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You can get decent 4G internet plans already in most parts of the world. While this will have better coverage of rural areas, mobile internet is very adequate

You can get decent 4G internet plans already in most parts of the world. While this will have better coverage of rural areas, mobile internet is very adequate for the van lifestyle.

lev99 9y ago
That really depends on how much bandwidth you need. Several aspects of remote working like video conferencing large file transfers are too demanding for 4G in terms of bandwidth and transfer caps.
- IntelMiner 9y ago
  Wouldn't the latency of a sat connection interfere with something real-time like video conferencing?
  - briffle 9y ago
    These are very low orbit satellites, not geosynchronous ones. 200 miles, instead of 36,000. Should be much better latency
    - lev99 9y ago
      I think you have your distances wrong. Geosynchronous orbit is 36,000km not miles. LEO is a range between 300km - 2000km. I suspect the satellites will be on the higher range to reduce atmospheric drag. The IIS has a 400km (250 miles) orbit and it's orbit decays at 2km/month without correction maneuvers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit
      - MertsA 9y ago
        That's the crazy part, he didn't have his distances wrong. Part of the constellation is planned for an orbit of 340 km which is ~211 miles so close enough. The satellites are only intended to have an operational lifespan of 5 to 7 years. That's not a typo, that also means that given the massive size of the constellation that SpaceX will need to average one launch a month for StarLink with 105 satellites on it. If one of the lower orbit satellites goes dead, without actively maintaining the orbit it'll decay fast enough that it'll passively deorbit itself without risk of it just becoming a derelict satellite for centuries.
        lev99 9y ago
        His Leo distance was correct, but his geo distance is in the wrong unit of measurement.
  - lev99 9y ago
    Current internet satellites with a geosynchronous orbit are about 35,000km above the surface. These Low Earth Orbit satellites will be less than 2,000km above ground, and as low as 300km above. This difference should have a big impact on the current latency number of satellite communication. [http://www.vsat-systems.com/satellite-internet-explained/latency.html http://www.vsat-systems.com/satellite-internet-explained/lat...] Edit: Please note that the data packets make a two way trip from the satellite. Many network communications assume a lot of two way communication from client and server, so this decrease in distance should have a big impact.
  - olympus 9y ago
    The best you can physically do is about 2 ms more lag than the fastest ground based system, and that's assuming you're only adding in the transit time from ground station -> satellite -> user. So it possibly won't be a killer for video conferencing, but keep in mind that the USAF's current system for drone video has 2 seconds of one-way lag. There's three orders of magnitude between what we're currently doing and the physical limit. SpaceX's system will undoubtedly be better than what is in use today, but even with two orders of magnitude improvement (a HUGE improvement) you're looking at adding 20 ms of lag on top of what you'd already have.
- olympus 9y ago
  Satellite is worse, so if you can't get it done with 4G you won't be doing it with satellite.
  - lev99 9y ago
    This new tech is going to be better than 4G
    - olympus 9y ago
      It won't be as good as you think. This one is going right next to the Model 3 in Elon's book of things he'll technically deliver but will progressively dial back the claims before and after delivery.
      - cweagans 9y ago
        Even if he delivers half of the bandwidth he promised for twice the cost that he quoted, it's still a far better option in many places. I have two ISPs where I live. One only goes up to 12Mbps/1Mbps. The other is a gigabit connection, but it's $200/mo and has a substantial amount of downtime.
jonny_eh 9y ago
Imagine living on a cruise ship though!
- ngsayjoe 9y ago
  Imagine traveling on planes all the time!
briffle 9y ago
You should read some RV forums for the hoops they need to jump through to get coverage, and deal with data caps
- olympus 9y ago
  I'm doing it (mobile internet, not van life). The conversations on RV forums deal with stuff like unlimited data in the middle of Wyoming for less money, or how to get a SIM card and plan from a connected car device that AT&T discontinued because RVers were using for other than it's intended purpose. What the RVers are too cheap to do is pay for the product they want. Go to unlimitedville.com, pay $200 a month, and you have unlimited LTE in every city you travel to. If you want the best mobile internet you have to pay for it.
  - walrus01 9y ago
    T-Mobile (or their wholly owned metroPCS MVNO which rides the same network) has plans which are "unlimited" up to about 50GB/month of usage, for a lot less than $200/mo... It's not a lot, but can be stretched pretty far if you're willing to refrain from watching a lot of youtube and netflix video. It used to have a 22GB soft-cap limit after which it rate limited to 128kbps x 128 kbps, they recently changed it to 50.
  - tigershark 9y ago
    Seriously? 200$/month and you have unlimited data only in US? It seems like a really crap offer to me. I pay 17£/month and I have unlimited data in a lot of countries in the world, including US. Sadly my awesome plan got discontinued and now it’s not possible to buy it anymore.
    - taneq 9y ago
      17£/mo is sustainable when your users are just scrolling through Facebook and streaming Spotify. When they're all using it as their primary data connection and watching a few hours of HD Netflix a night, you need to charge more. Unlimited mobile data went away or got expensive in most places right around the time that smartphones gained the ability to act as wifi access points.

You can get decent 4G internet plans already in most parts of the world. While this will have better coverage of rural areas, mobile internet is very adequate for the van lifestyle.

lev99 9y ago

That really depends on how much bandwidth you need. Several aspects of remote working like video conferencing large file transfers are too demanding for 4G in terms of bandwidth and transfer caps.

IntelMiner 9y ago
Wouldn't the latency of a sat connection interfere with something real-time like video conferencing?
- briffle 9y ago
  These are very low orbit satellites, not geosynchronous ones. 200 miles, instead of 36,000. Should be much better latency
  - lev99 9y ago
    I think you have your distances wrong. Geosynchronous orbit is 36,000km not miles. LEO is a range between 300km - 2000km. I suspect the satellites will be on the higher range to reduce atmospheric drag. The IIS has a 400km (250 miles) orbit and it's orbit decays at 2km/month without correction maneuvers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit
    - MertsA 9y ago
      That's the crazy part, he didn't have his distances wrong. Part of the constellation is planned for an orbit of 340 km which is ~211 miles so close enough. The satellites are only intended to have an operational lifespan of 5 to 7 years. That's not a typo, that also means that given the massive size of the constellation that SpaceX will need to average one launch a month for StarLink with 105 satellites on it. If one of the lower orbit satellites goes dead, without actively maintaining the orbit it'll decay fast enough that it'll passively deorbit itself without risk of it just becoming a derelict satellite for centuries.
      - lev99 9y ago
        His Leo distance was correct, but his geo distance is in the wrong unit of measurement.
- lev99 9y ago
  Current internet satellites with a geosynchronous orbit are about 35,000km above the surface. These Low Earth Orbit satellites will be less than 2,000km above ground, and as low as 300km above. This difference should have a big impact on the current latency number of satellite communication. [http://www.vsat-systems.com/satellite-internet-explained/latency.html http://www.vsat-systems.com/satellite-internet-explained/lat...] Edit: Please note that the data packets make a two way trip from the satellite. Many network communications assume a lot of two way communication from client and server, so this decrease in distance should have a big impact.
- olympus 9y ago
  The best you can physically do is about 2 ms more lag than the fastest ground based system, and that's assuming you're only adding in the transit time from ground station -> satellite -> user. So it possibly won't be a killer for video conferencing, but keep in mind that the USAF's current system for drone video has 2 seconds of one-way lag. There's three orders of magnitude between what we're currently doing and the physical limit. SpaceX's system will undoubtedly be better than what is in use today, but even with two orders of magnitude improvement (a HUGE improvement) you're looking at adding 20 ms of lag on top of what you'd already have.
olympus 9y ago
Satellite is worse, so if you can't get it done with 4G you won't be doing it with satellite.
- lev99 9y ago
  This new tech is going to be better than 4G
  - olympus 9y ago
    It won't be as good as you think. This one is going right next to the Model 3 in Elon's book of things he'll technically deliver but will progressively dial back the claims before and after delivery.
    - cweagans 9y ago
      Even if he delivers half of the bandwidth he promised for twice the cost that he quoted, it's still a far better option in many places. I have two ISPs where I live. One only goes up to 12Mbps/1Mbps. The other is a gigabit connection, but it's $200/mo and has a substantial amount of downtime.

jonny_eh 9y ago

Imagine living on a cruise ship though!

ngsayjoe 9y ago
Imagine traveling on planes all the time!

briffle 9y ago

You should read some RV forums for the hoops they need to jump through to get coverage, and deal with data caps

olympus 9y ago
I'm doing it (mobile internet, not van life). The conversations on RV forums deal with stuff like unlimited data in the middle of Wyoming for less money, or how to get a SIM card and plan from a connected car device that AT&T discontinued because RVers were using for other than it's intended purpose. What the RVers are too cheap to do is pay for the product they want. Go to unlimitedville.com, pay $200 a month, and you have unlimited LTE in every city you travel to. If you want the best mobile internet you have to pay for it.
- walrus01 9y ago
  T-Mobile (or their wholly owned metroPCS MVNO which rides the same network) has plans which are "unlimited" up to about 50GB/month of usage, for a lot less than $200/mo... It's not a lot, but can be stretched pretty far if you're willing to refrain from watching a lot of youtube and netflix video. It used to have a 22GB soft-cap limit after which it rate limited to 128kbps x 128 kbps, they recently changed it to 50.
- tigershark 9y ago
  Seriously? 200$/month and you have unlimited data only in US? It seems like a really crap offer to me. I pay 17£/month and I have unlimited data in a lot of countries in the world, including US. Sadly my awesome plan got discontinued and now it’s not possible to buy it anymore.
  - taneq 9y ago
    17£/mo is sustainable when your users are just scrolling through Facebook and streaming Spotify. When they're all using it as their primary data connection and watching a few hours of HD Netflix a night, you need to charge more. Unlimited mobile data went away or got expensive in most places right around the time that smartphones gained the ability to act as wifi access points.