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SpaceX are planning on launching a lot of satellites - 2800 Ku/Ka-band satellites at 1150km and 7500 V-band satellites at 340km. Both will be capable of steerin

SpaceX are planning on launching a lot of satellites - 2800 Ku/Ka-band satellites at 1150km and 7500 V-band satellites at 340km. Both will be capable of steering a 1.5 degree spot beam. I'm not saying that you're definitely wrong, but Starlink is designed to provide a truly phenomenal amount of throughput. The V-band VLEO constellation is clearly intended to serve urban areas. https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=1190019 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=...

dsr_ 7y ago
At 340Km, a 1.5 degree beam covers a circle of just under 9Km diameter. Let's call it 50 square Km. Population density in Boston is over 5000/sqKm, so 250,000 people have to share that satellite. If 10% are subscribers and they use it 10% of the time, that's 2500 simultaneous users. Starlink has claimed 20Gb/s per satellite, which gives 1 Gb/s per 125 simultaneous users in this high-density area. That's not great, but it's also not awful. In any less population-dense area, it can be reasonably competitive, especially as the end-user deployment model is expected to be "here's a pizza-box sized antenna: make sure it's pointed in this general direction of the sky, and give it power and ethernet."
- tiernano 7y ago
  > which gives 1 Gb/s per 125 simultaneous users in this high-density area. That's not great, but it's also not awful. thats per satellite... wouldnt you, in theory, have access to multiple satellites? i though the theory was overlap, etc...
  - SEJeff 7y ago
    Yes. I seem to recall either Elon or more likely Gwynne Shotwell saying they're shooting for three or more satellites in view for the system to truly work the way it has been designed.
    - earenndil 7y ago
      3 satellites makes for 24 mb/s per person. Except—I think it's actually 20 Gbps per satellite, so 24 mbps per person, so really only 3 mb/s, which is...usable, but slow.
- ryanmarsh 7y ago
  Reasonably competitive? The competition is non existent in most of the inhabited world. In addition I have a friend on a farm in the US who can’t get a reliable internet connection in spite of the Sprint fiber that runs right in front of his house. This would be a no brainer for a lot of the population. Starlink could have more customers than ATT and Vodaphone combined.
nabla9 7y ago
Starlink satellites spend most of their time above sea and other uninhabited areas. If I remember correctly, Starlink could potentially serve roughly 40 million customers globally in far to reach areas. Including ships and aircraft. It's not economic solution for the urban population.

dsr_ 7y ago

At 340Km, a 1.5 degree beam covers a circle of just under 9Km diameter. Let's call it 50 square Km. Population density in Boston is over 5000/sqKm, so 250,000 people have to share that satellite. If 10% are subscribers and they use it 10% of the time, that's 2500 simultaneous users. Starlink has claimed 20Gb/s per satellite, which gives 1 Gb/s per 125 simultaneous users in this high-density area. That's not great, but it's also not awful. In any less population-dense area, it can be reasonably competitive, especially as the end-user deployment model is expected to be "here's a pizza-box sized antenna: make sure it's pointed in this general direction of the sky, and give it power and ethernet."

tiernano 7y ago
> which gives 1 Gb/s per 125 simultaneous users in this high-density area. That's not great, but it's also not awful. thats per satellite... wouldnt you, in theory, have access to multiple satellites? i though the theory was overlap, etc...
- SEJeff 7y ago
  Yes. I seem to recall either Elon or more likely Gwynne Shotwell saying they're shooting for three or more satellites in view for the system to truly work the way it has been designed.
  - earenndil 7y ago
    3 satellites makes for 24 mb/s per person. Except—I think it's actually 20 Gbps per satellite, so 24 mbps per person, so really only 3 mb/s, which is...usable, but slow.
ryanmarsh 7y ago
Reasonably competitive? The competition is non existent in most of the inhabited world. In addition I have a friend on a farm in the US who can’t get a reliable internet connection in spite of the Sprint fiber that runs right in front of his house. This would be a no brainer for a lot of the population. Starlink could have more customers than ATT and Vodaphone combined.

nabla9 7y ago

Starlink satellites spend most of their time above sea and other uninhabited areas. If I remember correctly, Starlink could potentially serve roughly 40 million customers globally in far to reach areas. Including ships and aircraft. It's not economic solution for the urban population.