5 ms·

Did they tell what gonna happen with geofencing after the beta? I know a few people who would probably want that thing installed on their boats. For marine app

Did they tell what gonna happen with geofencing after the beta? I know a few people who would probably want that thing installed on their boats. For marine applications, it needs to work globally without any fences. Geofencing-wise, international waters == nowhere. In territorial or internal water you normally have some 4G from the land, not much need for satellites there.

ncallaway 6y ago
The current generation of satellites don’t have laser interlink connections. That means the connection needs to go directly from the ground, up to a sat, then immediately back to the SpaceX ground station. That means for a while you’ll need to be within a certain range of a ground station, so international waters won’t work for a while. The marine “anywhere on earth application” won’t be really applicable until they get the next generation of satellites with laser interlinks launched.
- Const-me 6y ago
  Interesting. Still, territorial waters extend for 12 nautical miles. Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. If ground stations (both SpaceX backbone routers, and mobile terminals) can talk to a satellite 45 degree above horizon, the satellite can connect the terminal with the ground station in a circle 1100-1300 km radius underneath (slightly less due to Earth curvature, but not by much). Not gonna work in the middle of the Pacific, but might be good enough for many. For instance, one can sail from here across Mediterranean Sea all the way to Africa or middle East, while staying within reach of Europe-based routers. That’s assuming SpaceX gonna build them.
  - kanox 6y ago
    > Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. SpaceX updated all of their applications to only request 550 km.
    - Tepix 6y ago
      Some of them will fly even lower in the later phases. But 45° is also wrong, they go as low as 25° above the horizon now. Which means that the maximum radius that a satellite can cover should be around 500km if my last calculations were correct and I remember correctly. Under ideal conditions you could have internet up to 1000km off the coast then even without laserlink. Under normal conditions it would be more like 500km from the nearest ground station. I'm still hoping that they can use user terminals as ground stations for these maritime scenarios.
- walrus01 6y ago
  The bent pipe nature is why globalstar was a dismal failure in the aviation and maritime markets, while the second corporate incarnation of iridium succeeded. I don't doubt that SpaceX will figure out satellite to satellite high capacity trunk links within the next 5-6 years. But for now they are definitely proceeding with building medium sized starlink earth stations in the same general regions as where the CPE will be located.
grecy 6y ago
Someone asked Elon on Twitter if they can use Starlink on their yacht while crossing the Pacific and Elon said that is a great use-case because there won't be many other connections to the same sat. He has also said a few times it will work perfectly well on things like moving trains. So I have to think the geofence will go away, though I assume there will be country restrictions due to legalities.
- apexalpha 6y ago
  How would one put their antenna on the roof of a train? Or does he mean 1 antenna for an entire train?
  - nickik 6y ago
    You can't really take your personal antenna in a train. The train provider would have to do this for now. On a personal boat this is less of an issue, but for most large boats the operate would install it and then offer local WLAN I would expect.

ncallaway 6y ago

The current generation of satellites don’t have laser interlink connections. That means the connection needs to go directly from the ground, up to a sat, then immediately back to the SpaceX ground station. That means for a while you’ll need to be within a certain range of a ground station, so international waters won’t work for a while. The marine “anywhere on earth application” won’t be really applicable until they get the next generation of satellites with laser interlinks launched.

Const-me 6y ago
Interesting. Still, territorial waters extend for 12 nautical miles. Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. If ground stations (both SpaceX backbone routers, and mobile terminals) can talk to a satellite 45 degree above horizon, the satellite can connect the terminal with the ground station in a circle 1100-1300 km radius underneath (slightly less due to Earth curvature, but not by much). Not gonna work in the middle of the Pacific, but might be good enough for many. For instance, one can sail from here across Mediterranean Sea all the way to Africa or middle East, while staying within reach of Europe-based routers. That’s assuming SpaceX gonna build them.
- kanox 6y ago
  > Apparently, these satellites fly at 1100-1300 km. SpaceX updated all of their applications to only request 550 km.
  - Tepix 6y ago
    Some of them will fly even lower in the later phases. But 45° is also wrong, they go as low as 25° above the horizon now. Which means that the maximum radius that a satellite can cover should be around 500km if my last calculations were correct and I remember correctly. Under ideal conditions you could have internet up to 1000km off the coast then even without laserlink. Under normal conditions it would be more like 500km from the nearest ground station. I'm still hoping that they can use user terminals as ground stations for these maritime scenarios.
walrus01 6y ago
The bent pipe nature is why globalstar was a dismal failure in the aviation and maritime markets, while the second corporate incarnation of iridium succeeded. I don't doubt that SpaceX will figure out satellite to satellite high capacity trunk links within the next 5-6 years. But for now they are definitely proceeding with building medium sized starlink earth stations in the same general regions as where the CPE will be located.

grecy 6y ago

Someone asked Elon on Twitter if they can use Starlink on their yacht while crossing the Pacific and Elon said that is a great use-case because there won't be many other connections to the same sat. He has also said a few times it will work perfectly well on things like moving trains. So I have to think the geofence will go away, though I assume there will be country restrictions due to legalities.

apexalpha 6y ago
How would one put their antenna on the roof of a train? Or does he mean 1 antenna for an entire train?
- nickik 6y ago
  You can't really take your personal antenna in a train. The train provider would have to do this for now. On a personal boat this is less of an issue, but for most large boats the operate would install it and then offer local WLAN I would expect.