6 ms·

I don't get how starlink can be cheaper than just putting transmitters on existing radio masts.

ska 5y ago
Doesn't really matter if it's cheaper if there are enough barriers to scaling on masts (e.g. who owns the rights to each one?). It's plausible that would be a very different company in basically every way that matters. Sometimes it's not about what's cheaper, so much as what's you have a method to do at all.
Jtsummers 5y ago
Line of sight is a major issue and getting masts within line of sight of all customers Starlink is targeting would be very expensive. Not just masts, but all the new fiber to connect them.
- morpheos137 5y ago
  seems like Verizon does a pretty good job.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    LOS is still an issue for them and always will be. You can't ignore physics. Curvature of the Earth, buildings, mountains, hills, valleys, canyons. The way that radio waves actually move around and through an area. You can only get a tower to see so far. https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ - that's their coverage map Note that there are still a lot of uncovered areas. The cost of getting towers into those areas and providing full coverage is massive. Remember, as I said in my previous comment, it's also not just towers and antenna. You need fiber running to every single one of them.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Many wireless base stations are interconnected via microwave point to point links.
    - morpheos137 5y ago
      Almost every place where people live and work is covered. I would venture to guess that less than 100,000 people in the whole USA outside of Alaska live in places that are not covered by Verizon. Yeah maybe you'll find a town here and there of a few hundred people in a very remote area that is not covered. Similarly I bet the vast majority of the USA is reached by at least one line of sight FM radio station. For specific examples of areas that are not covered on the map: north west maine. Nobody lives there. There are no incorporated towns north or west of Rangley or south or west of Alagash. It is private forestry company land. Death Valley. A part of east texas near the LA border. I am not too familiar with this area but I believe it is part of the area called the "Big Thicket" it is very sparsely populated. The Nevada test site, Nellis AFB, Area 51. I am sure the military has its own radio coverage here where it needs it. Other Parts of Nevada and Eastern Oregon and Washington and North Central Idaho. These areas are sparsely inhabited deserts or mountains.
      - yencabulator 5y ago
        This seems like a city-centric view of things. You get Verizon near highways just about everywhere around here, but 1 mile from the highway at my house I get spotty Verizon on one side of my house (enough to use voice on phone, not enough to reliably use a hotspot device), and pretty much nothing on the other side. Verizon coverage map claims to cover everything within hundred miles perfectly with LTE, reality is moving 100 feet can change whether you can get a signal or not.
        morpheos137 5y ago
        If your house is made of radio opaque materials that maybe most of your problem. Brick, stone, concrete all seriously attenuate some radio frequencies. Metal roofing or solar pannels on the roof or foil backing insulation would also contribute to signal attenuation.
        yencabulator 5y ago
        Late but still: The signal is already bad on the outside of the house. It goes from bad to worse if it needs to travel through the house.
Retric 5y ago
For a single town it’s cheaper to wire up a single tower, but everyone wants internet and for global coverage satellites require vastly less infrastructure. The major reasons are launch costs, small satellites, economy’s of scale, large coverage area, minimal need for spectrum, and leveraging existing networks. First their launch costs are quite low at a small fraction of historical prices. Small satellites means they get economy of scale and fit several per launch. Being in the sky they get coverage of valleys for free, thus large coverage area means the little bandwidth is wasted as you can still communicate with satellites over the ocean, or low population areas like deserts. Spectrum, a point to point connection can reuse the same frequency while talking to every satellite in the sky. And finally it’s more than just radio masts they avoid maintaining long redundant fiber fiber connections to each mast by locating down stations in convenient locations. Also, after global coverage you get better than linear increases in bandwidth from linear increases in the number of satellites as you can focus on the most useful orbits. Net, result it’s much cheaper to get global coverage this way than buy spectrum in every country, rent cell towers, and built and maintain fiber connections to each of them.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Many cell phone towers are connected by point to point microwave links, you don't need to necessarily interconnect them all with cables. They still need power of course & have to deal with trees and houses obstructing their fresnel zone. Low orbit satellites which are basically above most of the time have it easier in this regard.
nextaccountic 5y ago
Does Starlink actually harm animal navigation through stars? I thought the issue at hand were light pollution. Actually, I got around the paywall[0] and ctrl+f starlink returns 0 results. [0] https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/3wNvrw https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/3wNvrw
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Yeah this has nothing to do with Starlink. The Starlink satellites aren't even visible to the naked eye except for shortly after launch or right at sunrise/sunset: > The satellites are sometimes visible in the first few minutes after sundown and before sunrise when the sun is below the horizon, but the satellites are high enough to reflect direct sunlight. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spacex-ufo-starlink-satellites-space-lights-in-sky/2590876/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spacex-ufo-starlink...
yks 5y ago
I still think that the primary problem Starlink "solves" is the regulatory capture in the US. It baffles me that laying fiber cables everywhere is so expensive/impossible that literally launching things into space is the more cost-effective solution.

ska 5y ago

Doesn't really matter if it's cheaper if there are enough barriers to scaling on masts (e.g. who owns the rights to each one?). It's plausible that would be a very different company in basically every way that matters. Sometimes it's not about what's cheaper, so much as what's you have a method to do at all.

Jtsummers 5y ago

Line of sight is a major issue and getting masts within line of sight of all customers Starlink is targeting would be very expensive. Not just masts, but all the new fiber to connect them.

morpheos137 5y ago
seems like Verizon does a pretty good job.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  LOS is still an issue for them and always will be. You can't ignore physics. Curvature of the Earth, buildings, mountains, hills, valleys, canyons. The way that radio waves actually move around and through an area. You can only get a tower to see so far. https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ https://www.verizon.com/coverage-map/ - that's their coverage map Note that there are still a lot of uncovered areas. The cost of getting towers into those areas and providing full coverage is massive. Remember, as I said in my previous comment, it's also not just towers and antenna. You need fiber running to every single one of them.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Many wireless base stations are interconnected via microwave point to point links.
  - morpheos137 5y ago
    Almost every place where people live and work is covered. I would venture to guess that less than 100,000 people in the whole USA outside of Alaska live in places that are not covered by Verizon. Yeah maybe you'll find a town here and there of a few hundred people in a very remote area that is not covered. Similarly I bet the vast majority of the USA is reached by at least one line of sight FM radio station. For specific examples of areas that are not covered on the map: north west maine. Nobody lives there. There are no incorporated towns north or west of Rangley or south or west of Alagash. It is private forestry company land. Death Valley. A part of east texas near the LA border. I am not too familiar with this area but I believe it is part of the area called the "Big Thicket" it is very sparsely populated. The Nevada test site, Nellis AFB, Area 51. I am sure the military has its own radio coverage here where it needs it. Other Parts of Nevada and Eastern Oregon and Washington and North Central Idaho. These areas are sparsely inhabited deserts or mountains.
    - yencabulator 5y ago
      This seems like a city-centric view of things. You get Verizon near highways just about everywhere around here, but 1 mile from the highway at my house I get spotty Verizon on one side of my house (enough to use voice on phone, not enough to reliably use a hotspot device), and pretty much nothing on the other side. Verizon coverage map claims to cover everything within hundred miles perfectly with LTE, reality is moving 100 feet can change whether you can get a signal or not.
      - morpheos137 5y ago
        If your house is made of radio opaque materials that maybe most of your problem. Brick, stone, concrete all seriously attenuate some radio frequencies. Metal roofing or solar pannels on the roof or foil backing insulation would also contribute to signal attenuation.
        yencabulator 5y ago
        Late but still: The signal is already bad on the outside of the house. It goes from bad to worse if it needs to travel through the house.

Retric 5y ago

For a single town it’s cheaper to wire up a single tower, but everyone wants internet and for global coverage satellites require vastly less infrastructure. The major reasons are launch costs, small satellites, economy’s of scale, large coverage area, minimal need for spectrum, and leveraging existing networks. First their launch costs are quite low at a small fraction of historical prices. Small satellites means they get economy of scale and fit several per launch. Being in the sky they get coverage of valleys for free, thus large coverage area means the little bandwidth is wasted as you can still communicate with satellites over the ocean, or low population areas like deserts. Spectrum, a point to point connection can reuse the same frequency while talking to every satellite in the sky. And finally it’s more than just radio masts they avoid maintaining long redundant fiber fiber connections to each mast by locating down stations in convenient locations. Also, after global coverage you get better than linear increases in bandwidth from linear increases in the number of satellites as you can focus on the most useful orbits. Net, result it’s much cheaper to get global coverage this way than buy spectrum in every country, rent cell towers, and built and maintain fiber connections to each of them.

m4rtink 5y ago
Many cell phone towers are connected by point to point microwave links, you don't need to necessarily interconnect them all with cables. They still need power of course & have to deal with trees and houses obstructing their fresnel zone. Low orbit satellites which are basically above most of the time have it easier in this regard.

nextaccountic 5y ago

Does Starlink actually harm animal navigation through stars? I thought the issue at hand were light pollution. Actually, I got around the paywall[0] and ctrl+f starlink returns 0 results. [0] https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/3wNvrw https://www.printfriendly.com/p/g/3wNvrw

bpodgursky 5y ago
Yeah this has nothing to do with Starlink. The Starlink satellites aren't even visible to the naked eye except for shortly after launch or right at sunrise/sunset: > The satellites are sometimes visible in the first few minutes after sundown and before sunrise when the sun is below the horizon, but the satellites are high enough to reflect direct sunlight. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spacex-ufo-starlink-satellites-space-lights-in-sky/2590876/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/spacex-ufo-starlink...

yks 5y ago

I still think that the primary problem Starlink "solves" is the regulatory capture in the US. It baffles me that laying fiber cables everywhere is so expensive/impossible that literally launching things into space is the more cost-effective solution.