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I'm not exactly sure what you're imagining, but there are fundamental physics problems in the way of just launching a bunch of satellites and enabling global co

I'm not exactly sure what you're imagining, but there are fundamental physics problems in the way of just launching a bunch of satellites and enabling global communications. Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites to send incredibly small amounts of data measured in bytes, not kilobytes. These satellites have only limited bandwidth, and it's very expensive. And with the antenna size and power available in a phone today, it's never going to be more than kilobytes. SpaceX Starlink/TMobile announced a much higher-bandwidth option, but it's incredibly fleeting, lasting just a few seconds. Starlink satellites are in very low Earth orbit, moving at 8km/second. You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. Starlink currently builds a very cheap phased-array antenna, but it's still ~$1,000 to manufacture, it's a couple cubic feet in volume, and it uses >100 watts. Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. I'm not saying it's impossible, but no one knows how to build a satellite system currently that will cause any carriers to shit their pants.

mlyle 4y ago
> Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites I haven't read the announcement, but Globalstar's constellation is in LEO.
- gtvwill 4y ago
  Yeah but their satellites are basically oversized analogue relays. So bandwidth is bugger all with little capacity to increase it. So Leo or not it's like having CDMA speeds as your cap. Pretty much useless for anything other than a GPS location ping for emergency use.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Indeed. Until a few years ago I was also under the impression that the satellite phone constellations were geostationary or at least geosynchronous. I remember growing up in the 90s hearing about satellite phones and how they had a very noticeable delay, which I assumed meant they were way up there. But perhaps that was just an older generation of constellations, because Globalstar and Iridium (by far the most popular networks in use by consumer-grade devices) are definitely LEO.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    inmarsat does sell a handheld satellite phone product (google "inmarsat isatphone") which uses narrow band data channels and handhelds to talk to geostationary satellites. Its coverage is not quite as solid or reliable as iridium, because you can be easily obstructed by a mountain on your south side if you're at latitude 45N or something, and doesn't extend beyond about 70 degrees north, but it's also priced cheaper than iridium for the hardware and the monthly service. what most people think of as a satellite phone is indeed LEO since iridium has the lion's share of the market.
- mr_toad 4y ago
  1400km, compared to 550km for Starlink.
wmf 4y ago
Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. It sounded like temporary connectivity was only initially; once they have a full shell of V2 satellites I would expect constant connectivity.
madengr 4y ago
Globalstar simplex only takes about 200 mW over 2 seconds to deliver a 72 byte message, into an antenna about 0 dBi gain. See the STX3 transmitter module.
- gtvwill 4y ago
  That doesn't feel very efficient. 72 bytes is nothing.
  - pcdoodle 4y ago
    72 bytes is more than your reply here.
oceanplexian 4y ago
The way technology is headed there is a 110% chance that the phased array tech gets miniaturized and put into a phone. And once the constellation is filled in, you’ll be able to find any tiny slice of sky and talk to a starlink sat that’s flying through it. Indoors is still a problem but who knows, things are always evolving.
- simonh 4y ago
  You can't take say Moore's Law for chip tech and slap it on to radio tech. They're fundamentally different physical processes. There are limits to radio transmission and reception bandwidth and range due to the basic physics that you can't end run. The inverse square law is a harsh master, for any given level of technology a transmitter 100x closer is going to have a 10,000x advantage however you slice it. What they might be able to do is expand this to something like limited texting, or maybe down the line even non-realtime voice messaging.
  - jorvi 4y ago
    We are still able to have two-way communication with both Voyagers. Google’s Lyra codec can already get down to 3Kb/s and be reasonably audible. It’s not a stretch to imagine within a few years we’ll be able to push that to below 1Kb/s. Taking those two things together, I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume at least text and voice are within reach.
    - jfoutz 4y ago
      Stable diffusion, backwards on the device, targeting a photo. send photos with only the prompt.
      - duskwuff 4y ago
        Reminiscent of Vernor Vinge's "evocations", as mentioned in A Fire Upon the Deep: > The screen showed a color image with high resolution. Looking at it carefully, one realized the thing was a poor evocation…. Kjet recognized Owner Limmende and Jan Skrits, her chief of staff, but they looked several years out of style. Ølvira [the ship] was matching old video with the transmitted animation cues. The actual communication channel was less that four thousand bits per second; Central was taking no chances. > [...] > The picture was crisp and clear, but when the figures moved it was with cartoonlike awkwardness. And some of the faces belonged to people Kjet knew had been transferred […] The processors here on the Ølvira were taking the narrow-band signal from Fleet Central, fleshing it out with detailed (and out of date) background and evoking the image shown.
kanbara 4y ago
not geosync, LEO.
walrus01 4y ago
> Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites globalstar's existing network and licenses have nothing to do with geostationary at all. please don't comment on things like this if you have fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of different types of mutually incompatible satellite network technology.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  If you are going to be pedantic, it would behoove you to use correct capitalization.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    it's a well documented fact that typing in all lower case is very slightly faster for persons accustomed to it as a regular practice, which is a completely different thing than fundamentally misunderstanding the technical parameters of a L/S-band LEO vs geostationary data link, if we want to be pedantic about it.
shaklee3 4y ago
Starlink is not going to be faster than this necessarily. Starlink is also low bandwidth, but has to be compatible with all phones. So they are not able to design hardware in the phone with a better antenna for this purpose as Apple can do.
Scoundreller 4y ago
> You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. People already do this when communicating from the ground via amateur satellites on handheld radios. Here the fellow followed the sweep of the sky with his yagi. https://youtu.be/jmCgIk8eVWw https://youtu.be/jmCgIk8eVWw
viczsaszbo 4y ago
The speeds Starlink will deliver are 2G speeds/device. They said 2-4Mbps/cell, and a cell is a wide area. I think it will have continuous coverage once the constellation reaches a certain size. AST SpaceMobile is planning 4g or 5g speeds/device with their 40 Gbps capable satellites.

mlyle 4y ago

> Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites I haven't read the announcement, but Globalstar's constellation is in LEO.

gtvwill 4y ago
Yeah but their satellites are basically oversized analogue relays. So bandwidth is bugger all with little capacity to increase it. So Leo or not it's like having CDMA speeds as your cap. Pretty much useless for anything other than a GPS location ping for emergency use.
tshaddox 4y ago
Indeed. Until a few years ago I was also under the impression that the satellite phone constellations were geostationary or at least geosynchronous. I remember growing up in the 90s hearing about satellite phones and how they had a very noticeable delay, which I assumed meant they were way up there. But perhaps that was just an older generation of constellations, because Globalstar and Iridium (by far the most popular networks in use by consumer-grade devices) are definitely LEO.
- walrus01 4y ago
  inmarsat does sell a handheld satellite phone product (google "inmarsat isatphone") which uses narrow band data channels and handhelds to talk to geostationary satellites. Its coverage is not quite as solid or reliable as iridium, because you can be easily obstructed by a mountain on your south side if you're at latitude 45N or something, and doesn't extend beyond about 70 degrees north, but it's also priced cheaper than iridium for the hardware and the monthly service. what most people think of as a satellite phone is indeed LEO since iridium has the lion's share of the market.
mr_toad 4y ago
1400km, compared to 550km for Starlink.

wmf 4y ago

Starlink V2 will bring very large antennas to Starlink satellites which will enable direct 5G connectivity, but that connectivity will last for a few seconds, with perhaps thirty minutes between connections. It sounded like temporary connectivity was only initially; once they have a full shell of V2 satellites I would expect constant connectivity.

madengr 4y ago

Globalstar simplex only takes about 200 mW over 2 seconds to deliver a 72 byte message, into an antenna about 0 dBi gain. See the STX3 transmitter module.

gtvwill 4y ago
That doesn't feel very efficient. 72 bytes is nothing.
- pcdoodle 4y ago
  72 bytes is more than your reply here.

oceanplexian 4y ago

The way technology is headed there is a 110% chance that the phased array tech gets miniaturized and put into a phone. And once the constellation is filled in, you’ll be able to find any tiny slice of sky and talk to a starlink sat that’s flying through it. Indoors is still a problem but who knows, things are always evolving.

simonh 4y ago
You can't take say Moore's Law for chip tech and slap it on to radio tech. They're fundamentally different physical processes. There are limits to radio transmission and reception bandwidth and range due to the basic physics that you can't end run. The inverse square law is a harsh master, for any given level of technology a transmitter 100x closer is going to have a 10,000x advantage however you slice it. What they might be able to do is expand this to something like limited texting, or maybe down the line even non-realtime voice messaging.
- jorvi 4y ago
  We are still able to have two-way communication with both Voyagers. Google’s Lyra codec can already get down to 3Kb/s and be reasonably audible. It’s not a stretch to imagine within a few years we’ll be able to push that to below 1Kb/s. Taking those two things together, I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume at least text and voice are within reach.
  - jfoutz 4y ago
    Stable diffusion, backwards on the device, targeting a photo. send photos with only the prompt.
    - duskwuff 4y ago
      Reminiscent of Vernor Vinge's "evocations", as mentioned in A Fire Upon the Deep: > The screen showed a color image with high resolution. Looking at it carefully, one realized the thing was a poor evocation…. Kjet recognized Owner Limmende and Jan Skrits, her chief of staff, but they looked several years out of style. Ølvira [the ship] was matching old video with the transmitted animation cues. The actual communication channel was less that four thousand bits per second; Central was taking no chances. > [...] > The picture was crisp and clear, but when the figures moved it was with cartoonlike awkwardness. And some of the faces belonged to people Kjet knew had been transferred […] The processors here on the Ølvira were taking the narrow-band signal from Fleet Central, fleshing it out with detailed (and out of date) background and evoking the image shown.

kanbara 4y ago

not geosync, LEO.

walrus01 4y ago

> Apple has partnered with Globalstar to use geostationary satellites globalstar's existing network and licenses have nothing to do with geostationary at all. please don't comment on things like this if you have fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of different types of mutually incompatible satellite network technology.

RichardCNormos 4y ago
If you are going to be pedantic, it would behoove you to use correct capitalization.
- walrus01 4y ago
  it's a well documented fact that typing in all lower case is very slightly faster for persons accustomed to it as a regular practice, which is a completely different thing than fundamentally misunderstanding the technical parameters of a L/S-band LEO vs geostationary data link, if we want to be pedantic about it.

shaklee3 4y ago

Starlink is not going to be faster than this necessarily. Starlink is also low bandwidth, but has to be compatible with all phones. So they are not able to design hardware in the phone with a better antenna for this purpose as Apple can do.

Scoundreller 4y ago

> You can't just point an antenna at it and have it work. The antenna needs to track the satellite. And it needs to have a constant line of sight free of obstructions. People already do this when communicating from the ground via amateur satellites on handheld radios. Here the fellow followed the sweep of the sky with his yagi. https://youtu.be/jmCgIk8eVWw https://youtu.be/jmCgIk8eVWw

viczsaszbo 4y ago

The speeds Starlink will deliver are 2G speeds/device. They said 2-4Mbps/cell, and a cell is a wide area. I think it will have continuous coverage once the constellation reaches a certain size. AST SpaceMobile is planning 4g or 5g speeds/device with their 40 Gbps capable satellites.