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While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the technology enough to replace 4G/

While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the technology enough to replace 4G/5G dongles. It sounds like the technology relies on being in a somewhat fixed position though.

p1mrx 5y ago
Starlink will never replace 4G/5G in relatively-populated areas, because any RF wizardry they can do from orbit will work even better for talking to a tower at short range.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  Though I have to admit, 4G/5G is never going to draw lines in the sky.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  But it does not have the costs associated with building a tower in that area.
  - p1mrx 5y ago
    If you're in an area where it's not worth building cell towers, then Starlink will have plenty of bandwidth... but that's not where most people live. When you look at a city from orbit, you see millions of radios all stacked on top of each other, screaming. That can never scale as well as a distributed array of towers.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      Maybe. Or maybe in these areas it’s even more expensive to waste space on towers.
      - p1mrx 5y ago
        Land use by towers is ~0%, and the ones we need have mostly been built already. Next should we eliminate WiFi because it's wasting expensive real estate?
yreg 5y ago
One obvious synergy that comes to mind (if the base stations won't have to be geographically fixed) is to stream raw video from all cameras from all Teslas. Both for sentry mode (antitheft) and autonomy training. Of course it would be regulatory nightmare.
- Dah00n 5y ago
  And the end of privacy.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Unless they manage to shrink the satellite dish or mount it on the roof of the car (which would affect drag and make the cars look worse), it's so big that this it would seemingly only be possible on the Cybertruck (using bed space) or RVs. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865
m4rtink 5y ago
The latest Starship SN15 launch (and landing!!) apparently had a Starlink antenna mounted on the side so it might not be that static in the future. At the same time the video feed was pretty choppy so if it was due to going via Starlink they still migh have to work on in a bit. :)

p1mrx 5y ago

Starlink will never replace 4G/5G in relatively-populated areas, because any RF wizardry they can do from orbit will work even better for talking to a tower at short range.

p1mrx 5y ago
Though I have to admit, 4G/5G is never going to draw lines in the sky.
tinus_hn 5y ago
But it does not have the costs associated with building a tower in that area.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  If you're in an area where it's not worth building cell towers, then Starlink will have plenty of bandwidth... but that's not where most people live. When you look at a city from orbit, you see millions of radios all stacked on top of each other, screaming. That can never scale as well as a distributed array of towers.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    Maybe. Or maybe in these areas it’s even more expensive to waste space on towers.
    - p1mrx 5y ago
      Land use by towers is ~0%, and the ones we need have mostly been built already. Next should we eliminate WiFi because it's wasting expensive real estate?

yreg 5y ago

One obvious synergy that comes to mind (if the base stations won't have to be geographically fixed) is to stream raw video from all cameras from all Teslas. Both for sentry mode (antitheft) and autonomy training. Of course it would be regulatory nightmare.

Dah00n 5y ago
And the end of privacy.
judge2020 5y ago
Unless they manage to shrink the satellite dish or mount it on the roof of the car (which would affect drag and make the cars look worse), it's so big that this it would seemingly only be possible on the Cybertruck (using bed space) or RVs. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865

m4rtink 5y ago

The latest Starship SN15 launch (and landing!!) apparently had a Starlink antenna mounted on the side so it might not be that static in the future. At the same time the video feed was pretty choppy so if it was due to going via Starlink they still migh have to work on in a bit. :)