3 ms·

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 whe

by 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...*
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    "Usable" is going to mean at the max possible wavelength. The problem with telecoms is that there's a physics imposed inverse relationship between frequency (speed) and wavelength (penetration/distance). So it's not like computing where we basically have gotten a free lunch with stuff that goes faster, runs cooler, and takes up less space. Each upgrade with telecoms entails a sacrifice. You can have really fast signals that can't go far and have difficulty penetrating obstacles like walls/buildings/hills/etc, or you can have really far reaching and high penetrating signals that can't go fast. So for instance Verizon's max speed towers can only reach 1500 feet [1], so I think my estimate of ~2 miles was a pretty reasonable meet in the middle. All that said I agree with you in principle. Obviously space based telecoms are much better for less populated areas than heavily populated, but I'd argue that that space based can scale much more easily. The ground based telecoms aren't just those 140k towers, but also the other 450k nodes on top. And that's to cover a pretty small geographic area. And each of those nodes not only needs land and construction permits, but they also need to be be regularly maintained, and so on. It's a pretty big deal. For space based coverage, you can just launch your satellites from Texas and have them providing coverage on the other side of the world in a matter of minutes. Put another way - imagine we were creating a civilization from scratch and these technologies were all 'unlocked.' I don't think we'd be using ground based stuff much at all. In the present when the infrastructure already exists, there's no reason not to take advantage of it, but in general it just doesn't scale so well. [1] - https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-far-does-5g-reach https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-far-does-5g-reach
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.)

by Retric 2y ago

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...*
- somenameforme 2y ago
  "Usable" is going to mean at the max possible wavelength. The problem with telecoms is that there's a physics imposed inverse relationship between frequency (speed) and wavelength (penetration/distance). So it's not like computing where we basically have gotten a free lunch with stuff that goes faster, runs cooler, and takes up less space. Each upgrade with telecoms entails a sacrifice. You can have really fast signals that can't go far and have difficulty penetrating obstacles like walls/buildings/hills/etc, or you can have really far reaching and high penetrating signals that can't go fast. So for instance Verizon's max speed towers can only reach 1500 feet [1], so I think my estimate of ~2 miles was a pretty reasonable meet in the middle. All that said I agree with you in principle. Obviously space based telecoms are much better for less populated areas than heavily populated, but I'd argue that that space based can scale much more easily. The ground based telecoms aren't just those 140k towers, but also the other 450k nodes on top. And that's to cover a pretty small geographic area. And each of those nodes not only needs land and construction permits, but they also need to be be regularly maintained, and so on. It's a pretty big deal. For space based coverage, you can just launch your satellites from Texas and have them providing coverage on the other side of the world in a matter of minutes. Put another way - imagine we were creating a civilization from scratch and these technologies were all 'unlocked.' I don't think we'd be using ground based stuff much at all. In the present when the infrastructure already exists, there's no reason not to take advantage of it, but in general it just doesn't scale so well. [1] - https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-far-does-5g-reach https://www.verizon.com/about/news/how-far-does-5g-reach

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.)