative comments on "hacker" news.
- walrus01 9y ago
  Without evangelicals and dreamers major new ISP infrastructure wouldn't get built. But it has to run into practical realities of what a network will look at all the way down the OSI model stack. People want gigabit FTTH to every home in the USA but the construction costs could be $5,000 per house on average.
  - cossray 9y ago
    I followed this closely and thank you for pointing out the cost implications per house connection. While that's a significant amount in the USA,it's far monstrous in the developing countries/rural areas;which from this forum are touted as the major targets of the SpaceX system. Do you see a way of reducing this cost that can practically serve a rural town in, for example, Africa? (I'm from East Africa and trying to make sense of what this new development means for local ISPs)
    - walrus01 9y ago
      If you have a town/city of population 2,500 to 20,000 that has very poor internet connectivity in general at present, this will probably be most useful in its larger version to bring one relatively high capacity DIA/IP link (like 150 Mbps downstream x 50 Mbps upstream) to a single central location, as an ISP POP in the town, and then local distribution throughout a US county-sized area by point-to-point and point-to-multipoint terrestrial microwave in the 2.4, 3.5, 3.65, 5.2 and 5.8 GHz bands. Possibly with some use of low-cost equipment in the traditional licensed (6, 11, 18, 23) GHz bands, unlicensed 24 GHz band PTP, 60 and 80 GHz, etc.
      - cossray 9y ago
        Much appreciation for this feedback. I definitely need to dig further, but your comments are painting quite a discernable image of what the system means from an end user POV. We still got almost 5 years to its realization but something worth keeping tabs on.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

GordonS 9y ago

What benefits would a lower-level encryption protocol provide over TLS (or anything else on top of layer 3/4)?

walrus01 9y ago
None, really, this can be treated like any other ISP connection. Build things with solid RSA+SHA384 TLS1.2 and 1.3, battle tested VPN tech, etc. There is no need for anything special unique to it being a satellite link.
- GordonS 9y ago
  That's what I thought too - I was just wondering what the parent had in mind.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]