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It’s too bad you’ll still need a “regular” cellular sub to take advantage of this. If I didn’t, this gets me a lot closer to “cutting” the wireless plan cord.

It’s too bad you’ll still need a “regular” cellular sub to take advantage of this. If I didn’t, this gets me a lot closer to “cutting” the wireless plan cord. I’m usually in wifi range and being able to have a few kb/s of comms is basically the lifeline I need. Most of my cell activities are cached on my phone: podcasts, maps, some increasingly out of date weather. Would be even cooler if it could “broadcast” some regular stuff like news and traffic updates (dunno how that could integrate with Waze…) The first kb/s gets me a loooot of value and each additional is less useful than the last. Data is very much diminishing returns.

carabiner 3y ago
You'd expect T-Mobile/starlink to provide this service for free?
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  No, I want to sign up for it without bundling it with a local Canadian oligopolist’s other services.
slashdev 3y ago
Likewise, this would be enough to replace my cell plan. I don’t need high bandwidth stuff, just text communications, PagerDuty, gmail. The rest I can do over Wi-Fi.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Given the price per bit per second per square meter, I'd be surprised if this will be more economical for operators to provide in anything but the most rural areas.
- arecurrence 3y ago
  You can get 1 year global plans from esimdb.com pretty affordably for this use case right now.
  - slashdev 3y ago
    Thanks, I’ll check them out
- paulddraper 3y ago
  No Maps?
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Maps can be downloaded offline and directions calculated locally. Only really need updates for traffic (which could be broadcast, which I think some old gps receivers had)
    - slashdev 3y ago
      Yeah, I use offline maps. Lack of traffic info is sometimes an issue.
tpmx 3y ago
I suppose they need to piggyback on each mobile operator's licensed frequency bands, per country/region.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Looking forward to a future Starlink+Apple/Google collab. Dunno what frequency this is running at, but if it’s in the 10s of GHz, I’m assuming licensing doesn’t get tooooo pricey given how problematic it is on land-to-land links.
  - tpmx 3y ago
    Apple/Google don't hold any RF spectrum rights worldwide... This is presumably about 4G/LTE, so mostly between 0.4-2.5 GHz or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      > Apple/Google don't hold any RF spectrum rights worldwide... yet. Apple (and android baseband suppliers, “Google” may be the wrong name to mention here), have the ability to take relatively worthless spectrum and make it widely useful in a way nobody else can. I wonder how spectrum allocation works for C-Band satellite broadcasters that just blast continents with their signals. Grandfathered?
      - tpmx 3y ago
        Those several-GHz bands don't really work indoors.
        Scoundreller 3y ago
        Most satellite-y things don’t and Starlink’s direct to cell won’t either. Hence why the spectrum should be pretty cheap (along with its incredible susceptibility to obstructions… which is less of an issue when you’re going roughly “up” without pesky considerations like curvature of the earth) And you do get a ton of gain with a small antenna at those high frequencies.
lxgr 3y ago
> It’s too bad you’ll still need a “regular” cellular sub to take advantage of this. For the emergency use case: Would it even be legal to require a subscription for 911 calls? As far as I know, these are possible even without a SIM card in the US and most other countries. > The first kb/s gets me a loooot of value and each additional is less useful than the last. Data is very much diminishing returns. And it’s arguably priced accordingly: The difference between metered plans and unlimited data is pretty small these days in my observation.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  By lifeline I don’t mean 9-1-1, but rather some basic barebones comms. > The difference between metered plans and unlimited data is pretty small these days in my observation. That’s if you have a competitive environment. In Canada, the cellular providers are the fixed-line internet providers and very much don’t want to tank one for the other. (But maybe Freedom Mobile, without much of a physical wireline footprint, will pull a t-mobile and go all-in on a 5G wireless home internet plan… we can pray)
  - lxgr 3y ago
    > In Canada [...] Oh, yeah, all of these considerations only apply to a somewhat functioning/competitive market, unfortunately. I have my fingers crossed for you! I've had friends of mine live in Canada for a while – it sounds as bad as (or even worse than) what was going on in Germany in the 2000s, when mobile operators had spent ridiculous sums on 3G licenses and almost ruined themselves in the process financially and as a result just sat out on infrastructure investments for the next decade or so.

carabiner 3y ago

You'd expect T-Mobile/starlink to provide this service for free?

Scoundreller 3y ago
No, I want to sign up for it without bundling it with a local Canadian oligopolist’s other services.

slashdev 3y ago

Likewise, this would be enough to replace my cell plan. I don’t need high bandwidth stuff, just text communications, PagerDuty, gmail. The rest I can do over Wi-Fi.

lxgr 3y ago
Given the price per bit per second per square meter, I'd be surprised if this will be more economical for operators to provide in anything but the most rural areas.
arecurrence 3y ago
You can get 1 year global plans from esimdb.com pretty affordably for this use case right now.
- slashdev 3y ago
  Thanks, I’ll check them out
paulddraper 3y ago
No Maps?
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Maps can be downloaded offline and directions calculated locally. Only really need updates for traffic (which could be broadcast, which I think some old gps receivers had)
  - slashdev 3y ago
    Yeah, I use offline maps. Lack of traffic info is sometimes an issue.

tpmx 3y ago

I suppose they need to piggyback on each mobile operator's licensed frequency bands, per country/region.

Scoundreller 3y ago
Looking forward to a future Starlink+Apple/Google collab. Dunno what frequency this is running at, but if it’s in the 10s of GHz, I’m assuming licensing doesn’t get tooooo pricey given how problematic it is on land-to-land links.
- tpmx 3y ago
  Apple/Google don't hold any RF spectrum rights worldwide... This is presumably about 4G/LTE, so mostly between 0.4-2.5 GHz or so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_frequency_bands
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    > Apple/Google don't hold any RF spectrum rights worldwide... yet. Apple (and android baseband suppliers, “Google” may be the wrong name to mention here), have the ability to take relatively worthless spectrum and make it widely useful in a way nobody else can. I wonder how spectrum allocation works for C-Band satellite broadcasters that just blast continents with their signals. Grandfathered?
    - tpmx 3y ago
      Those several-GHz bands don't really work indoors.
      - Scoundreller 3y ago
        Most satellite-y things don’t and Starlink’s direct to cell won’t either. Hence why the spectrum should be pretty cheap (along with its incredible susceptibility to obstructions… which is less of an issue when you’re going roughly “up” without pesky considerations like curvature of the earth) And you do get a ton of gain with a small antenna at those high frequencies.

lxgr 3y ago

> It’s too bad you’ll still need a “regular” cellular sub to take advantage of this. For the emergency use case: Would it even be legal to require a subscription for 911 calls? As far as I know, these are possible even without a SIM card in the US and most other countries. > The first kb/s gets me a loooot of value and each additional is less useful than the last. Data is very much diminishing returns. And it’s arguably priced accordingly: The difference between metered plans and unlimited data is pretty small these days in my observation.

Scoundreller 3y ago
By lifeline I don’t mean 9-1-1, but rather some basic barebones comms. > The difference between metered plans and unlimited data is pretty small these days in my observation. That’s if you have a competitive environment. In Canada, the cellular providers are the fixed-line internet providers and very much don’t want to tank one for the other. (But maybe Freedom Mobile, without much of a physical wireline footprint, will pull a t-mobile and go all-in on a 5G wireless home internet plan… we can pray)
- lxgr 3y ago
  > In Canada [...] Oh, yeah, all of these considerations only apply to a somewhat functioning/competitive market, unfortunately. I have my fingers crossed for you! I've had friends of mine live in Canada for a while – it sounds as bad as (or even worse than) what was going on in Germany in the 2000s, when mobile operators had spent ridiculous sums on 3G licenses and almost ruined themselves in the process financially and as a result just sat out on infrastructure investments for the next decade or so.