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Very excited for this. I live about 5 miles outside of cell range.
by cronix 4y ago
Very excited for this. I live about 5 miles outside of cell range.
- ianburrell 4y agoIt isn't going to get you phone service. The satellite service is low bandwidth, I heard 9 Mbps shared with the entire cell. It will be limited to messaging and maybe voice call. It will replace satellite messengers and satellite phones.
- cronix 4y ago> It will replace satellite messengers and satellite phones. Sure, at first. That's certainly not the end goal. VoIP works well enough for now that I'm still able to work and communicate just fine.
- ianburrell 4y agoThis service is pretty extraordinary and pushing physical limits. It requires new satellites with large antennas. It is unlikely that we'll see faster internet with existing phones. It might be possible to have mobile internet terminals, like a satellite hotspot. I hope Starlink comes out with something like that.
- wmf 4y agoThe upcoming Starlink mini terminal is pretty small but its power consumption will probably still be pretty high.
- ianburrell 4y agoI was hoping they would announce something like that. I bet it kills off the similarly sized BGAN service from other satellite providers. I'm involved with disaster response and the size and power requirements of current antenna are problems. Something smaller, slower, and easy to power with battery and solar would be very useful. Also, new antenna might work well for remote sites. Stick it on pole, power with some solar panels and batteries.
- panick21_ 4y agoIf its a low population zone then 9Mbps seems reasonable to do phone calls and chat.
- db48x 4y agoYes, especially since not every phone user will place calls all at the same time. Erlang’s loss formula will give you an estimate of how many calls you will give busy signals to, given some number of customers and some measure of how many calls you can carry at once.
- ianburrell 4y agoTurns out it is 2-4 Mbps. We don’t know the coverage area, if satellite footprint or spots like regular Starlink. Voice is doable, if crappy, in 9.6kbps. I find interesting that it will be like 1G cell phone.
- LeoPanthera 4y agoI live a few miles from nowhere, and the last few years have been a revolution. My internet is now provided by Starlink, and I have a microcell for which the backhaul is Starlink.
- samstave 4y agoWhat sucks is that in ten years, you will be begging to be outside cell range... but you will never ever be able to live outside surveillance range ever again.