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SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home Internet from Space
- carlisle_ 8y agoWho else besides the FCC needs to approve SpaceX launching over 4,000 satellites into space? That seems like a fairly significant number of satellites, but admittedly I am a layman in this area.
- rayiner 8y agoFAA: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/regulations/ https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
- DeonPenny 8y agoSpace is pretty big
- jcims 8y agoUntil it’s not - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_satellite_collision
- gjhan 8y agoThe ITU as well. Part of their proposal involves reuse of spectrum currently allocated to geostationary satellites, and the mechanism for noninterference is physical separation: while they may transmit on the same color as a GEO-sat, they won't be simultaneously visible from a normal antenna for GEO use as they will point in a different direction. The GEO-sats (and their spectrum allocation) is confined to the ecliptic, while these LEO-sats will be transmitting from any direction except overlapping the ecliptic.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoEach country more or less is responsible for regulating itself. The International Telegraph Union sometimes comes into play for spectrum issues, but I think most of their influence is in GEO since they handle slotting there.
- gpm 8y agoIt is a pretty significant number of satellites. For whatever reason the FCC has taken up the role of regulating satellite collisions and such, and if you go dig up SpaceX's fillings you can see them discussing mitigating issues related to this (keeping probability of a collision for the entire constellation less than the acceptable number for a single satellite, making sure the satellites burn up on re-entry to mitigate "a satellite fell on my head" risks, etc).
- elihu 8y agoI'm curious specifically about the prospect of circumventing firewalls in China or other places where internet access is heavily restricted and censored. I imagine that China could tell the US government to tell SpaceX to cut it out and cite various relevant international treaties, but in a lot of ways it's more of a political question than a legal one. I doubt many people outside the North Korean leadership would object to providing Internet access to North Koreans, for instance.
- derekp7 8y agoChina has the ability to shoot satellites out of the sky. Now if they have the political will to do so remains to be seen. But they can also easily jam them in their own backyard.
- andrewstuart 8y agoIsn't space based Internet really second rate due to latency? Of course its great if there's no other Internet access, like rural areas, but it's a really poor service isn't it? Happy to be corrected.
- akcreek 8y agoLast I read the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) systems will have fiber-like latency and gigabit speeds as they are ~200 mi away from Earth where Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) systems are 20K+ mi away.
- _Microft 8y agoThat's definitely true for solutions in geostationary orbit where the signal needs to traverse 36000km twice between two ground stations, adding about 0.2 seconds delay for the request and again for the response. SpaceX is planning a constellation in low earth orbit, that is supposed to route the traffic around the globe and down to a ground station near the point where the server is. That's saving the delay from having to go through an optically dense medium (fiber, speed of light is there about 200000km/s) and taking advantage of the much higher speed of light in vacuum.
- Scaevolus 8y agoI'm very skeptical that satellite-to-satellite connections have sufficient bandwidth to make that more effective than downlinking to base stations.
- gpm 8y agoWhy? (Genuinely curious if there is a reason, I'm not an expert on this) Satellite-to-satellite connections are handled by pointing lasers at eachother. Ground-ground connections are handled by pointing lasers at eachother through a fiber. Fundamentally they seem pretty similar to me.
- shaklee3 8y agoI wouldn't be skeptical about the bandwidth, I would be skeptical about the execution. There are existing inter-satellite links, but they are far lower bandwidth. You need much more precision and signal processing at higher bandwidths.
- reustle 8y agoWhy only wireless internet from space? Will they provide a wired option in the future too? (Edit: this was a wires to space joke)
- DeonPenny 8y agoLess infrastructure. Why build towers when you can buy internet from space. Also you can sell world wide in seconds. You can sell it in china behind the firewall. In india in the middle of nowhere. In south america. All with no towers or wires.
- gpm 8y ago> You can sell it in china behind the firewall. That sounds like a stellar way to get your satellites shot down.
- TotempaaltJ 8y agoOr they'll just block import of your antennas...
- dmix 8y agoCan China disrupt the frequency somehow? Considering there will be thousands of them in constant orbit that sounds like a difficult thing to do. Much easier to regulate the "pizza box" receivers I guess. But they can be mobile and taken down when not in use.
- _Microft 8y agoSpaceX could disable ground to satellite connections over China if they requested that.
- vkou 8y ago> You can sell it in china behind the firewall. Yes, because the police can't figure out how to raid someone who puts a satellite dish up on their roof.
- bamboozled 8y agoHow do clients retransmit data without extremely high latency? Is it just that LEO satellites aren’t high enough for it to be a problem anymore?
- Rebelgecko 8y agoThe satellites are only a few hundred miles away, and light travels faster through the atmosphere than it does through copper or fiber.
- loeg 8y agoYes. LEO is a lot lower.
- slg 8y agoEDIT: I was wrong here to criticize the latency since SpaceX's implementation will attack the problem completely differently than traditional satellite internet which has has latency numbers measured in hundreds of milliseconds.
- gpm 8y agoThe latency numbers due to the laws of physics through space are lower than the latency numbers due to the laws of physics through fiber when talking about reasonable distances (e.g. new york to london stock exchanges). Light travels faster in space than fiber. SpaceX's satellites (unlike existing constellations) are low enough that that benefit makes up for the small of extra distance.
- BeefySwain 8y agoTo expand on this further, current "satellite internet" offerings are through the use of geostationary satellites 22,236 mi above the equator. The latency to the satellite and back to earth, plus whatever the latency is to get to wherever you are actually trying to go, is significant. In contrast, the offering that SpaceX has just gotten approval for would use satellites that are about 342 mi above, and the network of satellites would be used to route the connection to a hop close to the destination. The result of the above is latencies that are actually lower than even a direct fiber connection if the haul is long enough, because connections across Starlink would be at the speed of light (minus the amount of time it takes to process packets at each hop), and the speed at which data is transferred over fiber is some fraction of the speed of light.
- _ph_ 8y agoFor intercontinental routes, the satellite based connection might be noticeable faster even.
- mikeyouse 8y agoSpaceX's satellites are going to be in low-earth orbit, on the order of hundreds of miles -- you're thinking of traditional satellite internet which is typically in geosynchronous orbit 25,000 miles away. Depending on the number of hops, latency for these new constellations should be in the low milliseconds. Since they're flying so low, they'll need thousands of satellites to provide wide coverage (instead of one super high satellite that can see half the earth at the same time), but they should be quite high performing.
- bsmith 8y agoCan we update to the original source? https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-...
- sigstoat 8y agofolks, the latency of other space-based internet services is because you're talking to satellites out at geosynchronous orbit. starlink is low orbit, and depending on the route your packets need to take, might be lower-latency than ground-based links.
- reasonablemann 8y agoSo many latency questions. Do a basic search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)#Satellite_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...
- smuser 8y agoYupp relevant bit from there: Internet traffic via a geostationary satellite has a minimum theoretical round-trip latency of at least 477 ms (between user and ground gateway), but in practice, current satellites have latencies of 600 ms or more. Starlink satellites would orbit at 1⁄30 to 1⁄105 of the height of geostationary orbits, and thus offer more practical Earth-to-sat latencies of around 25 to 35 ms, comparable to existing cable and fiber networks[51] (although transmitting a signal halfway around the globe takes at least 67 ms at the speed of light).
- zachrose 8y agoIs your single page app not yet designed to be satellite compatible?
- hsnewman 8y agoIt looks like they are quoting "as low as 25 ms".
- johndubchak 8y agoRegardless of latency, I’m signing up. Anything’s better than Comcast!
- keyle 8y agoThis right here is what they're banking on :)
- umvi 8y agoHigh latency satellite internet already exists (re: HughesNet)
- reasonablemann 8y agoIf Starlink can provide 4g quality service to Canadian cell subscribers at a reasonable price, they would have millions of users in months.
- mrep 8y agoIt requires a receiver about the size of a pizza box so it is not intended for cell phones.
- elcritch 8y agoThen again based on the trajectory of phone sizes the past few years, it might not be too far off in a couple of years. ;)
- mrep 8y agoI'm not a hardware guy, but i doubt it. They would need to reduce the size and power requirements by an order of magnitude each of which we are currently struggling to do nowadays. Most importantly though, the wavelengths they are using i do not think penetrate buildings well and I don't think any of other wavelengths can effectively transmit that much bandwidth through buildings from space efficiently/economically.
- derekp7 8y agoNot only that, but phased array relies on the radio signal hitting different antennas at different times. So the array of antennas have to be spaced a minimum distance apart depending on the wavelength used.
- wmf 8y agoNo, elcritch is saying that phones will be the size of a pizza box in a few years.
- shaklee3 8y agoNo, it's impossible. Antenna theory dictates what the size of an antenna can perform at. Without significantly reducing the noise temperature of the antenna much farther than anything else out there, it will never happen. And noise temperature is pretty much guided by physics at this point.
- mayneack 8y agoLooks like they've got the pair from the "distracted boyfriend" meme in their stock image: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/distracted-boyfriend https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/distracted-boyfriend https://i.imgur.com/KYkIKbg.png https://i.imgur.com/KYkIKbg.png
- tempestn 8y agoHa! Since it's SpaceX I wonder if that was an intentional Easter egg.
- Strom 8y agoThat pair is apparently pretty popular in stock images. I saw them just the other day in a local newspaper. [1] -- [1] https://sobranna.postimees.ee/4460337/kolm-sodiaagimarki-kes-ei-oska-flirtida https://sobranna.postimees.ee/4460337/kolm-sodiaagimarki-kes...
- omarforgotpwd 8y agowhy link to this low quality scammy page instead of the original source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-...
- oska 8y agoI agree. I wonder if this is a situation where flagging the submission helps attract the attention of the mods, so they can consider changing the link?
- itsangaris 8y agoThis page is awful, here's the article's content: "SpaceX just received approval from the FCC to launch 4,425 satellites into space to build a low earth orbit network of satellites to sell home Internet. Unlike current satellite Internet, these devices will be in a far lower orbit and offer far faster speeds without the data caps current satellite systems use. The goal is that this new system will offer robust high-speed Internet, especially in developing countries and rural parts of developed nations like the United States. While you may not be running out to buy this if you have fiber Internet, it could bring true wireless Internet options to Americans who currently have no real options. “This approval underscores the FCC’s confidence in SpaceX’s plans to deploy its next-generation satellite constellation and connect people around the world with reliable and affordable broadband service,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement. SpaceX has already launched several test satellites to prove the system works. Now they have permission to move forward with a larger rollout of 4,425 satellites. The system also promises to help relief efforts that currently spend hundreds of dollars a day for 5 Mbps Internet. With this system, relief workers can access high speed Internet even in areas hit by a major disaster." source: https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-...
- bracobama 8y agoKudos for the text. This would be truly remarkable if this comes to fruition as it has many applications for those parts of the world without ubiquitous access presently.
- dzonga 8y agothe biggest win here are productivity gains. After high speed internet is available, you'll be able to work in the bush with a laptop. away from ridiculous rents and rent-seekers.
- sneak 8y agoYes, this is going to change the world in a big way. High speed global communication is a paradigm shift. If SpaceX cheap reusability and Tesla all-electric really end up doing the things they promise on a huge scale, then Elon will be 3 for 3 on truly world-changing advancements.
- shaklee3 8y agoThere are at least 5 competing constellations that will be higher throughout and/or out first. Spacex's is not new.
- mrep 8y agoYour going to have to give a lot more details than that blanket statement because I have been following starlink closely ever since it was announced. Oneweb is their main competitor who has already launched test satellites but they are going to launch on other companies rockets which are much more expensive than spacex's especially now that spacex is getting reusability down. Amazon just announced their constellation plans and they either have to launch on expensive non-spacex rockets or have to use blue origin which while they are planning to have fully reusable rockets, those are still years out. What are the other 3 companies that will be out first and/or have higher throughput and/or how are Amazon/Oneweb better?
- shaklee3 8y agoOneweb, telesat, ViaSat, o3b (mpower), and Boeing have all announced. A study from MIT showed telesat's to be the most cost effective from the LEO bunch [1], which is important since it's not clear SpaceX has a path to revenue [2]. and if you've been following starling closely, you know that they will not have anywhere near their full deployment for over 5 years after the first launches. the entire fleet is required for the capacity they have been touting, not to mention the coverage. And the argument that SpaceX has some kind of moat because of their launch business is simply not true. there are many launch providers out there, and launch costs have gone way down partly due to SpaceX, but also because satellite orders have decreased significantly. SpaceX as a company, needs as much revenue as possible to fund the satellite venture, since their entire company is depending on it. The launch business is not sustainable in providing enough revenue in the future to keep them in business. so SpaceX will have to fight for business from all the other satellites just as much as any other company. 1)https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.mit.edu/~portillo/files/Comparison-LEO-IAC-2018-slides.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi00Kjv0_bhAhXNu54KHcnuA6sQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw07haQ4In4XKLe0tB0IiviQ&cshid=1556587401142 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://... 2)http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2019/04/08/high-times/ http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2019/04/08/high-times/
- dmix 8y agoI'm curious if this will become an ideal service for hackers or others seeking to hide identity to use as a random and mobile location from which to operate? Assuming it becomes ubiquitous as there are multiple companies racing to offer these "constellations".
- whenchamenia 8y agoYou are triangulating yourself, while broadcasting kinda loudly to the sky. So not directly. This is no hackers pancea. But a network of them hidden on rooftops connected via side channel may find effective use.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- topspin 8y agoEvery story about SpaceX satellite Internet (Starlink) is plagued by questions about high latency. I think Elon needs to plan on spending a lot of marketing money to overcome this specific misconception. Starlink latency is quite good. LEO is a lot closer than GEO (less than ~1000 km* vs 35786 km.) SpaceX actually intends to compete with terrestrial systems on latency; many important routes will have significantly lower latency than any feasible terrestrial system. Remember, fiber isn't latency free. It isn't even speed of light. It's about 70% SOL. Radio, on the other hand, is SOL (or so close it doesn't matter.) So there is a cross over point where the latency of a LEO satellite system is actually superior despite the uplink/downlink path. *depending on which orbital "shell" is involved. figures range from 340 km to 1200 km.
- stcredzero 8y agoSpaceX actually intends to compete with terrestrial systems on latency; many routes will have significantly lower latency than any feasible terrestrial system. I would like to see a framework, where the backend of a cloud system can migrate opposite to the direction of orbit, so the same virtual cloud server could remain (by 'hops' where it serializes a copy of itself, then fails over to the copy) more or less geostationary. Such migrations would happen as seldom as once per 10 minutes. My game server cluster isn't too far away from having such a capability. (I was planning a variety of capabilities, such as using cheap GCP "ephemeral" instances by quickly failing over to such copies.)
- jtchang 8y agoThis is basically vmware's vmotion feature.
- stcredzero 8y agoThat's quite cool. I'm doing my feature at more of an API level. That said, many applications still need to be architected to do this sort of migration well. The turnkey version just guarantees a demo version. (As technology develops, the turnkey capability will increase, but people's demands on the technology will also increase.)
- umvi 8y agoLEO vs. GEO networks are like plutonium bombs vs. uranium bombs. One is simple to engineer, but resources are limited and expensive. The other is extremely complicated to engineer, but resources are cheaper and more available. In this case GEO systems are simple: satellite is stationary (ignoring slight drift which causes microsecond changes in latency), beams are stationary, antennas on people's roofs have no moving parts. However, the GEO satellite is extremely expensive, the spectrum it is using is expensive, and the GEO orbital slot is expensive. Also, it's so far away that it's high latency making online gaming nonviable. LEO systems are extremely complex by comparison: satellites are moving, thus the beams are moving, antennas are moving (motor driven, unless using electronic phased array which are currently super expensive). With everything moving you have to do constant beam hand offs, doppler correction, etc. But, the satellites are much cheaper and the latency is much smaller. Kudos to whomever can pull it off - there are several contenders other than SpaceX like OneWeb.
- gpm 8y agoI believe the plan is for phased arrays, at both ends, at substantially lower prices than are currently commercially available. Since SpaceX has already built the "first batch" of satellites (delivered to launch site as of a few days ago), one has to imagine they've largely solved the manufacturing problem and reduced the cost from 250k per antenna.
- umvi 8y agoIIRC, OneWeb's initial plan was to use phased arrays as well, but it proved too expensive and they switched to mechanically steered antennas (at least for first gen). Phased array is definitely the way to go if you can get cost down. No moving parts means fewer hardware/mechanical failures and less noise
- nielsole 8y agoWhat is the difference between phased array and MIMO? Isn't MIMO a solved problem and shouldn't the technology be transferable to this use case?
- petschge 8y agoI do wonder a bit why why they need THAT many satellites. Assuming an orbit at 200 miles altitude, we have a horizon distance of about 2000 miles. Comparing the area of that 2000 mile radius ground patches with the surface of the Earth, we need about 10 such patches. Filling in the gaps between patches might require 10 more satellites. Naively I would have assumed that orbital mechanics costs us another factor of two, so fourtyish satellites required. But they plan to launch more than 4400 satellites. More than 100 times the naive estimate. And at the cost involved they don't do it for fun. Where does that discrepancy come from?
- tnorthcutt 8y agoIs your horizon distance calculation based on no obstructions? Most people don't live on the plains ;) I am genuinely curious how you arrived at that number, FWIW – I don't know how to go about calculating something like that.
- petschge 8y agoThat does indeed assume a sphere. If you are curious about the geometry, maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizo... can help. If you run the calculation the other way around, every satellite has to service a ground patch with about 380 miles radius. And your antenna has to swivel to a point that might be more than 60 degrees away from zenith. So every obstruction of more than 30 degrees above the horizon will lead to at least intermittent disconnects.
- travbrack 8y agoBetter to get approval for too many than not enough?
- pmorici 8y agoMore bandwidth and better resilience against loss of individual satellites? Similar rational to how when you install a wifi network in a high density usage environment you want to use a lot of lower power access points each covering a small area to get better throughput for a large number of users rather than trying to cover the whole area with a small number of higher power AP that each cover a wider area.
- aiyodev 8y agoI guess it's time to move onto the next shiny thing to keep the fan-investors entertained. I wonder how long they can keep this up.
- president 8y agoIs snooping on satellite internet traffic a thing? Wonder what security implications this could have.
- loeg 8y agoIt's a radio technology, so yeah. Similar problem space as WLAN, at least in the sat -> earth direction.
- robszumski 8y agoOh it absolutely is. You park your collection satellite right behind the target satellite, so you soak up all the transmissions that overshoot. http://spaceflight101.com/shijian-17-rendezvous-with-chinasat-5a/ http://spaceflight101.com/shijian-17-rendezvous-with-chinasa... The NSA has been known to use their imaging satellites to find transmitters which they can then snoop on once they know where they are pointing.
- isthispermanent 8y agoHow does this work when things need to be launched into space? I get that 4,400 spread out over such a large area makes them minuscule but it's still something.
- gibybo 8y agoThey are tracked and avoided, just like all the other satellites already up there. Low earth orbit is a large place, you could increase that number by many orders of magnitude before you'd have to start worrying.
- cptskippy 8y agoWhat are the odds that all Teslas magically get Starlink? Seems like a nice way for Musk to prop up one of his ventures with service fees from another.
- simcop2387 8y agoI could see this actually reduce the costs in fact. Right now Tesla's all need gsm/lte support for updates. This would let the updates work anywhere in the world without the other infrastructure that's needed.
- unityByFreedom 8y agoSomeone still needs to invest in Starlink and pay for upkeep. Just because you own multiple companies doesn't mean one company can provide services to the other for free. That would be like your family member working for you and you not paying them because they're family.
- ancientworldnow 8y agoMusk has specifically said that this is not a mobile solution and won't be used for his vehicles. The antennae is too large to be practical (the size of a pizza).
- gpm 8y agoCan you quote a source for that? I did a bit of searching and can't find one. I don't see why a pizza sized antenna is much of a problem for a car.
- mrep 8y agoSpaceX won a $28.7 million fixed-price contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory for experiments in data connectivity involving ground sites, aircraft and space assets [0] so they definitely are looking to put these onto vehicles. [0]: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/spacex-strikes-28-7m-deal-air-force-data-connectivity-research/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/spacex-strikes-28-7m-deal-air-...
- neetdeth 8y agoFun idea: On-orbit CDN endpoints with predictive caching to warm up the next satellite before it passes overhead.
- robszumski 8y agoIf you think of this as a graph database problem, it becomes pretty easy to solve. I'm sure this is how they will load balance between the satellites that you can see in the sky as any one moment. Even better, you can pre-calculate this as long as you know where all the base stations are. Dynamic registration should be pretty easy to do too as it will need a GPS chip in it.
- cafed00d 8y agoDoes this mean we can get cheaper & faster inflight internet too?
- bedhead 8y agoIsn't this a solution in search of a problem? I remember Robert Pera, founder of Ubiquiti Networks, poking fun at Facebook for floating [pun intended] the idea of a giant hot air balloon to provide internet access while pointing out that Ubiquiti is already bringing high speed internet to remote places all over the world. I agree - skip the satellites just buy some some Ubiquiti gear.
- wmf 8y agoUbiquiti has made WISPs cheaper and easier yet there still seem to be plenty of places that aren't covered by WISPs.
- BenjiWiebe 8y agoAnd in my area a WISP would have a hard time getting it's upstream bandwidth because of no nearby large cities and therefore no high-speed fiber for a good distance.
- elamje 8y agoDoes anyone know the EE/physics of the signal loss over that kind of distance? What kind of band can reliably transmit that far with low power and high SNR?
- pg_bot 8y agoI hope they call it Skynet.
- jackfoxy 8y agoHow many of these satellites can they orbit with 1 Falcon launch?
- Cheryl_Sanders 8y agoI wonder what the implications of this are, and what a timeline looks like? I am definitely curious to hear more and will try to follow the news.
- drexlspivey 8y agoWhat are the implication with regards to space debris? I hear it's a very real, growing problem. Will those satellites be able to withstand hits? Will they produce a lot of debris (if 2 collide for example)?
- peteretep 8y agoThere will be a more intensive commercial incentive to fix it, so that's presumably a good thing?
- mrep 8y ago1. Space is really big so the odds of anything hitting each other are low. 2. They are launching their initial satellites in extremely low earth orbit such that atmospheric drag will cause them to decay and burn up in the atmosphere within 5 years. They are also attempting to design their satellites such that every single part of them will burn up in the atmosphere so that there is no risk of any piece hitting someone. 3. The US government is also concerned about this which is why spacex is doing their initial launch into a lower orbit that guarantees their decay into the atmosphere. Their future launches into higher orbits with longer decays will have extra considerations for such problem and thus will be evaluated by the US government individually so I would not be too worried.
- Rebelgecko 8y agoThey probably won't be able to withstand hits. However they have the ability to maneuver if necessary, and even if there's no maneuvering capability each one should deorbit on its own in less than a decade. Probably the biggest concern (and this is still a very small concern!) is debris making it back to earth without burning up. The SpaceX FCC applications list some parts of the satellites that won't necessarily burn up on reentry, and some of them are large enough to ruin your day. That said, the surface of the Earth is really really big and unless something goes wrong with a satellite they'll intentionally deorbit it over the ocean so no one gets hit by space junk.
- flukus 8y agoIs it time to seriously start worrying about Kessler Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)? The individual satellites might degrade relatively quickly, but a collision cascade could make the system unfeasible for years at a time and a certain percentage of the garbage would be kicked into higher orbits.
- danielcampos93 8y agoI have a friend who just started working on the assembling of these satellites and they are hiring like gangbusters. I was initially dubious that they would be able to make their number goal but they have people working 6 days a week 16 hour days to scale up to this goal. 4000 is a huge amount of things to build that you can shoot on top of a rocket. Not sure the longevity of the hardware.
- nradov 8y agoPeople working 96 hour weeks deliver shitty quality.
- mrep 8y agoI'm pretty sure he meant the production line is running 96 hours a week. They probably have it split between 2 shifts so each person is only running the line half the time.
- danielcampos93 8y ago2 shifts but the push is def to have people work more hours. Seems the main goal is figuring out how to make all the satellites with relatively unskilled staff(relative to satellite building. prior to this my friend worked at a bike shop and construction and has a BS in physics).
- wongarsu 8y ago> I was initially dubious that they would be able to make their number goal but they have people working 6 days a week 16 hour days to scale up to this goal If they have to make people work 96 hours a week isn't that evidence against them making their goal, not for it? If they were progressing according to schedule, with buffer for unexpected events, surely people would be working sane and sustainable work weeks?
- danielcampos93 8y agoThey started with this schedule even before they had full public approval.
- bob1029 8y agoHow would the Starlink solution compare to Iridium's NEXT? Is Starlink simply a larger-scale version of the same idea, or is there some special sauce in Starlink vs NEXT that would differentiate their potential use cases? From what I can tell, they are both LEO solutions but Iridium is using far fewer satellites to achieve 100% global coverage. I assume there is some reliability metric or other more obscure aspect that would make someone want to choose one over the other for some particular application. The only tangible differentiator I can come up with right now "in favor" of Iridium (aside from the fact that it's already up there and working) is the multi-mission aspect of the constellation - science experiments, DoD contracts, ADS-B for Aireon, etc. But, for someone who is seeking an affordable, satellite-bound 50+ mbps pipe to the internet, a 1000-10000 satellite constellation sounds like it's more appropriate.
- kirrent 8y agoOne big differentiator is the nature of the antenna needed. The phased array antenna for starlink is apparently the size of a pizza box. Iridium satphones are comfortably handheld.
- bob1029 8y agoIs this a consequence of Iridium having L-band capabilities, or is it something else in the design?
- derekp7 8y agoIt has to due with the phased array antennas being used, which is basically a grid of antennas where each receives the signal at a different time (due to speed of light propagation). By delaying the processing of signals an appropriate amount from each antenna, all the individual signals can be combined to be the equivalent of pointing a dish antenna directly at a given satellite all the time as it is flying overhead.
- m3at 8y agoAre there informations available on the estimated cost to consumers for this service? Would it even be directly purchasable by individuals? Edit: rephrased to emphasise cost for consumers (not launch cost), an engine search didn't return an answer
- oh_sigh 8y agoMusk said $50 USD or less at one point, but I don't have a source for that at the moment
- Proven 8y agoA Boring company's flamethrower equivalent for space
- stevespang 8y agoHope Elon can give free and open internet to all the Chinese people who suffer the great firewall of China . . . . as well as all other despotic and tyrannical regimes . . .
- WheelsAtLarge 8y ago5G is going to kill any prospects this internet service will have in big cities within the next 5 or so years. That leaves the rural and less served areas. Can the service be cheap enough without subsidies when a big chunk of the population won't be using it? 10 years ago this would have been a great business. I suspect the business will end up being a place to sink money for Space X.
- s_y_n_t_a_x 8y agoI think you underestimate how much of America is "rural area" , that alone is a huge market that towers will never fill.
- unityByFreedom 8y agoA lot of area with few customers. Will this tech truly work well? I recall using a satellite dish for access to more TV channels years ago was never quite reliable enough to be enjoyable. One storm or decent cloud cover and it was out. This feels like another of Musk's ideas that's like, "give me a ton of money and I'll make this happen, and it only works if I can launch 100 satellites which will cost a few trillion" How many of these have panned out? When has Musk made a profit? Will investors do due diligence this time, or just throw money at him because they perceive him as successful, despite the fact that his only profit came from a lucky website sale just before the dot com bubble burst? I guess banks will pump this so they can get the business, and the general economy will be left to absorb the blow when this fails to meet expectations, like the rest of Musk's promises.
- derekp7 8y agoPeople that are a lot smarter and more educated in this subject matter than myself have looked this idea over (at least I hope so). And based on my level of understanding, the phased array antennas should be able to dynamically adapt to interference similar to how MIMO antennas work on wifi routers (the ones that have 2 - 4 antennas on them). At least is seems like a plausible enough idea that multiple other companies are going to be attempting the same thing. The legg up that Spacex has is potentially very low cost launches on reused rockets. But I have a strong feeling that the major cost savings will only appear if and when BFR is ready (and if it does what is claimed).
- gpickett00 8y agoOnce there are space hotels, surely they’ll be the default internet provider
- syntaxing 8y agoIf their service is reliable, I would join right away. I'm in a populated area and our internet is absolutely terrible. My internet stops working at least 5 times a night. I called the provider numerous times and I plan on switching. The problem is that the competitor isn't much better. I can't wait until someone disrupts this POS industry.
- godelmachine 8y agoFor some reasons, I think underwater transoceanic cables are much more reliable for high speed internet that satellite based internet connectivity, for now at least.
- tardo99 8y agoDo you have to have a clear view of the sky to access this, or would it work under a roof? Also, what's the total bandwidth available?
- randaouser 8y agoStarlink I think can consider heavily leveraging a multicast or hypercast protocol considering most bandwidth usage is related to video streams. Many downlinks can accept a broadcast level packet. How does a system link Starlink handle channel and spectrum allocation?
- wuunderbar 8y agoDoes anyone have more details about the ground transceiver? How large will it be? What are the power requirements? How much view of the sky does it need?
- chrisweekly 8y agoHow long till it's possible to deploy static content to "edge" nodes in LOA? Traditional CDNs typically advertise their geo-distributed POPs on a 2D map. I want my cloud provider to live above the clouds.
- evidencepi 8y agoFor all the chinese users behind the wall, latency is not a problem at all for all.
- evidencepi 8y agoFor all the chinese users behind the WALL, latency is not even a problem at all.
- Zenst 8y agoThis could eventually open up other markets for SpaceX. A communication network with that density would be able to offer a better resolution than GPS and sets up SpaceX to be a key backbone service provider for autonomous flying vehicles in any form. Be that personal transports/air taxis or courier drones. Whilst not the intended market initially and might be some design considerations that prevent that level of branching out. But certainly, something to ponder down the line.
- positr0n 8y agoOffering a GPS-like service would require totally different hardware. Each GPS satellite has 4 atomic clocks. The StarLink satellites will basically be optical routers and their timekeeping needs can probably be handled by a cheap clock and NTP from the ground.
- Zenst 8y agoCould have multiple clock sources on earth that produce the clock signals for the satellites. So a satellite could get an accurate time if it locked onto a few ground based sources. Just with that volume and density of satellites, kinda begs some lateral thinking.
- wittedhaddock 8y agoif anyone here thinks this stuff is super cool and wants to figure out how to solve internet for the public, by making it as cheap and as fast as possible, while private, please shoot me a note at james@communityphone.org (it's my life)
- nickysielicki 8y agoIf you have any interest in this sort of thing, get your amateur radio license and start making contacts on AO91/AO85. It's so much fun to talk to someone 500 miles away with a walkie talkie, through a satellite.
- sbr464 8y agoFor the frequent commenters about people not understanding latency, or the differences in technical terms around bandwidth, LEO/GEO, etc, imagine this: You may not be an economics or fiat currency expert, but given a choice of US dollars or Mexican Pesos, which would you pick? How do you know this? Do you work for the government or post frequently on the currency version of hacker news? No. You learn from people around you pretty quickly. If you're in a small town, you have limited options for bandwidth. There's Hughes Net (Satellite crap (high latency), but works if the only option) there's a new small Cable provider, there's DSL (phone company), etc. People chat, they gossip, they figure out how to get the best connection, in some ways embodying things straight out of movies like Hackers/The Matrix, even though they may own the local feed store. It's interesting to see. Don't underestimate people.
- sidcool 8y agoThe sheer ambitions and speed of execution of SpaceX (and even Tesla) is exhilarating. I hope they make it happen and put a dent in the deeply entrenched incumbent monopolies who are abusing their position. I would buy the service in a heartbeat.
- 7e 8y agoThe economics of megacities, 5G and fiber strongly disfavor Starlink for the world's richest urban populations. They will have a difficult time finding enough paying customers in the barren spaces of the world.
- robomartin 8y agoThe real end game has to be servers in space. Think about a potential extreme privacy model where servers exist outside the domain of laws on earth. Of course, to be cynical, no earth-based company can escape being squeezed into doing what law enforcement agencies might need them to do.
- bleair 8y agoI can see the appeal for customers who in rural areas with one or no real option for internet access, or if you like to vacation / travel via RV. Will the SpaceX system use frequencies that allow decent reception and transmission (to the sats) if you're physically in a city? If you're indoors?
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- vineshants 8y agoHopefully to see this wonderful innovations during my lifetime. I am 50 yrs old.
- FrozenVoid 8y agoThe question i'd like to have answered: How long the sattelites actually last, considered the amount of space junk in orbit and amount of sattelites? Do they intend to launch several sats/day? https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/9ud7s7/starlink_satellite_lifespan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/9ud7s7/starlink_s...
- grey-area 8y agoA really interesting side-effect of the mass production of thousands of satellites for this constellation will be to make spacex a player in the satellite building business, bringing satellite production costs down significantly, and thus boost demand for their launch business, it will also demonstrate a high rate of launches. The two businesses can feed off each other, along with the revenue from starlink. Interesting strategy.
- africasiaeuro 8y agoGreat news for customers also in Africa, where bandwidths are notoriously below standard. Present day available 4 G bandwidths effectively provide anything from 7 kb to max 300 kb /s, whilst paying 50 bucks a month for a mere 200 GB package. AfricAsiaEuro.com
- mnoah 8y agoI love how they added “wireless” to the title, as if to imply there is a wired space internet.
- mr__y 8y agoCouldn't the latency problem be at least partially solved by moving servers to LEO as well? At least as a CDN?
- krageon 8y agoServers break a lot, so no.