[HN Gopher] Amazon's Kuiper responds to SpaceX on FCC request
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon's Kuiper responds to SpaceX on FCC request
Author : CapitalistCartr
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-02-07 17:55 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| jhowell wrote:
| Anyone know how obsolescence won't create space debris in this
| emerging competition.
| Jonanin wrote:
| This line says it all: Goldman highlighted that
| Amazon representatives have had "30 meetings to oppose SpaceX"
| but "no meetings to authorize its own system," which he
| interpreted as an attempt to stifle competition.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| That's unverified and coming from the SpaceX guy. I'm not sure
| it says it all.
| Jabbles wrote:
| How is Amazon planning to launch their satellites? Using Blue
| Origin?
| tectonic wrote:
| Project Kuiper is so far behind Starlink at this point that this
| kind of regulatory maneuvering is pretty laughable. (As compared
| to regulating the brightness of LEO satellites, which is very
| much needed. In this regard, allowing SpaceX to lower the orbit
| of these satellites is actually good for astronomy. We talk about
| this stuff pretty frequently in Orbital Index
| [https://orbitalindex.com].)
| ABeeSea wrote:
| The head of Kuiper and most of the senior team led Starlink
| until Musk allegedly fired them for moving too slow and being
| too cautious. So Amazon being operationally behind isn't
| exactly surprising.
|
| >Musk had fired at least seven members of the program's senior
| management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the
| culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team
| was developing and testing its Starlink satellites, according
| to the two SpaceX employees with direct knowledge of the
| situation.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/r-musk-shakes-up-spacex-in-r...
| brianwawok wrote:
| Gotta move at Musk speed, makes sense.
| meibo wrote:
| If anything, it seems to work out for him at SpaceX.
|
| Speed and latency measured with the Starlink beta/GA are
| unparalleled at the moment, yet to see if they worsen with
| an increase of userbase.
| ignoramous wrote:
| Could also be SpaceX trying to put a different spin on the
| story? Bezos might have poached them from right under Musk's
| nose for all we know.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Maybe, but my sense as an outsider was that Starlink was
| moving at a snail's pace and was essentially PR vaporware
| prior to these firings. Granted, there's a lot of
| engineering going on behind the scenes, but the timing is
| perhaps suggestive...
|
| Look at the timeline:
|
| Jan 2015 -- announce plans
|
| Jan 2017 -- Starlink trademarked
|
| Feb 2018 - test flight of two satellites
|
| May 2019 - Launch 60 of the v0.9 model
|
| June 2019 - fire 7 people
|
| Oct 2019 - this article
|
| Nov 2019 - Launch 60 of the v1.0 model
|
| 7 Jan 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| 29 Jan 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| 17 Feb 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| 18 Mar 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| 22 Apr 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| 04 Jun 2020 - 60 satellites launched
|
| etc.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
| qchris wrote:
| I know that SpaceX has historically had a abnormally high
| development and deployment cadence, but I think that your
| second point about behind-the-scenes development is
| probably closest to the mark.
|
| To me, it seems more plausible that they were taking a
| solid-not-polished design that's been mostly worked
| through for a few years, doing some team re-org and
| removing people who aren't working out, and then finished
| tweaking the design and got ready for scaling to higher
| production over the next few months than it does they
| were scraping by on the skin of their teeth for almost
| four years and suddenly managed to catch up on everything
| (and have it work!) in those same last few months.
|
| It's absolutely possible I'm wrong, but if the Starklink
| team truly managed a timeline of 6 months from
| "vaporware" to functionally the world's first mega-
| constellation, I'd be absolutely floored.
| m463 wrote:
| Where do:
|
| "Amazon representatives have had "30 meetings to oppose
| SpaceX" but "no meetings to authorize its own system""
|
| ... those 30 meetings fit into the timeline? :)
| snapcore wrote:
| If you just graph the launches that looks like R&D +
| production ramp-up.
| cozzyd wrote:
| I'm sure Starlink could try to purchase the regulatory
| allotments from Kuiper/Kepler/etc. if they so wanted.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You have it exactly backwards. Starlink is attempting to block
| competition by moving into orbits not assigned to it but which
| have been targeted by competitors. Starlink _had_ the option of
| using the lower orbit when it designed its system, and _chose
| not_ to even consider that orbit until Kuiper was announced.
|
| _Every other company in the space_ is opposed to this move,
| because Starlink 's unilateral reconfiguration would interfere
| with _nearly every other company 's operations._ Part of the
| FCC's mandate is to prevent that from occurring, and SpaceX
| absolutely deserves to be slapped down for its anticompetitive
| behavior.
| m463 wrote:
| Come on, starlink already has 1000 satellites in the lower
| orbit.
| drummer wrote:
| Typical Bezos tactics of trying to fuck the competition. Only
| this time, he has a formidable opponent and is going to crash and
| burn.
| [deleted]
| danpalmer wrote:
| SpaceX have demonstrated an orbital launch capability, satellite
| operation capability, satellite de-orbit capability, and
| scheduled launches in the near term. Amazon have none of these
| capabilities and barely even a plan to get there by the deadline
| in 6 years time.
|
| I'm sure both sides are as bad as each other on the competition
| aspect, after all it's Elon Musk and Amazon/Bezos, I can't
| imagine two worse people for that. But it does seem a little
| unfair that Amazon have barely any proven track record and could
| prevent SpaceX from furthering their very proven track record.
|
| Edit: as much as Blue Origin may play into the plans for this,
| they have not reached orbit, and do not have an operational
| rocket suitable for this (yet). Maybe Amazon have signed a deal
| for launches, but otherwise just being owned by the same
| eccentric billionaire shouldn't really suggest the ability for
| the company to pull it off.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Genuine question, related but not by a lot.
|
| How likely is it that Starlink and whatever amazon is planning
| will end up polluting space with satellite garbage that will
| make future missions difficult/impossible due to high velocity
| collisions?
| danpalmer wrote:
| My answer as an interested layman but not an expert:
|
| Yes this is a huge concern, which is why attention is being
| paid to how these satellites will de-orbit.
|
| Up to maybe 10 years ago satellites were just put up there
| and at best would move out of the way a bit when they reached
| end of life, but most would just stay. Plus lots of things
| were just discarded from mission, or lost accidentally,
| creating more junk. All of this made space junk a big and
| growing concern...
|
| However, now everyone is very aware, so satellites have de-
| orbiting built in (and I think this might be a legal
| requirement now), orbits may be chosen with ease of de-
| orbiting in mind, more care is taken to letting junk
| accumulate, several companies are working on clearup
| mechanisms, etc. All this may mean that the worst-case
| scenario doesn't ever actually play out, and it's not that
| big a deal in the long run.
|
| We'll have to wait and see, but there will be a lot of money
| behind making this as little of an issue as possible so that
| the space industry can really take off.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Not at all for Starlink. The orbits are low enough to decay
| within 5-10 years if they are left without station keeping.
| Remember, "space" does not start at the karman line, it is a
| continuous transition. Although, they have a license for
| satellites at ~1100 km altitude. Those would need active
| deorbiting.
|
| The Starlink satellites are also designed to completely burn
| up in the atmosphere. This is one of the reasons why the
| first generation does not have laser-links, that was
| supposedly the hardest part to design fulfilling that
| criteria.
|
| That's actually one of the advantages of their proposed
| lowering of the orbits, they need to think even less about
| end of life questions and redundancy.
|
| Edit: See here for the continuous sweeping happening at lower
| orbits.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/ld4vlq/gabbard_diagr.
| ..
| m463 wrote:
| They want to lower those satellites to ~550km which seems
| to me to be significantly less likely to leave space junk
| around.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| The Starlink sats are also specifically designed to be
| forcibly de-orbited at end-of-life, rather than remain as
| space junk for however long.[1]
|
| 1. starlink.com
| [deleted]
| cambalache wrote:
| OK, asking from total ignorance here, shouldnt the companies
| putting these things in orbit (and benefiting from it) be
| responsible for safely decommissioning the satellites after
| their useful life is over? Shouldnt they be liable if their
| "space garbage" fuck other people/nation equipment?
| wmf wrote:
| For most conventional satellites (and let's not forget
| second stages), the cost of deorbiting it if it fails is
| immense because it essentially requires launching a "tug"
| which didn't even exist until recently. Because it was so
| exepensive, people were allowed to ignore it. We'll
| probably eventually look back on this attitude the same way
| we view 1970s cars that didn't use known safety features.
|
| SpaceX is being forced to innovate in this area because
| everybody realized the YOLO attitude towards space junk
| doesn't scale to thousands of satellites.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Despite the strong responses already it's only been a recent
| development that Starlink requested all orbital shells be the
| 5 year decay orbit or lower (and that change still not
| approved yet). Assuming they go forward with that plan though
| even the worst case scenario is a relatively temporary
| problem - they've shown the satellites can move and de-orbit
| on command and when they don't the newly proposed highest
| shell is about a 5 year natural decay.
|
| Also it's not so much the concern about hitting a satellite
| on your way up (easy to track and space is spacey) rather the
| concern that over many years any 2 satellites in the shell
| will collide creating a lot of debris that could collide with
| more satellites in the shell and so on. That's why there are
| requirements about being able to move your satellites
| actively as part of these proposals, to prevent such a
| scenario from happening or growing if it did.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| > they've shown the satellites can move and de-orbit on
| command
|
| Are there cost weight savings if they can remove the fuel
| or equipment needed to force a deoribit? So if a sat dies
| on day one they can just shrug and say it will burn up in 5
| years.
|
| Or can they induce drag without extra equipment?
| zamadatix wrote:
| Technically yes, as long as it will de-orbit in less than
| 25 years you don't need to. That being said not being
| able to de-orbit on command or maneuver out of a
| collision course is going to make getting tens of
| thousands of such satellites approved much less likely.
|
| Also they are used as part of the normal operation of the
| satellites anyways, ~60 are launched together in one big
| clump and then the ion thrusters get them into the
| individual target orbits and keep them there over time
| (until fuel runs out trying to keep the orbit on track or
| the satellite stops being operationally useful), so
| getting rid of it does make it lighter but not
| necessarily better suited.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've written this before: Jeff Bezos has a hobby, Elon Musk is
| a man on a mission. Bezos doesn't live or die depending on how
| his space venture pans out, he's not hungry for it.
|
| To Elon Musk everything he's done in his life so far has been
| so that he could eventually do this space thing and that is
| what defines him. The two couldn't be more different. For Elon
| failure is not an option, for Bezos it very much is.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Is that actually true? Because if I were Elon Musk that is
| the image I would want people to think of me - I'm sure he is
| ideologically motivated in where be builds his businesses but
| it seems to be popular to ascribe considerable virtue to
| someone who can be rather unvirtuous when pushed.
| danielheath wrote:
| What makes "I want to launch rockets and am obsessed with
| doing it" a particularly virtuous assessment?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Because no hackernews thread about an Elon company is
| complete with either straight up religious worship of
| Elon or brushing away potentially legitimate concerns
| about his businesses - and this isn't even including the
| inevitable "Tesla isn't a car company" in any thread
| where Tesla is compared to any other company that sells
| cars
|
| As far as reality distortion fields go, I don't think
| it's that bad, but with these kinds of things I am firmly
| in the "don't trust; verify twice" camp.
| yumraj wrote:
| Just because Bezos didn't tweet publicly doesn't mean that he
| too is not a man with a mission.
|
| Everything he has achieved with Amazon very much seems to
| imply otherwise.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Bezos has a very large amount of unallocated capital, which
| means that if he had a mission, he could move a lot faster
| on it. Musk has none, in fact, has heavily bet the farm
| more than once in pursuit of his stated mission. If Bezos
| has a mission I can not find what it is based on his
| actions. If I didn't know what Musk's mission was I could
| make a pretty good stab at it based on his actions so far.
| themgt wrote:
| Yeah I have no way to assess the credibility of Amazon vs.
| SpaceX claims. But Amazon has not 6 but less than 5.5 years to
| get 1600 sats into orbit and they don't have a rocket to put
| them on. Blue Origin still hasn't been able to build two
| flight-worthy BE-4 engines for ULA to launch a Vulcan. Then
| they need 7 more engines and finish up the rest of New Glenn,
| LC-36 and their barge and do their first ever successful
| orbital flight. There's almost zero chance that will happen
| within the next 12 months, and if anything goes wrong could
| easily be into 2023. Blue Origin will then have optimistically
| ~4.5 years to become the second-largest launch provider.
|
| It's worth noting there's bad blood in the general space
| community already after Blue tried to stop SpaceX from doing
| barge landings, attempted to also take over pad 39A vs SpaceX
| even though Blue has nothing to launch, their $10 billion HLS
| "40 foot ladder" proposal and Bezos infamous "Congrats @SpaceX
| on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the
| club!" back 6 years ago gives a general gist of why Bezos'
| claims are being treated with skepticism by many.
| https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/679116636310360067
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| > eccentric billionaire
|
| Looking at richest people of the world right now, none of them
| strike as eccentric.
|
| Average plumber or musician is order of magnitude more
| eccentric or radical.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| I don't see how this addresses any of the concerns brought up
| in the article. This entire spat is because SpaceX got approval
| from the FCC to deploy their system in a specific way, and
| Amazon acknowledged that and designed their system in a way to
| not interfere with SpaceX. Now SpaceX is coming and saying they
| want to change their system in a way to interfere with Amazon.
|
| Forget the names of the companies and their leaders for a
| second. We have a shared public resource, like a pond. Company
| A showed up and says "I am going to set up shop on this side of
| the pond, and we will leave the rest of the pond open for other
| people to use." Company B then says "okay, we are going to set
| up shop on the other side of the pond so we don't interfere
| with each other." Company A then says "no, we actually want to
| use that side of the pond, too. too bad for you".
|
| In what universe is Company A in the right here, and why does
| it matter who gets there first? It's clearly anti-competitive
| practice on the part of Company A trying to shut out Company B,
| and the only people who will suffer from it are the general
| public.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| Secondary comment: SpaceX's behavior in this instance is not
| unlike every other ISP in America engaging in anti-
| competitive behavior to keep newcomers out. Remember when
| Google Fiber was rolling out and tried to use fiber/utility
| poles in a way that allowed ISPs to share public utility
| poles? But then ATT pitched a fit [1, 2] saying "actually we
| don't want Google Fiber to do that because it could possibly
| harm our business in some unspecified and vague way",
| basically killing the expansion of Fiber [3]? And who
| suffered? All of us unlucky Americans who are now stuck with
| exorbitant prices for ridiculous internet plans from ATT
| because we don't have any other options.
|
| We already have an absolutely terrible oligopoly of wired
| ISPs, do we really want to start down this path of allowing
| the same to happen for space-based internet, too?
|
| 1: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160923/06590635601/att
| -s...
|
| 2: https://www.slashgear.com/att-files-lawsuit-to-hinder-
| google...
|
| 3: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215743/google-fiber-
| leav...
| jacquesm wrote:
| And then there is the little detail that this is being
| decided for the whole world but actually just benefits one,
| possibly two companies from the United States. Space
| belongs to all of us, not just to the USA.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Yeah, it's not clear to me why the FCC (and not ITU or
| some multinational body) has jurisdiction here. What
| remedy would Musk have if Russia decided to launch
| CosmosNet or whatever that was interfering?
| tidepod12 wrote:
| The ITU does have jurisdiction. Since SpaceX (and Amazon)
| are US companies, they work with the FCC, who then works
| with the ITU on behalf of SpaceX/Amazon.
| cozzyd wrote:
| This is tangential, but you seem like you know a lot
| about this :).
|
| How come I can't easily find a registry of the
| UP/DL/Beacon transmission frequencies for every
| satellite. Am I just not looking in the right place? I
| can find various hobbyist's catalogs, but nothing that
| looks remotely official. Any satellite with downlinks
| between 30 MHz and 1.2 GHz is potentially useful for
| helping to calibrate one or more of the radio neutrino
| experiments I work on.
| jcrawfordor wrote:
| For partially historic and partially current reasons,
| detailed satellite catalogs are considered militarily
| sensitive to some degree... not to a huge extent, but to
| such an extent that it's prevented the formation of an
| open, international coordinating system for satellites,
| keeping most of the coordination work done behind closed
| doors. The closest thing to an "official" international
| satellite catalog would probably be that maintained by
| USSTRATCOM but it's post-facto. UN Space Affairs
| facilitates coordination and has a catalog but it does
| not pretend to be complete and has only limited
| information.
|
| A good source of downlink information is the FCC
| International Bureau records of satellite ground stations
| in the US.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Yeah I can find TLE catalogs easily enough (celestrack
| and space-track) and it seems NORAD IDs are an almost
| standard. The FCC ground station list that I can find has
| some of them, but lacks a lot of notable ones (NOAA
| satellites, MUOS, Gonets...).
| bpodgursky wrote:
| How long is an appropriate window for Amazon to lock down
| orbital slots without a solid plan to use it?
|
| I can understand a year or two, especially if they have
| orbital capacity ready. But six years?
|
| The space could provisionally be granted to SpaceX with a 15
| year renewal period or something. Locking down options for a
| decade on wishful thinking does not seem particularly
| competitive for me.
| tidepod12 wrote:
| In 2017 SpaceX was granted a window to "lock down" its
| proposed slots for 9 years to prevent others from taking
| those slots, and that was years before they even had a
| single satellite flying. I don't see why Amazon shouldn't
| be given the same treatment.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| SpaceX was launching large batches of satellites by 2019,
| two years later! And even in 2017, they had proven mass
| launch capacity.
|
| Yes, sure, give Amazon the same treatment. Start orbiting
| large numbers of satellites in 2022 or you lose it.
| cozzyd wrote:
| It's six years to deploy half of the planned satellites,
| which would assuredly imply the first satellites go
| significantly before that.
|
| Also, it's not like the FCC should be allowed to take it
| back, even if 6 years is unreasonable.
| tpmx wrote:
| Not exactly sure about the RF details here (probably very few
| people are), but, as a theoretical exercise, should we really
| allow the first mover to just grab what's available? Why?
| wmf wrote:
| When new satellite services emerged previously, the FCC had a
| policy of requiring two competitors (DirecTV vs. Dish and XM
| vs. Sirius). It would be nice to continue that with Starlink
| vs. Kuiper but as a layman the wranglings are too obscure for
| me to follow. Both companies are accusing each other of the
| exact same things and apparently nobody in the press is
| qualified to have an opinion so they just teach the
| controversy.
| maxharris wrote:
| > grab what's available
|
| This isn't a fair characterization. In order to have knowledge
| of something, you need more than theory: you need to validate
| your idea with observed experience. The first person to
| actually achieve something, demonstrated by an existence proof,
| can in most cases be said to have gone through both steps.
|
| The second part of this is that individual rights guarantees
| that innovators are free to achieve ("the sky's the limit" is
| out of date"). Innovators do this for their own benefit, as
| they should. As a side effect, the rest of us also benefit
| enormously! There are a lot of people in rural areas stuck with
| incredibly poor internet service, via HughesNet or DSL, and
| Starlink is a massive boon to us. It's amazing to pull 150 Mbps
| on the side of a mountain or on the open ocean...
|
| Why is it just that Bezos take a backseat here? Without the
| pioneering achievements from SpaceX, Bezos wouldn't have the
| certainty that such a network is even possible. Over the past
| two decades, many, many ventures have gone bankrupt trying to
| achieve what SpaceX has done.
|
| SpaceX has earned its success, and Bezos shouldn't be allowed
| to run to the government to kneecap his competitor.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Why is it just that Bezos take a backseat here? Without the
| pioneering achievements from SpaceX, Bezos wouldn't have the
| certainty that such a network is even possible. Over the past
| two decades, many, many ventures have gone bankrupt trying to
| achieve what SpaceX has done.
|
| That's all irrelevant to the consumer, 20 years down the
| line.
|
| What I see: Two tycoons battling it out. It doesn't really
| matter that one of them is a (very clear) follower in this
| field; competition is crucial in the long term.
|
| > SpaceX has earned its success
|
| That's not how this works. The frequency spectrum is a common
| good. The FCC exists for a reason.
| yokem55 wrote:
| Because everyone else who has tried has gone bankrupt or has to
| limit the service in utterly crappy ways? Starlink is only
| economically and technically viable because SpaceX can build
| and launch high numbers of satellites cheaply enough to
| bootstrap a sustainable and desirable product. Limiting the
| scalability of Starlink to make room for a competitor would in
| the long run make both suck. Now, sclerotic and poor performing
| monopolies also suck, but for now at least, Starlink is the
| rapidly improving disruptor.
| tpmx wrote:
| > Now, sclerotic and poor performing monopolies also suck,
| but for now at least, Starlink is the rapidly improving
| disruptor.
|
| _for now at least_
|
| Please think more long term.
| friedman23 wrote:
| Yes, thinking long term, handicapping spacex in the short
| term is bad for the advancement of technology in the long
| term.
| yokem55 wrote:
| In the long run, we're all dead. So let's say we hold back
| the scaling of Starlink to make sure there is room for
| future competition. That _might_ make for a _somewhat_
| better future. It also might just stifle the whole project
| in it 's cradle.
| tpmx wrote:
| > In the long run, we're all dead.
|
| Okay, so think 10, 20 and 40 years from now.
|
| > So let's say we hold back the scaling of Starlink to
| make sure there is room for future competition. That
| might make for a somewhat better future. It also might
| just stifle the whole project in it's cradle.
|
| I guess here is where credible EE/RF journalism would be
| desirable. You don't know (and I don't know) but you want
| to stop this because it might maybe hurt Starlink too
| much.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| If it's a problem in 10, 20 or 40 years, we can deal with
| it then. The anti-trust tools are there. Also the current
| LEO satellites de-orbit in 5-10 years, so the concern is
| moot if Amazon actually gets their stuff together.
| Seanambers wrote:
| From a more strategic viewpoint ;
|
| If you assume SpaceX tech gets copied and reuse becomes
| the norm for rockets then Starlink would face
| competition. Over time the costs would fall both with
| regards to launches but also in the satellite part of it,
| meaning Starlink competitors would be able to do it for
| less.
|
| Slowing Spacex/Starlink now would only serve the help
| their competitors and punish a first mover.
|
| But on the EE/RF side of it i have no idea what arguments
| are legit and so forth tbh.
| tpmx wrote:
| If the Starlink business model depends on them having a
| monopoly of this kind of service - it shouldn't be a
| privately owned service. Hopefully it can stay private
| though - that typically allows for much greater
| development velocities. Maybe we just need to trust the
| FCC to do the right thing? :/
|
| I want to know more about the RF issues involved here
| though.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Why would we want to have 3-5 competitors for same thing tho?
| That would just make 10x more expensive for everyone.
|
| Same with cellular networks. There's some theoretical sharing,
| but in practice we're covering same area 3x times at 3x slower
| total bandwidth...
|
| Some governments are starting to realise this is huge ripoff
| and start their own networks with MVNO's, similar how
| copper/fibre telco's and power companies are have been sorted
| for decades. Unsure why space should be different. Sat tech is
| reasonably simple, it's just launch cost where competition is
| at. Same way the only competitior between cell network
| operators is tower installation (third party) and support
| (abhorrent).
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| Regardless of these quarrels among competitors, Starlink is doing
| impressive things. From the website[1]: Starlink
| is now delivering initial beta service both domestically
| and internationally, and will continue expansion to near global
| coverage of the populated world in 2021.
|
| They're also going to minimize their contribution to space junk:
| At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board
| propulsion system to deorbit over the course of a few
| months. In the unlikely event the propulsion system becomes
| inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth's atmosphere
| within 1-5 years, significantly less than the hundreds or
| thousands of years required at higher altitudes.
|
| Also interesting is that they're using "ion thrusters powered by
| krypton" and claim this is the first spacecraft to use this
| propulsion method.
|
| If they can boost data transfer speed from 40-60Mb/s currently to
| N gigabits/second, perhaps will provide stiff competition to
| conventional cell carriers.
|
| These are exciting times.
|
| 1. https://www.starlink.com/
| mdasen wrote:
| It probably won't provide competition to cell carriers for a
| few reasons. Starlink's equipment is large and needs a direct
| view of the sky. Their app needs to take photos of where you're
| positioning the receiver/transmitter to make sure there are no
| obstructions. The fact that they're using satellites means that
| they can get very broad coverage, but between the fact that
| it's satellite and the fact that they're using very high
| frequency spectrum means that it requires line-of-sight.
|
| From what I can see, Starlink is using a lot more power to
| transmit than cell phones are really capable of given the
| battery constraints.
|
| I think the more likely possibility is Starlink offering
| backhaul for rural cell sites where it might be cost
| prohibitive to run fiber. However, I'm not sure it would be
| more cost effective to use satellite backhaul than terrestrial
| microwave or fiber. Satellites aren't cheap, but who knows.
|
| In terms of boosting the data transfer speed, that won't be
| simple. Terrestrial wireless (like cell carriers) can offer
| good speeds because each cell tower is covering a very limited
| area. If you're 20 miles away from me, we'll be connecting to
| different cell towers and therefore can use the same radio
| spectrum without interfering with each other. With satellites,
| a lot more people will be sharing the same radio spectrum. Now,
| I'm sure Starlink is operating under the idea that they can
| launch lots of satellites and get decent spectrum re-use.
| However, cell carriers have around 80,000 cell sites each.
| Starlink is only planning on launching 10,000-15,000 and hoping
| to get permission to get up to 30,000. That still means a lot
| more sharing of the same spectrum.
|
| You can get higher speed by using more spectrum. However, that
| spectrum needs to be licensed, it isn't always cheap, and other
| people want to license it too. The way that the gigabit speeds
| from wireless carriers work is by using many hundreds of MHz of
| spectrum that can't go very far (because it gets disrupted by
| things like buildings, trees, etc.). Lower frequency spectrum
| can go further (since it penetrates objects better), but
| there's a pretty limited amount of it and most of it is already
| spoken for (whether that's TV, FM radio, current wireless
| service, etc.).
|
| I think Starlink will provide a good option for many people who
| don't live in areas well-served by current internet options.
| It's a huge jump to believe that it will offer competition to
| cell carriers. It just isn't that type of technology and you
| run into limits that you can't really get around.
|
| That's not to say that Starlink isn't important. It is
| important for many people who don't have access to good
| internet in the US and around the world, but it isn't going to
| provide competition for your cell phone provider.
| m463 wrote:
| What about vehicle links currently using cellular?
|
| I'm just waiting for tesla cars to all have starlink instead
| of (or in addition to LTE).
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 95% of miles are urban where you 90% of time you've got
| LTE. What's the use case for Starlink in cars?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-07 23:01 UTC)