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I wonder if we should just pass a bill that requires Starlink or Amazon Leo to use 0.5% of their bandwidth for low quality (but higher than radio) free access t

I wonder if we should just pass a bill that requires Starlink or Amazon Leo to use 0.5% of their bandwidth for low quality (but higher than radio) free access to Inet Radio streams in some special way. Then start building out the infra in vehicles.

woodruffw 11mo ago
There are plenty of places in the US that don't have reliable satellite access either (not because of orbital coverage, but because of geographic features like mountains/deep valleys). (And these aren't remote/unpopulated areas: you can find plenty of satellite dead zones 2-3 hours outside of NYC in the Catskills.)
- MostlyStable 11mo ago
  Honestly curious: how many of those satellite dead-zones have good radio coverage? In my various times driving places, I've often lost radio signal in a sufficiently remote place where I 100% would have had satellite coverage. Those same features that can block satellite will also block (some kinds of) radio, if you don't have a broadcast tower at the top of the ridge or something. Yes, I agree that satellite coverage is not 100%. But neither is radio.
  - woodruffw 11mo ago
    It's definitely a mixed bag, but the areas I'm thinking of have decent FM radio coverage (from local stations that affiliate with public radio). AM coverage tends to be good regardless. I've had the same experience as you around remote places, but those places were generally the flat-and-desolate kind :-)
  - slumberlust 11mo ago
    Most towns have the repeater(s). They are cheap and easy to maintain.
  - xp84 11mo ago
    I think the idea is that the sats relay a signal to radio stations including remote ones. It's the radio stations who are in charge of situating their reception equipment where it can see the sat, and also for figuring out how to best broadcast to their served area (e.g. AM and/or FM? Tower height, power, setting up some translator stations on a different frequency to serve outlying areas, giving the feed to local cable systems to be sent with TV service, etc.)
- mrandish 11mo ago
  > because of geographic features like mountains/deep valleys I remember this being quite an issue trying to target geosync broadcast satellites like DirectTV/Dish. Even being in the shadow of a relatively small hill could block access if your location and local topology happened to create an unfortunate alignment. I've naively assumed Starlink's rotating constellation of thousands of LEO satellites reduces how often this is an issue - but maybe it doesn't?
  - iso1631 11mo ago
    Starlink has other issues. I have locations in London I can get to specific geostationary satellites, but can't use starlink there as there isn't much sky coverage
kulahan 11mo ago
Seems like a really expensive solution to an already-solved problem.
fckgw 11mo ago
Or we just continue to use the infrastructure that we already have and works?
- almosthere 11mo ago
  Because... it does not work, I want 100% access to any audio stream. I get garbled crap on terrestrial.

woodruffw 11mo ago

There are plenty of places in the US that don't have reliable satellite access either (not because of orbital coverage, but because of geographic features like mountains/deep valleys). (And these aren't remote/unpopulated areas: you can find plenty of satellite dead zones 2-3 hours outside of NYC in the Catskills.)

MostlyStable 11mo ago
Honestly curious: how many of those satellite dead-zones have good radio coverage? In my various times driving places, I've often lost radio signal in a sufficiently remote place where I 100% would have had satellite coverage. Those same features that can block satellite will also block (some kinds of) radio, if you don't have a broadcast tower at the top of the ridge or something. Yes, I agree that satellite coverage is not 100%. But neither is radio.
- woodruffw 11mo ago
  It's definitely a mixed bag, but the areas I'm thinking of have decent FM radio coverage (from local stations that affiliate with public radio). AM coverage tends to be good regardless. I've had the same experience as you around remote places, but those places were generally the flat-and-desolate kind :-)
- slumberlust 11mo ago
  Most towns have the repeater(s). They are cheap and easy to maintain.
- xp84 11mo ago
  I think the idea is that the sats relay a signal to radio stations including remote ones. It's the radio stations who are in charge of situating their reception equipment where it can see the sat, and also for figuring out how to best broadcast to their served area (e.g. AM and/or FM? Tower height, power, setting up some translator stations on a different frequency to serve outlying areas, giving the feed to local cable systems to be sent with TV service, etc.)
mrandish 11mo ago
> because of geographic features like mountains/deep valleys I remember this being quite an issue trying to target geosync broadcast satellites like DirectTV/Dish. Even being in the shadow of a relatively small hill could block access if your location and local topology happened to create an unfortunate alignment. I've naively assumed Starlink's rotating constellation of thousands of LEO satellites reduces how often this is an issue - but maybe it doesn't?
- iso1631 11mo ago
  Starlink has other issues. I have locations in London I can get to specific geostationary satellites, but can't use starlink there as there isn't much sky coverage

kulahan 11mo ago

Seems like a really expensive solution to an already-solved problem.

fckgw 11mo ago

Or we just continue to use the infrastructure that we already have and works?

almosthere 11mo ago
Because... it does not work, I want 100% access to any audio stream. I get garbled crap on terrestrial.