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"wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters" I wonder why the limitation to coastal waters? They've been cracking down on offshore sailors using Sta
by 34679 3y ago
"wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters"
I wonder why the limitation to coastal waters? They've been cracking down on offshore sailors using Starlink with the RV/Roaming plan, too. By all accounts it worked fine, but SpaceX wants to charge significantly more for an offshore plan.
It certainly can't be a congestion issue.
- plussed_reader 3y ago'Just good business'.
- jdminhbg 3y ago> It certainly can't be a congestion issue. There aren't any ground stations in the open ocean, so it all has to be routed between satellites to hop to one that has a connection to one. So it is a congestion issue.
- wmf 3y agoDirect-to-phone is so slow that it can't congest the lasers.
- lxgr 3y agoIt might well be a "dumb pipe" implementation (i.e. no regeneration and smart inter-satellite routing on the satellites), although Starlink does significantly mention an "onboard eNodeB modem", which sounds like it should be possible to forward that over the laser links.
- dvdbloc 3y agoHave they incorporated the laser links into prod on their sats yet? I thought that they were launching sats with them yet hadn’t successfully routed traffic yet through them in prod which is why they have a limitation to near the coast.
- wmf 3y agoLasers have been in prod for months.
- jdminhbg 3y agoYes, the open sea connections wouldn't work at all without them. But I think they're still a minority of the fleet and it'll take a while to eventually upgrade to full coverage.
- notfish 3y agoWe have >8000 lasers in orbit on starlinks right now https://x.com/starlink/status/1706719043460514101 https://x.com/starlink/status/1706719043460514101
- rkangel 3y agoI think it's a spectrum cost issue or a coordination issue. LTE spectrum is eye wateringly expensive, but maybe more affordable places where it's not possible to put a mast! It's either that, or whatever the logistics are around the cell boundaries.
- ec109685 3y agoThey’re leveraging the carrier’s existing spectrum.
- lxgr 3y agoI think it must be mostly a spectrum/licensing concern: Neither T-Mobile nor Starlink own global frequencies in a suitable frequency band to offer offshore services. That's one of the big benefits e.g. Apple gets out of the box for going with Globalstar, and Qualcomm for partnering with Iridium: They each own around 10 MHz of prime (i.e. L-band) global spectrum.
- 1970-01-01 3y agoThis is a fascinating take. Cell phone adoption could push SpaceX into establishing a global spectrum committee. Let's hope they remember to register under the .INT domain
- lxgr 3y agoWell, that global spectrum committee already exists [1], .int domain and all :) But somebody recently mentioned here that in order to provide satellite services in a given country, you still need a local license...? I'm not sure how existing mobile satellite service providers fit in here – do Inmarsat, Iridium etc. just have a license in (almost) all countries worldwide? [1] https://www.itu.int/ https://www.itu.int/
- manquer 3y agoNot all but a lot. It is a mixed bag though, Iridium and Thuraya are illegal in India but Inmarsat has a license, so it kind of depends really. You need a local license because radio frequency is considered a national resource, so each country owns the radio space about its land and they get to govern it.
- lxgr 3y agoThat makes sense. So the ITU has more of a role of coordination than of actual assignment, I suppose? Practically, satellites won't switch frequencies every time their spot beam footprints cross national boundaries, so I suppose it's more of a matter of allowing/not allowing service in a given country (as determined by either the mobile or the satellite?).