[HN Gopher] Starlink direct-to-cell enabled for hurricane helene...
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Starlink direct-to-cell enabled for hurricane helene emergency
messaging
Author : nynx
Score : 97 points
Date : 2024-10-06 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| caseyy wrote:
| This is what the future of communication looks like. It's really
| a massive step forward. No one will have to die from exposure
| when their cars break down, no planes will go missing, and no
| more black spots in natural disasters. It is also quite dignified
| and civilised that we are using this technology first to help the
| most vulnerable.
|
| Communication is and has always been an important element in
| human organisation. Imagine if corrupt governments could no
| longer shut down the internet and cell service. Even a world war
| probably wouldn't disrupt this. People will be really empowered
| by this technology, we just need more competition in this space.
| But one step at a time.
|
| Also: simmer down Elon fans and haters, this is not only about
| Elon. Look at the bigger, global picture.
| asynchronous wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment but LEO constellations like Starlink
| can and have been disrupted, via sub-orbital jamming. Not to
| mention that in actual large conflict surface to LEO missiles
| will simply destroy large amounts of satellite constellations.
| panick21_ wrote:
| No government currently exists that has nearly enough rockets
| to impact Starlink. There is a big difference between doing
| individual tests and taking down a constellation of 1000s.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Starlink is supposedly harder to jam than typical satellite
| comms due to its use of phased array communication. IIRC you
| need to either be flying overhead or putting out a ton more
| power in a ground based jammer to be effective.
|
| And as the other user mentioned, no country at the moment has
| the kind of stockpile of ASAT weapons needed to wipe the
| constellation (plus, due to orbital dynamics, there's a limit
| to how quickly they can take out satellites).
|
| Between trying to wipe the constellation and jamming it, it'd
| be far more cost effective to jam even accounting for the
| higher power requirements/lower jamming range.
|
| There would also be other interesting options like capturing
| and using enough terminals to force the entire cell to be
| disabled. That has been one of the challenges SpaceX has had
| to deal with near the frontlines in Ukraine.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| You can build a Faraday cage with a hole in the roof and
| starlink will be mostly unjammable.
| throw73391073 wrote:
| Starlink satellites are vulnerable to repeated uplink
| transmitting their preamble code (which is public and the
| same across any user terminal). The satellites are so
| tuned to that code you can jam them through their receive
| sidelobes.. taking out all beams on the satellite.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Won't you need n jammers = n satellites in view for this?
| I haven't seen anyone commit to investing in this.
| throw73391073 wrote:
| A single omnidirectional transmitter on the ground can
| transmit this one preamble code in all directions and it
| jams all satellites in view. All Starlink satellites use
| the same uplink code and they can't change it because
| it's how new terminals enter the network.
| bagels wrote:
| You could use a phased array to target each of them
| rapidly
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Agree with all of that, except the world war part. Satellites
| will definitely be fair game in world war 3... probably one of
| the first targets.
|
| Ham radio will live on!
| caseyy wrote:
| I don't know - would we risk Kessler Syndrome for a war? Win
| a piece of land and doom humanity for a hundred years of
| regress in space? Maybe, probably can't be ruled out.
|
| As for jamming, is it feasible or practical to jam very large
| parts of the world? I can't imagine it would be. It seems to
| me like jamming would probably be used for specific military
| purposes and people would be left alone to communicate with
| each other otherwise.
|
| It's not that I'm saying this could not be done. It could.
| But this is not the most likely scenario in my head. The
| immense benefit to all humanity is a very likely scenario, in
| contrast.
|
| LoRa is another equally exciting technology that has a lot of
| potential in all the spaces I mentioned. I just can't
| currently imagine a reason it would go mass-market.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Of course we would. And anyway the Starlink constellation
| is low enough that even destroying the whole constellation
| would have a minimal impact after a decade.
| throw9474 wrote:
| The new "Iron Dome in Space" weapons program relies on
| Starlink being untouchable,
|
| http://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1eu994l/m
| usk...
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It's just a war game by a think-tank, not US policy or
| anything. Starlink would be the backbone of any
| autonomous swarm invasion, of course it would be the
| first thing to be targeted in a near peer war.
| throw234904 wrote:
| Um.. orbital Iron Dome is literally #8 on the GOP
| Platform for 2024: (almost certainly Starlink-based)
|
| https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican
| -pa...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| With how close to earth Starlink satellites fly, it won't
| take hundreds of years. Without the occasional boost back
| into orbit, it'll only take a couple of years for them to
| fall back to earth. Same with most spy satellites. We can
| do without space internet for a few decades if we blow up
| several of these constellations.
|
| As for further-away satellites (Iridium etc.), that's a
| bigger risk, but there aren't that many that make sense to
| target in a war.
| mattashii wrote:
| > it won't take hundreds of years
|
| Maybe not for Starlink itself, but its debris may be
| eccentric enough to hit satellites in higher orbits, thus
| causing an upward cascade of collisions resulting in
| debris clouds that do have a real possibility of
| remaining in orbit for many times the debris of Starlink.
| wazer5 wrote:
| Precisely
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| Energetic collisions can send debris on higher orbits
| with significant longer time to decays. It all depends on
| kinetic energy added
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| If pieces got bumped into a higher apogee wouldn't their
| orbit end up with a lower perigee as well? If so I think
| that might actually be better for deorbiting quickly
| throw9474 wrote:
| Diffuse debris while at higher orbit can take out
| satellites in those higher orbits (like Iridium, Kuiper,
| etc..)
| croes wrote:
| The same type that risks a nuclear war would easily risk
| Kessler Syndrome.
|
| And don't forget there are people who think their god would
| protect them.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| While I really really hope no one would be that stupid as
| to risk a Kessler syndrome... I think it's really likely in
| a very specific situation:
|
| A non-space-dominant power (so not Russia/China/USA) gets
| into a tiff with someone using satellites. This player does
| have access to at least the vaguest concept of a ballistic
| missile. They take said missile and program it to fly into
| space (as most beyond the tactical level do), and detonate.
|
| Nuclear or not, they don't even have to hit _the_
| satellite, they just have to throw up shrapnel. Hell, you
| can replace most of the explosive warhead with ball
| bearings. It may not immediately take down a specific
| satellite but it 's almost assured to fuck space up.
|
| And in case it's not obvious, this seems like a very North
| Korean type thing to do. Their missiles aren't terribly
| reliable or accurate (so far), but good enough to get into
| space and ruin _everyones_ day for a very long time there
| after. They have, what, a single satellite? [1] when
| everyone else has hundreds? Why not level the playing field
| and assure no one can use any of them - given enough time.
|
| I'd be willing to be its in someones MAD playbook as well.
| It only takes a few hundred nukes to effectively end all
| life on earth, permanently. There are still 5,000 plus in
| both Russia and the US's stockpile [2], not to mention
| China, France and the UK has a couple hundred each. What do
| you do with some of those few thousand extra nukes?
| Detonate them in air and orbit to take out your Doomsday
| planes [3] and any potential orbital capabilities - just in
| case you survive.
|
| But honestly, the Kessler Syndrome wouldn't really be a
| concern at that point since everything, including the
| roaches, would be a radioactive pile of glass.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/north-koreas-
| first-...
|
| [2] https://fas.org/initiative/status-world-nuclear-forces/
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_plane
| ianburrell wrote:
| LoRa will never take off since it doesn't have the
| bandwidth for wide usage. Short messages are the limit. It
| also can't replace this usage since there aren't nodes in
| the middle of the ocean. If anything, this will reduce the
| need for LoRa messaging.
| yarg wrote:
| There a plenty of men who would be content to be kings of
| the ashes;
|
| Don't consider this from the perspective of a reasonable
| person - ask yourself: what would psychopaths do?
| aaomidi wrote:
| It's less that and more just basic strategy.
|
| Your enemy has sat communications. You don't. Well, it's
| unlikely you're going to get sat communications - so what
| do you do?
|
| It's logical to take out enemy communications.
|
| The other side of the coin is, the enemy with the
| satellite can try to offer you the use of them as well,
| so you wouldn't feel the need to destroy them - but will
| they?
| michaelt wrote:
| If I have a rocket/missile capable of reaching a
| communication satellite orbit... why don't I have sat
| communications?
| throw9474 wrote:
| It's much easier to intercept than enter orbit. ASATs are
| 100 kg rockets.
| gosub100 wrote:
| International sanctions.
| aaomidi wrote:
| If the recent Middle East events have shown anything,
| nothing is off the table with a ww3 scenario.
| whaaaaat wrote:
| > would we risk Kessler Syndrome for a war?
|
| I mean, yes, absolutely! I wouldn't trust world leaders to
| understand Kessler syndrome, let alone care about it. If a
| world leader is comfortable killing hundreds of thousands
| of people to make their nation "safe", targeting civilian
| infrastructure, I have no doubt that they'd blow up some
| stuff in orbit.
|
| To be clear, _I_ don 't want to risk it. I'd prefer we
| didn't live in such a warlike world. But the current world
| leaders are out here bombing nuclear plants and residential
| districts. A few satellites will feel very, very far away
| to them.
| gosub100 wrote:
| By definition of going to war, they are willing to risk
| their very existence. Taking out satellites and making
| orbit entry fraught with hazards seems a very rational
| choice for many opponents on the world stage.
| bagels wrote:
| Yes. The military believes that our adversaries would
| attack their satellites. China, USA and India have demoed
| the capability to shoot satellites in non wartime, adding
| tons of debris.
| kortilla wrote:
| Russia has risked Kessler syndrome for less with ASAT
| missiles
| croes wrote:
| Satellites can be hacked, jammed or destroyed
|
| LEO satellites need constant replacement.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Planes have had access to sat Comms for decades. MH380 had it
| but it was deactivated. Most likely by a suicidal pilot. The
| engines had their own uplink that was still active. But
| Starlink isn't going to solve that kind of problem.
| acover wrote:
| Drones staying connected in enemy territory.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Imagine if corrupt governments could no longer shut down the
| internet and cell service.
|
| Even in the parts of the world where this occurs it has been
| shown to be nothing more than a surface level inconvenience.
|
| > Communication is and has always been an important element in
| human organisation.
|
| Precisely. We don't exactly need the internet or cell service.
| We've got techniques and historical methods going back to the
| beginning of, unsurprisingly, recorded history.
|
| > People will be really empowered by this technology
|
| They're already empowered. This will mostly just convenience
| them.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The aircraft body attenuates the signal. That's why all the
| antennas are placed outside.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Why does this _exact_ word "hate" always appear in the top
| comment on Musk related topics? Is someone grepping this string
| for some purposes?
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Off topic: what is up with the persistent anti-Musk crusading in
| this thread (and on HN in general)?
| erichocean wrote:
| He bought Twitter. The hate precisely coincides with that
| event.
| ausbah wrote:
| he had to buy twitter
| concordDance wrote:
| Predates it by many years. It actually even predates the cave
| submarine, but strongly intensified then and increased
| roughly constantly until the present day.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| If you look at the kidme5, samegene321, and george23 accounts
| in this discussion you'll note that they predominantly comment
| about Musk in Musk-related threads (usually SpaceX, it seems),
| often sporadically with large delays between when they make
| comments (weeks and months). They also post the same things as
| each other (though this is non-obvious, kidme3 deleted the
| content of one of their dead comments, but it's verbatim what
| samegene321 posted). It's either an individual or a
| coincidentally very narrowly-focused group of people who not
| only think the same, but write the same.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > or a coincidentally very narrowly-focused group of people
|
| Yea, coincident with money.
| 93po wrote:
| I feel like I can spot musk-bashing astroturfing a mile away
| because they repeat the exact same criticisms that made big
| headlines but aren't actually true, but there's maybe like a
| tiny nugget of nuance to the topic, and it's repeated forever
| and ever like it's fact and Elon is literally hitler and
| tesla doesnt actually exist and space isn't real too and elon
| is just lying to you.
|
| but also he's a xenophobic, transphobic asshole who supports
| politicians eroding really basic rights and liberties for
| people, so fuck em
| seniorivn wrote:
| he involved himself in politics, so everyone who have strong
| feelings against his "side" or for his opponents, project it on
| him in a form of hate.
|
| Inevitable consequence of the two party system and/or fptp
| election system
| idiotsecant wrote:
| He is a narcissistic nepobaby, heavy on the baby. If he didn't
| win the genetic lottery he would be a tyrannical deli manager
| for some poor teenagers somewhere. His companies exist and
| thrive in _spite_ of him, with dedicated teams for wrangling
| his stupider impulses. He _desperately_ wants to be seen as
| some kind of 12 year olds conception of the good guy, and when
| he doesn 't get it he reacts like the 12 year old would.
|
| The guy is a real jerk.
| panick21_ wrote:
| is father was a somewhat wealthy engineer. That about it. His
| farther wasn't some billionaire. Being born in South Africa
| to a somewhat wealthy family isn't exactly the golden lottery
| ticket. Evidence by the fact that most people born somewhat
| wealthy in South Afirca simply try to buy a house in England
| and get a job at some banking company or work for some mining
| company.
|
| If you to go back to Musk birth year and had to pick 'most
| likely to be most powerful non government person in the
| world' how many people would you go threw before Musk?
|
| What actually helped him more then wealth is that his mother
| was Canadian and that allowed him to study in Canada and that
| eventually allowed him a way to get to Silicon Valley. That
| doesn't just happen, most people from South Africa don't end
| up in Silicon Valley creating startups. He struggled more in
| collage then many others because he wasn't at good terms with
| his father. His father eventually invested a few 10000s $ in
| his first startup, many people with small business get more
| from their parents to get started.
|
| And the idea that his companies 'thrive' in spite of him is
| just wrong. Tesla was going to shit before he stepped in.
| Literally everybody that worked closely within would disagree
| with you, and that includes many people that have long left
| his employment. Companies with terrible CEO don't just trip
| into being worth 100 billion $ or more. If he was CEO for a
| year or so and the company was already successful, maybe. But
| SpaceX started with a few people in shed and he took over
| Tesla when it was basically a pile of garbage.
|
| To claim a successful business person was lucky is possible,
| if it happened once. But being CEO of two multi-billion $
| businesses at the same for 20+ and both being considered
| incredibly successful and influential, that's all luck. You
| got the be kidding. And these are not some random internet
| companies, space and car companies routinely were considered
| some of the hardest industries to break into. There is a
| whole grep of people wealthier then Musk who tried to break
| into Space, they all failed. There are tons of failed car
| companies. Even when Tesla was created, they had problems
| getting funding and many other companies got more, nobody
| remembers companies like 'Good Place' anymore.
|
| Again, I understand that somebody doesn't like Musk, but your
| position is utterly ridiculous. It takes a truly dissociated
| mind to come believe that nonsense.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Guy had a terrible upbringing, beaten and likely molested by
| his father.
|
| IMO historically he directed his trauma and negativity into
| work, but now that he's on ketamine he just lets it flow
| everywhere.
|
| Not sure which one is worse.
| ta1243 wrote:
| If you tie yourself to a specific politician, especially in a
| massively polarised environment, you're going to alienate many
| people, and it's hardly like Musk wasn't controversial before
| twitter and his swing to MAGA.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Musk is, to say the least, polarising, and thus attracts a lot
| of people who take either highly favourable or intensely
| sceptical stances on everything he says. These two groups then
| feed off each other - those critical of Musk often feel
| compelled to counterbalance what they see as overly charitable
| interpretations of his statements or the actions of companies
| associated with him, and vice versa I guess.
|
| In this particular topic, Musk has a history of being...
| opportunistic to disasters and tries to 'help out' to various
| degrees of success (see his weird mini-sub saga for the thai
| cave rescue, and Starlink's involvement in Ukraine/Russia war).
|
| Personally, I think he's a terrible human being who uses his
| platform to spread vile hate which is incompatible with a
| modern world, and I tend not to separate the art from the
| artist (if you could call either of them that). But otherwise
| I'm not brigading out here.
| kortilla wrote:
| > and Starlink's involvement in Ukraine/Russia war
|
| Why is that in the same statement as the sub thing? Starlink
| has been absolutely instrumental to the success of Ukraine.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Musk is backing the republican party of the USA, using the
| reach of twitter and the power of his fortune.
|
| The GOP has destroyed the trust involved in elections, purely
| on the ego of trump, and thrown away the peaceful transfer of
| power.
|
| GOP state members have stated that they will discard the result
| of the election, sending their own picked electors. That will
| inevitably fall under the purview of the supreme court of the
| USA, who have shown themselves to be partisan and who will hand
| the election to trump. What happens after that is anybody's
| guess. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/republicans-set-
| stage-... +
| https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/supreme...
|
| Musk is also spreading the _" this might be the last election
| you ever vote in"_ meme, which is pure projection from the
| extreme right wing that has taken over so much of the USA. So I
| have a large amount of derision for provocateurs like Musk, who
| can simply fly his private jet to another country if the USA
| becomes embroiled in civil war.
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-claims-during-trump-081...
|
| I utterly loathe the people that would cause violence and
| stolen elections, and musk is one of them.
|
| And, to the people that would back the extreme right: they will
| turn on you the very nanosecond it becomes convenient to them.
| ralfd wrote:
| > "this might be the last election you ever vote in" meme
|
| To be fair the left is saying the same, because Trump will
| end democracy, this time for real.
|
| I am not American, so often only the crazy/extremist views
| reach me over the ocean, but I did read over the past years
| the hope in leftist circles, that migrants will make Florida
| and Texas first a purple and then blue.
| shrubble wrote:
| California is basically a single party state at this point;
| something that Musk would be aware of; it seems that is what
| he is referring to.
| jrflowers wrote:
| It's probably because of the stuff he says and does OP
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/twitter-elon-musk-dom-lucre-...
|
| https://www.salon.com/2024/09/27/misinformation-superspreade...
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-...
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/18/media/elon-musk-trump-rally-b...
|
| For less-polarizing examples: https://elonmusk.today
| neaanopri wrote:
| I believe it's fair and based on recent changes in musk's
| political outlook which many disagree with. His public persona
| really didn't used to be like this, and he never would have
| been so popular in the first place if that was the case.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I wonder what the user experience was like. Did they have to
| select "Starlink" instead of "T-Mobile"?
|
| If not, was there some kind TMobile-signed-starlink's-key
| situation?
|
| It's an interesting interplay between preferring user consent
| versus wanting things to just start working when they need to.
| wmf wrote:
| Roaming is generally automatic with no "consent" involved.
| beeflet wrote:
| True. This vid was a major eye opener for how insecure the
| current staus quo is:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVyu7NB7W6Y
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| In the limit, security is opposed to everything that's good
| and nice, _safety included_.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| This is for where there is no T-mobile coverage, so there is no
| need to choose satellite over a terrestrial station.
| ggreer wrote:
| I was curious why direct-to-cell hasn't been enabled everywhere,
| and it looks like it's because AT&T claims it would cause them an
| 18% decrease in network throughput/capacity. AT&T petitioned the
| FCC to block direct-to-cell rollout because of this.[1] SpaceX
| responded that AT&T's estimates of interference are incorrect,
| and that AT&T fails to account for many factors. Also, SpaceX
| argues that the public good of having cell phone access in remote
| areas outweighs the slight reduction of network capacity in areas
| with existing coverage.[2]
|
| My guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. All else
| equal, adding more cell towers to an area will increase
| interference and decrease performance for existing networks, but
| I doubt it will be as bad as AT&T claims. Also T-Mobile made a
| deal with SpaceX to be the sole network with direct-to-cell for
| the first year after rollout. It seems more likely than not that
| AT&T is trying to hurt their competition using the FCC. If a
| different cell network had gotten an exclusive contract, I'm sure
| it would be T-Mobile petitioning the FCC to block direct-to-cell
| rollout.
|
| No branch of the US government keeps statistics on how many
| people get lost in the wilderness and die each year, but it's
| definitely in the hundreds and possibly over 1,000.[3]
| Considering how often a working cell phone could save them, I
| think it's worth enabling direct-to-cell everywhere.
|
| 1. https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1081242986780/1
|
| 2. https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1021391547062/1
|
| 3. https://nypost.com/2020/07/04/why-hundreds-of-people-
| vanish-...
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It also hasn't been enabled everywhere yet because the
| associated constellation is not complete yet. Current service
| is probably going to be intermittent. Basically, it's just
| better than nothing when in an emergency like this.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| It's an excuse to establish 'facts on the ground' that the
| technology is useful which makes it harder to rollback via
| bureaucracy if it cuts into telco profits.
| wmf wrote:
| Too bad that didn't work for RDOF.
| gosub100 wrote:
| This would be trivial to test via deployment to merchant
| mariners in vast swathes of empty, international waters.
| stavros wrote:
| Does anyone know how this works? Do the satellites speak LTE/5G?
| Can cell phones really communicate with satellites directly
| without larger antennas?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| They're using T-Mobile's 1900MHz 5G band for this.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It works with any phone with LTE.
|
| It requires larger antennas. Starlink had to launch the V2
| satellites which are larger and have new, big antenna for
| Direct-to-cell. They were meant for Starship, but that was
| delayed so they developed V2 Mini for Falcon 9. The version
| with antenna started launching beginning of year. My
| understanding is that are close to numbers for providing global
| coverage.
| stavros wrote:
| That's amazing, I'm having trouble believing that a mobile
| phone's antenna can talk to space, 500km away. Do you know
| what sort of bandwidth these will have?
| ianburrell wrote:
| The bandwidth will be small. I saw 2-5 Mbps for the whole
| cell covering a city. Devices will be limited to messages,
| small amounts of data, and voice.
| comboy wrote:
| But it's still a mobile phone transmission power (1W?)
| and then r^2. Distinguishing that from noise seems mind-
| boggling.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Really just makes one think what sort of capability
| military has.
| stavros wrote:
| That's still the difference between lost in the mountains
| and "my coordinates are X, Y".
| dotnet00 wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, the V2 minis are different from the DTC
| sats. V2 mini just has expanded network bandwidth. DTC are a
| specific variant of the V2 mini with the hardware needed for
| DTC. Not all V2 launches, even now, are DTC variants.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Starlink is nice but does the US not possess an air platform that
| can loiter while providing mobile phone service? Seems like a
| useful thing to have for civil defense. Wasn't Project Loon
| supposedly capable of covering a state-sized area with 4G
| coverage?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Google replaced loon with starlink and point to point laser
| tech
| jeffbee wrote:
| I'm asking why the US doesn't own a blimp with a base station
| taped to the bottom.
| shrubble wrote:
| That would require the government to be innovative.
| tahoeskibum wrote:
| I'm not surprised that China, Russia & UK have plans for their
| own constellations, and eventually India too.
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