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It’s not going to work inside buildings, and they would need to charge you a fairly astronomical fee per minute. However, a Starlink mini dish can let you chea
by Retric 2y ago
It’s not going to work inside buildings, and they would need to charge you a fairly astronomical fee per minute.
However, a Starlink mini dish can let you cheaply make calls from basically anywhere with some minor setup.
- christophilus 2y ago> astronomical fee
- inglor_cz 2y agoCompared to what? Traditional satellite phone corporations used to charge something like 8 USD/min.
- Retric 2y agoCompared to leveraging the existing cellular networks and using satellites for rare edge cases. ~8$/minute or say 1$/minute averages out to a more reasonable number when less than 5% of calls use it.
- inglor_cz 2y agoNot for somebody whose job is outside the existing networks, such as sailors.
- Retric 2y agoSailors can make calls using the ships Wi-Fi via full sized Starlink dishes, they need coverage on land. But even ignoring that the contention is low in the middle of the ocean and satellites have hardware either way, driving down the market rate for calls at sea.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoThe setup cost for Starlink on a boat is still massively higher than on land.
- dasv 2y agoYes, but compared to the setup for equivalent satellite services it is very cheap. The Inmarsat antennas need active compensation and they sit inside big radomes, while the Starlink antennas are smaller and do not need to move thanks to being phased arrays. The bandwidth, latency and stability that Starlink has is also leagues better than geosynch based solutions, for a much lower monthly price. Even without considering the better performance, the price makes it viable now to have a internet connections in places it did not make financial sense before.
- Retric 2y ago250$/month gets you 50GB/month on the open ocean and unlimited on waterways, higher demand is cheaper per GB ex: 1TB for 1,000$/month. https://www.starlink.com/boats https://www.starlink.com/boats Calls are ~0.75 MB/minute allowing a 24/7 conversion for for a full month for 250$, or more realistically mostly sending other kinds of data and a sub cent per minute opportunity cost for using that data on calls. The actual hardware installation is relatively trivial compared to operating a boat.
- throwaway2037 2y agoIs the reason that Starlink charges so much more for boats is low competition? Or is there something obviously much more complex / expensive about beaming gigs of data from space over the ocean vs land? I don't write this post with any spite; I am genuinely curious.
- Spooky23 2y agoIt’s priced based on value. 8oz of Coke costs vary at a supermarket shelf, gas station and an airplane.
- jcims 2y agoTerrestrial fees
- vdfs 2y agoHope there are no hidden Extra Terrestrial fees
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoLEO fees?
- tomjen3 2y agoI think OP is pointing out the pun in this case.
- bt1a 2y agoI concur, and I appreciate the pun :)
- ubj 2y agoYep, definitely beyond sky-high prices :)
- moffkalast 2y agoWell it's n̵o̵t̵ rocket science.
- ChocolateGod 2y agoCould Starlink receivers not act as a mesh like network and broadcast LTE themselves, gaining inside coverage.
- Retric 2y agoStarlink is used in low density areas. You could setup LTE towers at a remote mine and use Starlink for the back haul, but for their customers using WiFi calling gives the same benefit without extra hardware.
- User23 2y agoMy 5g doesn't work inside of many buildings.
- dotBen 2y agoDefinitely on T Mobile, then
- Scoundreller 2y agobecause providers retain their more penetrating frequencies on the 3G or 4G signal to maintain universal coverage keeping the close-by phones on 5G to ease congestion and letting the fringe sit on 3G or 4G makes sense
- bilsbie 2y agoCould future versions work in buildings? What’s the issue there? Just that it’s father away than a cell tower is?
- 0xffff2 2y agoStarlink signals are essentially line of sight right now. The bump up in power to penetrate even a single layer of drywall is almost certainly way outside the power budget of a Starlink satellite.
- jazzyjackson 2y agoWhether a material is opaque to it. Buildings are transparent to lower frequency radio. Imagine that the satellites transmitted in visible light, doesnt really matter how powerful it is if you're in a room with no windows.
- vodkapump 2y agoThe inside buildings part would be mostly solved with VoWiFi. At least anywhere with a network you'd be comfortable connecting to.