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I'm in the (slow) process of acquiring and fitting a sailboat for living at remote places. While I acknowledge that the cheapening of satellite internet will be
by mrauha 6y ago
I'm in the (slow) process of acquiring and fitting a sailboat for living at remote places. While I acknowledge that the cheapening of satellite internet will be nice, practical, and make my plans more realizable money-wise, I'm also a bit sad on what this implies to the taking a real distance to the information overloaded society.
- pandamaniac 6y agoWhy not just omit the internet fittings? Surely you can control the access that you have.
- pmontra 6y agoI'm not sure this is for you, if you plan to move your boat: https://www.starlink.com/faq https://www.starlink.com/faq > Can I travel with Starlink, or move it to a different address? > Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to all users within a designated area on the ground. This designated area is referred to as a cell. > Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be scheduled to serve your Starlink and you will not receive internet. This is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary geofencing
- mjevans 6y agoI wonder if they'll reserve a segment for global use, probably at higher expense. I could see a lower tier strata that requires planning but allows for relocation on a planned schedule.
- extrapickles 6y agoIt’s because most of the satellites do not have laser links yet, so the satellite you use must be able to see a downlink station in order to provide internet. When they have laser links widely deployed, you will be able to move about.
- nickik 6y agoUsers have already shown that you can move the dish and Starlink doesn't block it. However they might in the future. They are already testing Starlink on planes and those are clearly moving. A dedicated product for boats and planes is certainty on its way. Understandably to do capacity planning, they are focusing on stationary at first.
- lgats 6y agoBeta users on Reddit indicate the service shuts off 90 miles from the home location
- rootsudo 6y agoWell, that sucks but good to know, so no RV traveling yet?
- irjustin 6y agoI can imagine this is only in the beginning. As more sats go up ships can easily be a lot of customers.
- oh_sigh 6y agoWould you like to upgrade to the roaming plan for $99.99?
- iso1631 6y agoShut up and take my money! Seriously I have sites running 5 figure data bills every week.
- em-bee 6y agoi'd pay for that if i really needed it.
- a012 6y agoIt's pretty cheap for the speed if they (starlink) cover a vast space of oceans.
- evil-olive 6y agoAny sort of commercial fishing or shipping vessel would pay for that without hesitation.
- paul_f 6y agoIt has to change or it cannot be used by airplanes, which surely is a prime target for Starlink.
- csomar 6y agoAlso a sailboat (even a big one) is not stable and from experience satellite receivers can lose connection on slightly strong winds. So I guess this wouldn't work even if Starlink allowed it.
- codesnik 6y agoi'm pretty sure boats (especially big ones) are one of the potential markets for starlink, so even if current receiver will lose a connection, there will be special receiver for boats eventually. Stabilizing phased array shouldn't be that hard, even without adjusting motors constantly.
- callesgg 6y agoJust place the current one in a gimbal. Problem solved.
- japanuspus 6y agoThe starlink antenna may look like an ordinarry satelite dish -- but it is a super-advanced phased array antenna which uses a lot of signal processing to electronically steer the beam. This electronic beam steering should have no problems keeping up with boat motion.
- oseityphelysiol 6y agoFrom what I gather beamforming operates only in limited range, i.e. tracking satellites as they move small fraction of a degree per second. For bigger adjustments the dishes turn mechanically. It's not clear if beamforming could handle relatively small waves, but for big ones mechanical adjustment would be needed. I'm speaking out of my ass, but if I had to guess moving the antenna mechanically would not keep the link up in wavy waters.
- jcims 6y agoI have one, the dish doesn’t move after it initially sets up.
- the_duke 6y agoMusk mentioned on Twitter that it should be doable. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1323691195239960579 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1323691195239960579 I reckon the current restrictions will ease up when more sats are deployed, especially with more laser interconnects.
- wj 6y agoWhen this was announced I actually assumed this was a ploy to get fast Internet into Teslas.
- carlivar 6y agoIt's a way to for Musk to benefit from government subsidies (as described in the article), like all Musk ventures.
- rkangel 6y agoI think it was dreamed up as a way to monetise the increasing capacity of SapceX launches. They might run out of customers and so they need ways to make money out of launching. A constellation of 10k+ satellites is a good way to need lots of launches!
- LinuxBender 6y agoIt is for the US Army. They are the initial customer anyway. Civilians are the best beta testers. The internet was originally created to have a network in place for the military and I see this as the natural evolution beyond hard wired systems or intermittent wireless towers.
- rich_sasha 6y agoSupposedly it’s meant I work in airplanes and trains, so sailboats I’d imagine too. +/- constant swaying etc.
- namibj 6y agoWith a simple passive gimbal they should be able to use the electronic steering to correct for the remaining swaying on planes and boats. Trains might have more issues with vegetation and geography obstructing clear view of the satellites.
- tpmx 6y agoA practical concern with Starlink in this scenario is that the dish consumes ~100 watts. Bring 2 square meters of solar panel, an inverter and some batteries and hope for sun.
- Johnythree 6y agoYou can turn it off when not in use. Whatever, your present PC, Monitor, printer, Router, and Internet wireless will already be using more than 100W.
- tpmx 6y agoPrinter, monitor, ... ? A ~15 watt Macbook Air M1 seems suitable when living on a boat.
- MattGaiser 6y ago> I'm also a bit sad on what this implies to the taking a real distance to the information overloaded society. You could just turn it off.