6 ms·

A new firm says it can link satellites to ordinary smartphones

50 points by sohkamyung 7y ago

tantalor 7y ago
> no escaping a mobile signal That's a bizarre phrasing. Is it meant to be ironic? Signal is something you want to have, not escape from.
- vinniejames 7y ago
  Some folks like to switch off with plausible deniability
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    Dead batteries seem like a plausible excuse.
- mkagenius 7y ago
  They might be referring to the (potential) human health issues those signals cause.
londons_explore 7y ago
Every time you see a claim like this, remember the Shannon–Hartley theorem[1]. If you want to get a decent bandwidth in aggregate for your mobile network, you're going to need to consider: * Maximize transmit Power: which is hard because phones are battery powered, and power is limited by law. Satellites are also battery powered. * Maximize bandwidth: Also limited by rules and regulations. * Maximize Directionality: If you have physically large antennas, you can direct your transmit power towards the receiver to make best use of it. * Minimize Distance: Received signal power goes down the the square of he distance. Double the distance, and you get one quarter of the bandwidth, all other things being the same. This proposal uses tiny existing antennas in phones, which means it must be making other tradeoffs. My guess is it seriously sacrifices the total throughput. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...
- amelius 7y ago
  > Satellites are also battery powered. I thought they have solar panels. Also, don't phones and satellites use small antenna arrays to direct power in a certain direction?
  - fareesh 7y ago
    I think the panels recharge a battery. Is the satellite always within line of sight of the sun?
  - gpm 7y ago
    Solar panels when illuminated by the sun, battery power while in the Earth's shadow. To be low latency they need to be in a low orbit, so probably on battery power for a significant fraction of the time.
  - moopling 7y ago
    The batteries are powered by solar panels. In either case the same arguments apply - space is notoriously low power. Phones can't use directional antennas, otherwise you'd have to point them at radio towers. Using phased array antennas in which directionality is software controlled, there's a trade off between size of antenna and how much you can focus the beam - it wouldn't work in a phone (and would be too expensive anyway).
    - amelius 7y ago
      Ok, but there is a lot of power to be saved. If you can prevent the beam from going in the "opposite" general direction, you can already save 50%. I'm not convinced there is nothing to be gained by using a small array.
      - exar0815 7y ago
        Its just physically not feasible. For an antenna array with 2 dimensional beamforming you need an array of NxN antennas, which all have the dimension of a fraction of a wavelength, so we are talking about a not insignificant size. Additionally, to limit mutual coupling via substrate and stray radiation, you need certain distances. Third, you need to be careful to prevent grating lobes (side emissions of unwanted radiation). And even then, you will need individually controlled phase shifters for each array element, adding cost, complexity and mostly negating energy savings. Edit: All of that in addition to the problem that you need to know the location of the base station and have you array antenna roughly oriented towards it.
est31 7y ago
Are there any european companies riding the current wave of trying to build satellite internet? Or is it US only?
- steve19 7y ago
  I think China is also looking at building a starlink-type network, although I don't have a link on hand. OneWeb are partnered with Airbus although post-brexit they are no longer headquartered within EU (London and other cities around the world). SES, an EU firm, is developing a medium earth orbit satellite network and would be well positioned to develop a LEO network.
exar0815 7y ago
As far as I can gleam from this report, they want to revitalize the old "bent pipe" model of satellite communication, where the sat only acts as a repeater . I am still very wary of it being feasible. While the track of BS->MS is feasible, albeit with a high transmission loss, i cannot fathom how they want to receive the <1W signal of the MS. Conventional way to pick up a signal below the noise level would be decorrelation, and while 3G/4G work on that principle, there would have to be additional information exchange between BS and Satellite. Additionally, for that to work the SATs have to be in LEO, and as they describe them as "massive"(most probably the high-gain antennas), there then will be massive atmospheric drag, requiring either frequent reboosting or replacing.
- bucket2015 7y ago
  What's "BS" and "MS" here?
  - imglorp 7y ago
    Mobile Station and Base Station. They're used widely in the GSM specs but more general now. https://www.ques10.com/p/5206/gsm-network-architecture-1/ https://www.ques10.com/p/5206/gsm-network-architecture-1/
  - exar0815 7y ago
    Base Station -> fixed site, radio tower, top of a building... Mobile Station -> smartphone, mobile router, car...
  - xolubi 7y ago
    Figured it was base station vs mobile station
- madengr 7y ago
  Got a link to the report?
jpm_sd 7y ago
Battery life on those phones is going to be /terrible/. Max TX power all the time?
kalium_xyz 7y ago
A new firm lies
AndrewDucker 7y ago
I can see a satellite transmitting powerfully to reach a phone on the ground. But how are they going to pick up the transmission from a phone, which is incredibly low power and designed to be picked up from a maximum range of 70km. The Wikipedia article also says that timing considerations give a maximum range of 35km. Which is a lot lower than the 2,000km of Low Earth Orbit.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  No, the same Wikipedia says GSM in extended range can support calls up to 120km.
  - lb1lf 7y ago
    That it can, but IIRC it does so by relaxing the timing constraints and halving the number of slots in each channel. Still leaves them with the interesting problem of the satellite necessarily seeing a lot of handsets at the same time; methinks even if all other engineering issues were magically resolved, they'd run out of bandwidth real fast. (Not to mention the regulatory hurdles.)
- ellisv 7y ago
  > I can see a satellite transmitting powerfully to reach a phone on the ground. Yes, wouldn’t this just be like GPS? I’m also not convinced the phone->satellite is practical/feasible.
  - alienalp 7y ago
    For GPS, satellites just broadcast same signal for everybody. It won't be feasible to send that powerful signal for just a costumer cell phone and it is about signal strength. They transmit tiny amount of data and it is not required your phone to able to receive all the data.
- bluesign 7y ago
  ‘Calls only’ maybe possible, as we have huge bandwidth to base station and calls require really small bandwidth. Also afaik 2g doesnt have strict timing requirements.
nabla9 7y ago
After Looking at the company FAQ all I can say: What the hell? --- https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/faqs/ https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/faqs/ * How does the technology work? The technology is highly proprietary, and exactly how it works cannot be disclosed. We can say that our engineers and space scientists have designed an entirely new form factor and deployment method that significantly reduce the time and costs associated with manufacturing, launching and operating satellites. Our team also has worked – and continues to work – closely with mobile network operators to ensure compatibility with today’s wireless networks, including 5G. * Do users need a satellite phone or special antenna? No, SpaceMobile will be the first and only space-based network to work with standard mobile phones. No separate or specialized satellite hardware is required. * Do you need clear line of sight to SpaceMobile satellites for connectivity? No, our proprietary technology enables access to SpaceMobile from any location — even inside — regardless of visibility to the satellites on orbit.
- notyourday 7y ago
  Nah, it is just a stock pump and dump scheme for the gullible investors.
supernova87a 7y ago
Having been an amateur watcher of the last 20 years of satellite ventures, I find that going into the business of satellite internet/voice is only slightly less profit making than starting an airline. There's something exciting/sexy about launching satellites, which may be why people so easily dump money into it. But from Iridium, Globalstar, Terrestar (anyone remember that one? Seem to be quite relevant here), I don't think anyone attempting to reach a broad consumer market has ever made big money, or even survived long term. For some reason, the customer growth factors in their profit models (at the offered service pricing) are always wrong by a few hundred %, yet they keep being believed. Maybe it's because VCs think that their desire for a strong signal on their yacht correspond's to the average person's willingness to pay. Maybe ventures like Elon Musk's may break the mold with a different cost structure (while littering our outer space), but for a run of the mill satellite, odds are you're going to fail quite soon. The best way to make money related to satellites is to be the entity that buys the initial satellite company after it goes bankrupt.
- cat199 7y ago
  > I don't think anyone attempting to reach a broad consumer market has ever made big money, or even survived long term Don't follow this market closely but sirius/xm might be one exception - not sure of their leverage position, but even if healthy one could argue to your point they don't reach consumers directly, but rather via intermediaries such as car and a/v equipment manufacturers. My take on satellite is basically it's good for important but secondary network usage - anything that needs this should be fairly stable & constant beta provided good financials but looking for 'unicorn' style growth is probably mistaken as you mention.
- m463 7y ago
  I think for Elon Musk, developing space technology is the real business, and if the internet service generates cash flow, it would help defray the costs. If it happens to be profitable, that is just gravy.
- state_less 7y ago
  Your argument would be better if you had numbers to back it up. What is the capital costs for the project? How much does the capital cost per year? How many customers do you expect they will have? If Starlink is a 5 or 10 billion dollar project, that's $250-500M to service the capital. At $80 a month for service, you'd need ~500,000 subscribers to cover that cost. I think Starlink can get at least 500k subscribers and keep customers happy with bandwidth and latency. Anyway, that's just napkin math, but might serve as a better foundation for thinking how likely the business model is to succeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
lgats 7y ago
Experimental FCC licenses for AST & Science: https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science/0908-EX-ST-2019 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science/0908-EX-ST-2019 2207.87500000-2208.52500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0047-EX-CN-2019 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0047-EX-CN-2019 2033.37500000-2033.62500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 250KG1W GMSK 2033.50000000- MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 250KG1W GMSK 2207.87500000-2208.52500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 500KG1W GMSK https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0884-EX-CN-2018 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0884-EX-CN-2018 New 891.50000000-894.00000000 MHz FX 3847.000000 W 3847.000000 W M 1.20000000 % 2M50FXD OFDM New 846.50000000-849.00000000 MHz FX 3847.000000 W 3847.000000 W M 1.20000000 % 2M50FXD OFDM
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/M0b2L https://archive.md/M0b2L
ficklepickle 7y ago
I'm trying to reconcile the fact this sounds like BS with the fact they just raised 110m from Vodaphone et al. In this vodaphone press release[0] they say it's not just an investment but also a strategic partnership. The founder is Abel Avellan. He previously ran Emerging Markets Communications, Inc. I can't tell if they are still in operation, but it looks like they have folded. I found some old paid press releases[1] claiming they were going to revolutionize cloud computing in Africa with SpeedNet, boasting zero latency with 100mb/s transfer speeds over existing satellite links. Best I can tell, it was just a thin client. It is "zero" latency 100mb/s because it all runs on the same servers. Very deceptive. There is a whole slew of related companies. They all seem to make use of paid press releases and similar promotional stunts. They tend to be located in cheap rental offices in Florida, at addresses also used by hundreds of other corps. I'm on my phone so I didn't go deep, but there is a clear pattern. Exaggerated announcements of technology breakthroughs, which never materializes. I guess they upped their game and managed to put on a good enough show to get a sizeable investment. I imagine it's an easier technical problem when the weak transmitter is in space, probably with a directional antenna, with no nearby sources of interference. All very much unlike a real environment. [0] https://investors.vodafone.com/news-releases/news-release-details/vodafone-rakuten-lead-investors-spacemobile https://investors.vodafone.com/news-releases/news-release-de... [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120524005227/en/Emerging-Markets-Communications’-SpeedNet-Named-“Most-Transformative https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120524005227/en/Eme...

50 points by sohkamyung 7y ago

> no escaping a mobile signal That's a bizarre phrasing. Is it meant to be ironic? Signal is something you want to have, not escape from.

vinniejames 7y ago
Some folks like to switch off with plausible deniability
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Dead batteries seem like a plausible excuse.
mkagenius 7y ago
They might be referring to the (potential) human health issues those signals cause.

londons_explore 7y ago

Every time you see a claim like this, remember the Shannon–Hartley theorem[1]. If you want to get a decent bandwidth in aggregate for your mobile network, you're going to need to consider: * Maximize transmit Power: which is hard because phones are battery powered, and power is limited by law. Satellites are also battery powered. * Maximize bandwidth: Also limited by rules and regulations. * Maximize Directionality: If you have physically large antennas, you can direct your transmit power towards the receiver to make best use of it. * Minimize Distance: Received signal power goes down the the square of he distance. Double the distance, and you get one quarter of the bandwidth, all other things being the same. This proposal uses tiny existing antennas in phones, which means it must be making other tradeoffs. My guess is it seriously sacrifices the total throughput. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...

amelius 7y ago
> Satellites are also battery powered. I thought they have solar panels. Also, don't phones and satellites use small antenna arrays to direct power in a certain direction?
- fareesh 7y ago
  I think the panels recharge a battery. Is the satellite always within line of sight of the sun?
- gpm 7y ago
  Solar panels when illuminated by the sun, battery power while in the Earth's shadow. To be low latency they need to be in a low orbit, so probably on battery power for a significant fraction of the time.
- moopling 7y ago
  The batteries are powered by solar panels. In either case the same arguments apply - space is notoriously low power. Phones can't use directional antennas, otherwise you'd have to point them at radio towers. Using phased array antennas in which directionality is software controlled, there's a trade off between size of antenna and how much you can focus the beam - it wouldn't work in a phone (and would be too expensive anyway).
  - amelius 7y ago
    Ok, but there is a lot of power to be saved. If you can prevent the beam from going in the "opposite" general direction, you can already save 50%. I'm not convinced there is nothing to be gained by using a small array.
    - exar0815 7y ago
      Its just physically not feasible. For an antenna array with 2 dimensional beamforming you need an array of NxN antennas, which all have the dimension of a fraction of a wavelength, so we are talking about a not insignificant size. Additionally, to limit mutual coupling via substrate and stray radiation, you need certain distances. Third, you need to be careful to prevent grating lobes (side emissions of unwanted radiation). And even then, you will need individually controlled phase shifters for each array element, adding cost, complexity and mostly negating energy savings. Edit: All of that in addition to the problem that you need to know the location of the base station and have you array antenna roughly oriented towards it.

est31 7y ago

Are there any european companies riding the current wave of trying to build satellite internet? Or is it US only?

steve19 7y ago
I think China is also looking at building a starlink-type network, although I don't have a link on hand. OneWeb are partnered with Airbus although post-brexit they are no longer headquartered within EU (London and other cities around the world). SES, an EU firm, is developing a medium earth orbit satellite network and would be well positioned to develop a LEO network.

exar0815 7y ago

As far as I can gleam from this report, they want to revitalize the old "bent pipe" model of satellite communication, where the sat only acts as a repeater . I am still very wary of it being feasible. While the track of BS->MS is feasible, albeit with a high transmission loss, i cannot fathom how they want to receive the <1W signal of the MS. Conventional way to pick up a signal below the noise level would be decorrelation, and while 3G/4G work on that principle, there would have to be additional information exchange between BS and Satellite. Additionally, for that to work the SATs have to be in LEO, and as they describe them as "massive"(most probably the high-gain antennas), there then will be massive atmospheric drag, requiring either frequent reboosting or replacing.

bucket2015 7y ago
What's "BS" and "MS" here?
- imglorp 7y ago
  Mobile Station and Base Station. They're used widely in the GSM specs but more general now. https://www.ques10.com/p/5206/gsm-network-architecture-1/ https://www.ques10.com/p/5206/gsm-network-architecture-1/
- exar0815 7y ago
  Base Station -> fixed site, radio tower, top of a building... Mobile Station -> smartphone, mobile router, car...
- xolubi 7y ago
  Figured it was base station vs mobile station
madengr 7y ago
Got a link to the report?

jpm_sd 7y ago

Battery life on those phones is going to be /terrible/. Max TX power all the time?

kalium_xyz 7y ago

A new firm lies

AndrewDucker 7y ago

I can see a satellite transmitting powerfully to reach a phone on the ground. But how are they going to pick up the transmission from a phone, which is incredibly low power and designed to be picked up from a maximum range of 70km. The Wikipedia article also says that timing considerations give a maximum range of 35km. Which is a lot lower than the 2,000km of Low Earth Orbit.

pinkfoot 7y ago
No, the same Wikipedia says GSM in extended range can support calls up to 120km.
- lb1lf 7y ago
  That it can, but IIRC it does so by relaxing the timing constraints and halving the number of slots in each channel. Still leaves them with the interesting problem of the satellite necessarily seeing a lot of handsets at the same time; methinks even if all other engineering issues were magically resolved, they'd run out of bandwidth real fast. (Not to mention the regulatory hurdles.)
ellisv 7y ago
> I can see a satellite transmitting powerfully to reach a phone on the ground. Yes, wouldn’t this just be like GPS? I’m also not convinced the phone->satellite is practical/feasible.
- alienalp 7y ago
  For GPS, satellites just broadcast same signal for everybody. It won't be feasible to send that powerful signal for just a costumer cell phone and it is about signal strength. They transmit tiny amount of data and it is not required your phone to able to receive all the data.
bluesign 7y ago
‘Calls only’ maybe possible, as we have huge bandwidth to base station and calls require really small bandwidth. Also afaik 2g doesnt have strict timing requirements.

nabla9 7y ago

After Looking at the company FAQ all I can say: What the hell? --- https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/faqs/ https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/faqs/ * How does the technology work? The technology is highly proprietary, and exactly how it works cannot be disclosed. We can say that our engineers and space scientists have designed an entirely new form factor and deployment method that significantly reduce the time and costs associated with manufacturing, launching and operating satellites. Our team also has worked – and continues to work – closely with mobile network operators to ensure compatibility with today’s wireless networks, including 5G. * Do users need a satellite phone or special antenna? No, SpaceMobile will be the first and only space-based network to work with standard mobile phones. No separate or specialized satellite hardware is required. * Do you need clear line of sight to SpaceMobile satellites for connectivity? No, our proprietary technology enables access to SpaceMobile from any location — even inside — regardless of visibility to the satellites on orbit.

notyourday 7y ago
Nah, it is just a stock pump and dump scheme for the gullible investors.

supernova87a 7y ago

Having been an amateur watcher of the last 20 years of satellite ventures, I find that going into the business of satellite internet/voice is only slightly less profit making than starting an airline. There's something exciting/sexy about launching satellites, which may be why people so easily dump money into it. But from Iridium, Globalstar, Terrestar (anyone remember that one? Seem to be quite relevant here), I don't think anyone attempting to reach a broad consumer market has ever made big money, or even survived long term. For some reason, the customer growth factors in their profit models (at the offered service pricing) are always wrong by a few hundred %, yet they keep being believed. Maybe it's because VCs think that their desire for a strong signal on their yacht correspond's to the average person's willingness to pay. Maybe ventures like Elon Musk's may break the mold with a different cost structure (while littering our outer space), but for a run of the mill satellite, odds are you're going to fail quite soon. The best way to make money related to satellites is to be the entity that buys the initial satellite company after it goes bankrupt.

cat199 7y ago
> I don't think anyone attempting to reach a broad consumer market has ever made big money, or even survived long term Don't follow this market closely but sirius/xm might be one exception - not sure of their leverage position, but even if healthy one could argue to your point they don't reach consumers directly, but rather via intermediaries such as car and a/v equipment manufacturers. My take on satellite is basically it's good for important but secondary network usage - anything that needs this should be fairly stable & constant beta provided good financials but looking for 'unicorn' style growth is probably mistaken as you mention.
m463 7y ago
I think for Elon Musk, developing space technology is the real business, and if the internet service generates cash flow, it would help defray the costs. If it happens to be profitable, that is just gravy.
state_less 7y ago
Your argument would be better if you had numbers to back it up. What is the capital costs for the project? How much does the capital cost per year? How many customers do you expect they will have? If Starlink is a 5 or 10 billion dollar project, that's $250-500M to service the capital. At $80 a month for service, you'd need ~500,000 subscribers to cover that cost. I think Starlink can get at least 500k subscribers and keep customers happy with bandwidth and latency. Anyway, that's just napkin math, but might serve as a better foundation for thinking how likely the business model is to succeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

lgats 7y ago

Experimental FCC licenses for AST & Science: https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science/0908-EX-ST-2019 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science/0908-EX-ST-2019 2207.87500000-2208.52500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0047-EX-CN-2019 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0047-EX-CN-2019 2033.37500000-2033.62500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 250KG1W GMSK 2033.50000000- MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 250KG1W GMSK 2207.87500000-2208.52500000 MHz FX 10.000000 W 7100.000000 W P 0.00010000 % 500KG1W GMSK https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0884-EX-CN-2018 https://fcc.report/ELS/AST-Science-LLC/0884-EX-CN-2018 New 891.50000000-894.00000000 MHz FX 3847.000000 W 3847.000000 W M 1.20000000 % 2M50FXD OFDM New 846.50000000-849.00000000 MHz FX 3847.000000 W 3847.000000 W M 1.20000000 % 2M50FXD OFDM

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/M0b2L https://archive.md/M0b2L

ficklepickle 7y ago

I'm trying to reconcile the fact this sounds like BS with the fact they just raised 110m from Vodaphone et al. In this vodaphone press release[0] they say it's not just an investment but also a strategic partnership. The founder is Abel Avellan. He previously ran Emerging Markets Communications, Inc. I can't tell if they are still in operation, but it looks like they have folded. I found some old paid press releases[1] claiming they were going to revolutionize cloud computing in Africa with SpeedNet, boasting zero latency with 100mb/s transfer speeds over existing satellite links. Best I can tell, it was just a thin client. It is "zero" latency 100mb/s because it all runs on the same servers. Very deceptive. There is a whole slew of related companies. They all seem to make use of paid press releases and similar promotional stunts. They tend to be located in cheap rental offices in Florida, at addresses also used by hundreds of other corps. I'm on my phone so I didn't go deep, but there is a clear pattern. Exaggerated announcements of technology breakthroughs, which never materializes. I guess they upped their game and managed to put on a good enough show to get a sizeable investment. I imagine it's an easier technical problem when the weak transmitter is in space, probably with a directional antenna, with no nearby sources of interference. All very much unlike a real environment. [0] https://investors.vodafone.com/news-releases/news-release-details/vodafone-rakuten-lead-investors-spacemobile https://investors.vodafone.com/news-releases/news-release-de... [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120524005227/en/Emerging-Markets-Communications’-SpeedNet-Named-“Most-Transformative https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120524005227/en/Eme...