3 ms·

Do the satellite-side phased arraying work that quickly to go to the per-customer level? I figured it would just be used to account for the spinning and moving

• jacquesm 3y ago
  The satellite side isn't nearly as power constrained as a cell phone so they don't have to get it that precise. But every dB counts. They hit multiple subscribers at once with the sat side footprint but if an area is nearly empty I don't see why they couldn't keep a particular phone in the centroid (such as in emergency services to uninhabited areas). Likely they will differentiate between populated and less populated areas by allocating more time to a spot to service all of the customers. https://erkansaka.net/2023/10/03/a-video-how-does-starlink-satellite-internet-work/ https://erkansaka.net/2023/10/03/a-video-how-does-starlink-s... Of course the gain wouldn't be as nice as when both sides can do the phased array trick but cell phones don't have the same kind of antenna capabilities that Starlink's dish has. This is the relevant bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2QcycggWU&t=1265s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2QcycggWU&t=1265s I suspect the reason it is text service and not voice is that the phone antenna constraint results in severe bandwidth limitations. And with all that tech working for them I still think it is a small miracle they got this to work.