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Yeah land based networking just makes less and less sense when you look at it from first principles, wireless is fast enough for most connections it has enough

Yeah land based networking just makes less and less sense when you look at it from first principles, wireless is fast enough for most connections it has enough bandwidth if distributed and being in orbit makes widely distributed networks trivial compared to doing it on earth. I dont know if it will be starlink but I do expect(hope) ground based telecom to go the way of floppy disks in the coming decades

Retric 2y ago
Unless you on a boat being in land is a huge advantage. 5G only needs ~10,000 towers to cover most people on the US. From there you scale density based on where people actually live. Satellites however move so you need to accept the network sucks in moderate density areas or you have vastly more coverage in low density areas than you need. Wired connections inherently provide a lot more bandwidth, and in dense urban environments the last mile isn’t a mile it’s within a building.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
  I think this is only kind of true. 10000 towers is a lot when you consider that probably half of them are in very low density areas. LEO based satellites are a really good way of covering the desolate areas (oceans, deserts, farm land with very low population density etc), and areas with medium density and lots of elevation changes that would mess with ground based coverage. Starlink was never going to work well for urban (or even sub-urban) areas, but airplanes, boats, and ~20% of the US population is nothing to scoff at.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Cell towers already exist to provide cellular service in low density areas. In general people expect service to be generally available not simply be available in cities and subdivisions. Some of that is provided for free when covering higher density areas which satellite networks like Starlink simply can’t handle at any kind of reasonable constellation size.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Can you site that number? It really doesn't pass the sniff test for me, unless the word "most" is doing some pretty heavy lifting. A quick search suggests that the range of a 5G tower, operating only at low/mid-band spectrum (so in other words, below peak speed - but at higher range) can only operate in the 1 to 3 mile range. [1] We'll say 2. That's an area of pi*2^2 = ~12.5 square miles, we'll say 13. The area of the US is 3.8 million square miles. So your number would provide coverage for (10,000 * 13) / 3.8 million = 3.4% of the US. That maybe enough to cover the most exceptionally dense urban locations, but you're missing a lot of people there. And, again, this is just for the low/mid-band stuff. And then you need to regularly maintain those towers. While you could get global coverage with relatively few satellites that can just be trivially remotely launched/decommissioned. A quick search there [2] turns up a current practical (not peak/theoretic) bandwidth for Starlink in the 100+ Mbps range + ~50ms latency. I have difficulty seeing a logical argument for ground based telecom, beside as a hedge against WW3 when probably the first thing that will happen is a huge chunk of all satellites going poof. [1] - https://dgtlinfra.com/cell-tower-range-how-far-reach/ https://dgtlinfra.com/cell-tower-range-how-far-reach/ [2] - https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-speed-tests-2023-vs-2022 https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-speed-tests-2023-vs-2022
  - Retric 2y ago
    Your first link says “On average, the maximum usable range of a cell tower is 25 miles.” Which is relevant because we aren’t trying to provide service just for high density areas. Before you ask if 10,000 * 2,000 = 20 million square miles is high, handoffs require you to be in range of multiple towers so there’s a lot of overlap and hills, ocean, etc that reduce useful range. Ultimately there’s 142,100 cell towers in the US, but that’s including density from urban areas and redundancy from multiple cell networks. Anyway, the point I was making was that Starlink is targeting low density areas by necessity they simply can’t target NYC density for any reasonable constellation size. However, if you’re a cellphone company and you’re already covering anywhere in the US with 50+people per square mile extending that to anywhere with 5+ or even 0.5+ people per square mile and killing Starlink just doesn’t take that may towers. https://www.benton.org/headlines/us-cell-towers-and-small-cells-numbers#:~:text=The%20Wireless%20Infrastructure%20Association%20(WIA,at%20the%20end%20of%202022.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ https://www.benton.org/headlines/us-cell-towers-and-small-ce...*
- lupusreal 2y ago
  > or you have vastly more coverage in low density areas than you need That's not really a problem, and is already the case over most of the world (particularly oceans.)
simiones 2y ago
Satellite internet is inherently a niche market. The physics simply don't allow for example good satellite coverage of even 10% of NYC, because you just can't get enough satellites flying over NYC at the same time to handle that much data. And there are limits to how much better you can make the individual satellites themselves, since you have a very limited heat budget in space, where you have to rely 100% on radiative cooling. So, for any square mile of land, you can have at most some small number of subscribers. Sure, you can cover a huge surface, but only with a very low density. Conversely, the vast majority of the world's population lives in huge clumps in small areas.
- ethagknight 2y ago
  Billions of people live in low density areas. Hundreds of millions live in NYC-type very high density areas. Satellite can still serve very high density, just at limited rates. Satellite internet is very far from niche. Starlink should (annd perhaps anlready do) approach commercial high rises with a single uplink for the building, shared through the building network. Even as a backup data system, still very valuable system.
  - venusenvy47 2y ago
    I don't think satellite is cost effective for high density areas. If you have enough subscribers in a given geographic location, it makes more sense to put up some cellular towers, which can be maintained by people on the ground.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Satellites really can’t provide coverage at full 1 acre lot suburbs level density let alone NYC level density. Starlink has ~1 million customers in the US from ~6,000 satellites so you’d think they could do 10x that with 10x the number of satellites. But much of the US is low enough density that their current constellation is already sufficient and effective bandwidth per satellite is maximum bandwidth * percentage of orbit in useful locations. Which means 10x satellites are closer to 3x useful bandwidth and it gets much worse the higher density you’re aiming for. Ahh you might think just offer lower bandwidth per customer in urban areas, but people will pay less as the bandwidth drops and Starlink is already fairly slow.

Retric 2y ago

Unless you on a boat being in land is a huge advantage. 5G only needs ~10,000 towers to cover most people on the US. From there you scale density based on where people actually live. Satellites however move so you need to accept the network sucks in moderate density areas or you have vastly more coverage in low density areas than you need. Wired connections inherently provide a lot more bandwidth, and in dense urban environments the last mile isn’t a mile it’s within a building.

adgjlsfhk1 2y ago
I think this is only kind of true. 10000 towers is a lot when you consider that probably half of them are in very low density areas. LEO based satellites are a really good way of covering the desolate areas (oceans, deserts, farm land with very low population density etc), and areas with medium density and lots of elevation changes that would mess with ground based coverage. Starlink was never going to work well for urban (or even sub-urban) areas, but airplanes, boats, and ~20% of the US population is nothing to scoff at.
- Retric 2y ago
  Cell towers already exist to provide cellular service in low density areas. In general people expect service to be generally available not simply be available in cities and subdivisions. Some of that is provided for free when covering higher density areas which satellite networks like Starlink simply can’t handle at any kind of reasonable constellation size.
somenameforme 2y ago
Can you site that number? It really doesn't pass the sniff test for me, unless the word "most" is doing some pretty heavy lifting. A quick search suggests that the range of a 5G tower, operating only at low/mid-band spectrum (so in other words, below peak speed - but at higher range) can only operate in the 1 to 3 mile range. [1] We'll say 2. That's an area of pi*2^2 = ~12.5 square miles, we'll say 13. The area of the US is 3.8 million square miles. So your number would provide coverage for (10,000 * 13) / 3.8 million = 3.4% of the US. That maybe enough to cover the most exceptionally dense urban locations, but you're missing a lot of people there. And, again, this is just for the low/mid-band stuff. And then you need to regularly maintain those towers. While you could get global coverage with relatively few satellites that can just be trivially remotely launched/decommissioned. A quick search there [2] turns up a current practical (not peak/theoretic) bandwidth for Starlink in the 100+ Mbps range + ~50ms latency. I have difficulty seeing a logical argument for ground based telecom, beside as a hedge against WW3 when probably the first thing that will happen is a huge chunk of all satellites going poof. [1] - https://dgtlinfra.com/cell-tower-range-how-far-reach/ https://dgtlinfra.com/cell-tower-range-how-far-reach/ [2] - https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-speed-tests-2023-vs-2022 https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-speed-tests-2023-vs-2022
- Retric 2y ago
  Your first link says “On average, the maximum usable range of a cell tower is 25 miles.” Which is relevant because we aren’t trying to provide service just for high density areas. Before you ask if 10,000 * 2,000 = 20 million square miles is high, handoffs require you to be in range of multiple towers so there’s a lot of overlap and hills, ocean, etc that reduce useful range. Ultimately there’s 142,100 cell towers in the US, but that’s including density from urban areas and redundancy from multiple cell networks. Anyway, the point I was making was that Starlink is targeting low density areas by necessity they simply can’t target NYC density for any reasonable constellation size. However, if you’re a cellphone company and you’re already covering anywhere in the US with 50+people per square mile extending that to anywhere with 5+ or even 0.5+ people per square mile and killing Starlink just doesn’t take that may towers. https://www.benton.org/headlines/us-cell-towers-and-small-cells-numbers#:~:text=The%20Wireless%20Infrastructure%20Association%20(WIA,at%20the%20end%20of%202022.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ https://www.benton.org/headlines/us-cell-towers-and-small-ce...*
lupusreal 2y ago
> or you have vastly more coverage in low density areas than you need That's not really a problem, and is already the case over most of the world (particularly oceans.)

simiones 2y ago

Satellite internet is inherently a niche market. The physics simply don't allow for example good satellite coverage of even 10% of NYC, because you just can't get enough satellites flying over NYC at the same time to handle that much data. And there are limits to how much better you can make the individual satellites themselves, since you have a very limited heat budget in space, where you have to rely 100% on radiative cooling. So, for any square mile of land, you can have at most some small number of subscribers. Sure, you can cover a huge surface, but only with a very low density. Conversely, the vast majority of the world's population lives in huge clumps in small areas.

ethagknight 2y ago
Billions of people live in low density areas. Hundreds of millions live in NYC-type very high density areas. Satellite can still serve very high density, just at limited rates. Satellite internet is very far from niche. Starlink should (annd perhaps anlready do) approach commercial high rises with a single uplink for the building, shared through the building network. Even as a backup data system, still very valuable system.
- venusenvy47 2y ago
  I don't think satellite is cost effective for high density areas. If you have enough subscribers in a given geographic location, it makes more sense to put up some cellular towers, which can be maintained by people on the ground.
- Retric 2y ago
  Satellites really can’t provide coverage at full 1 acre lot suburbs level density let alone NYC level density. Starlink has ~1 million customers in the US from ~6,000 satellites so you’d think they could do 10x that with 10x the number of satellites. But much of the US is low enough density that their current constellation is already sufficient and effective bandwidth per satellite is maximum bandwidth * percentage of orbit in useful locations. Which means 10x satellites are closer to 3x useful bandwidth and it gets much worse the higher density you’re aiming for. Ahh you might think just offer lower bandwidth per customer in urban areas, but people will pay less as the bandwidth drops and Starlink is already fairly slow.