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Globalstar was a joke, not because of its architecture, but because its satellites got irradiated and degraded to the point they couldn’t handle a phone-call ev
by Scoundreller 4y ago
Globalstar was a joke, not because of its architecture, but because its satellites got irradiated and degraded to the point they couldn’t handle a phone-call even in their on-shore/near-shore use case.
Nobody is going to invest in satellite phones or credits for a provider that couldn’t do space right.
An interesting alternative to sat comms is HF-DL if you don’t care for security. Cool to see all the Russia seized and reregistered jetliner equipment pinging and hearing HF-DL stations around the world on ACARS. Slow though, 300-1200bps.
- walrus01 4y agoVarious ham radio data modes for 1200 bps or approximately that speed can be implemented with big ass dipole and yagi uda antennas for directional data links, with standard crypto libraries between Linux systems operating as serial bridge, it's just very very slow. And it's a gargantuan pile of equipment and huge antenna compared to something like iridium.
- mardifoufs 4y agoHow did they survive with such a degraded service, who is still using them when there are alternatives? Were they competitive back when they launched, but just couldn't fund maintenance? Iridium also had severe financial problems but their own constellation and services are still pretty reliable (all things considered), so I'm curious!
- walrus01 4y agoThey survived primarily on machine to machine telemetry data services.
- bombcar 4y agoYep, these don't need instantaneous transfer so things can buffer it, and they're probably already installed ...
- Scoundreller 4y agoThe transponders that ran their “simplex” services were unaffected, so they continued operating that service like normal.