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Starlink |OT| High bandwidth - Low latency Internet for everyone in the world
- Thread starter Alucardx23
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At the very least, my government is pretty behind on tech, once the device doesn't restrict service based on location (the fact that they're launching in US & Canada first makes me think it might) then they might not even realize it exists
Tell me about it. This would be much better than the 8Mbit DSL I currently have in Farmtown USA. My only option to the one phone company which has a stranglehold on my area is satellite internet, which costs twice as much and has stupid low data caps to boot. This Starlink sounds like an utterly amazing alternative if Elon can make it work.
If it works and it's $60 per month I'll be signing up day freaking one, as soon as its available for me.
Sure, they will launch 42.000 satellites with 5 years of lifespan for the poor. Seriously...
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The service is on track to go live for US and Canada once they have around 800 satellites and worldwide once they have around 1, 600 satellites. You must think of the scale that this service will have compared to any other ISP. You can also take the time to watch the second video I posted so you can see other revenue streams this service will have.
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The individual satellites are speculated to cost at around $1M apiece, and will be the first line of satellites in history that will be mass produced.
The lowest orbits [with lowest communication lag to the ground] which are first in the line for launch will be at the low attitude that demands regular propulsion burns to keep them afloat. So there will be no debris pollution when they go offline. They will either intentionally slow down and burn over Pacific, or drag will pull them down over random spot [almost everything will disintegrate].
For 2019 and 2020 they are planning around 20 Falcon 9 launches for Starlink, with 60 sattelites per launch, that's almost enough for early US and Worldwide coverage.
The lowest orbits [with lowest communication lag to the ground] which are first in the line for launch will be at the low attitude that demands regular propulsion burns to keep them afloat. So there will be no debris pollution when they go offline. They will either intentionally slow down and burn over Pacific, or drag will pull them down over random spot [almost everything will disintegrate].
For 2019 and 2020 they are planning around 20 Falcon 9 launches for Starlink, with 60 sattelites per launch, that's almost enough for early US and Worldwide coverage.
"Starlink is being promoted as a service that will bring high quality internet to poor or difficult to reach places of the world"
"The service is on track to go live for US and Canada"
OK
Well you clearly don't live here if you think everyone in NA is rich.
we dont deserve elon musk. he keeps pushing our society further than any other company has in the last 10 years.
I mean, $60 USD/month is insanely cheap for rural internet as a whole, let alone good rural internet. If that's the initial cost for test areas and it can decrease as the service adds users, this is a slam dunk.
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Don't understand what that has to do with anything. The fact that the service will be available first on the US and Canada doesn't mean that it won't be available on the rest of the world and at a low price. The minute the service is available on the US and Canada, it will reach difficult to reach places.
People really fail to see how cheap this is going to get with more and more users, and the pollution is minimal all the videos are of the satellites without them even being in the correct places. Their going to be invisible just like the rest of the 8000 we have up there.
That's damning with faint praise considering the overall state of society
i'd welcome 60 dollars. last month my isp bill was $105.
besides like everything I'm sure it'll be tiered, hopefully a solid $40 package will exist etc.
There is a difference between cheap comparing to other offers and cheap. But let's wait for the price.
When was the last time a service decrease it price when it became popular ?
Beta/initial offerings are often more expensive than the final product.
Let us not forget that there will be other companies with their own large internet constellations. Competition will keep the prices in check, but there is a chance that "1st one to get there" will become the default overwhelming winner [Android, all of its competitors were a mere blip of a history].
Thought this was about the video game for a second. (Which I liked)
This is fascinating I'll have to read up on this.
This is fascinating I'll have to read up on this.
It happens all the time, especially in tech as things get more powerful and less expensive.
Even in the miserable world of internet access, if you look at the cost of a DSL line per megabit 20 years ago vs the cost of cable or DSL today, prices have plummeted. Back in 1999, Earthlink ADSL was $49.95 for 768kbps, I am now paying $44.99 for 400mbps. That means I used to pay over 500 times as much per byte for data.
Yes, I was hoping someone like Elon would save us or come up with some alternative that totally bypass monopolistic cable companies in America. Something had to happen for them to budge and I hope this is it, but how long will this take and will it be good enough to make them consider it competition?
Came here to post this. Waiting for super genius Elon Musk to call Comcast pedo guys.
It's a gigabit service. If there's a a few poor people in a small remote village they can share the service and still have really good internet. It might be tough for a single poor family or person that's too remote to share with anyone, sure, but if it's popular enough actually keep going for more than a few years then used antennas will probably become available.
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You could easily imagine a 10 apartment building buying a single receiver and each one getting a 100/100mbps connection each.
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It might seem like these satellites are close to each other, but they are kilometers away from each other. You can check the video on the below for more information on how the orbits will work.
I dunno how well satellite internet is gonna pan out but the more competition the better in my eyes
Space is very big.
But that doesnt mean debris and collisions arent a serious issue and are going to continue to escalate in seriousness the more shit we put into orbit
Need to solve the debris problem alongside this or we run the risk of being trapped on earth from our own debris fields
Space is very big.
But that doesnt mean debris and collisions arent a serious issue and are going to continue to escalate in seriousness the more shit we put into orbit
Need to solve the debris problem alongside this or we run the risk of being trapped on earth from our own debris fields
I think this'll be a game changer for rural areas but I'm skeptical about it being very useful in urban or suburban areas. Current satellite tech spot beams aren't narrow enough to support massive amounts of people, even in LEO. It'll run into congestion issues really quickly. I suppose less people will want to use it in these areas due to more competition, but there are also a lot more people there so I don't know how it'll end up panning out. At the least I think saying it offers gigabit without explaining any caveats is a misleading.
Throw a grain of sand into the air and then try to hit that grain of sand by throwing another grain of sand.
They're supposed to have automated avoidance routines in all of the Starlink sats, and they get frequent updates on positions of all known Earth orbit objects. They're still working out some bugs in it, there was a case where an ESA sat had to avoid a Starlink since SpaceX wasn't responding. For normal satellites it's usually done manually, one director said they have to do an avoidance boost every few weeks. I think there's an avoidance requirement if the position of two objects are expected to be within a certain cube, something like a few hundred meters per side iirc. The major space agencies can predict intersections like that a few days (weeks?) out apparently, but the predictions get more solid over time.
When people post the pictures or animations of objects in space, it's important to remember that the pictures have to effectively make the satellites the size of large cities in order to make the objects visible, though most of them are smaller than a school bus. In orbit they're traveling in space that's a lot larger than the surface of the Earth. That said, I know of at least one accidental collision that happened a couple decades ago, and with 40,000+ satellites, the chances are way higher. It will take work to manage.
The good thing is avoidance is pretty easy, they just speed up the satellite a bit. Since they're in crappy orbits that need constant reboosting anyway, it's not a big deal. And since the most crowded Starlink orbit is the lowest one iirc, there's probably not a lot else in it.
They're using lasers to transmit data between satellites? I think I have the plot of the next Bond movie ready to go:
The supervillain hacks (or goes up and has space commandos do it like in COD: Ghosts) one or more satellites, turns up the lasers, and fries the others. Maybe just one area, with the threat of doing the rest and plunging the planet (which now relies on StarLink) into the dark ages with no way to communicate.
Alright, Barbara Broccoli, you know where to send the check.
The supervillain hacks (or goes up and has space commandos do it like in COD: Ghosts) one or more satellites, turns up the lasers, and fries the others. Maybe just one area, with the threat of doing the rest and plunging the planet (which now relies on StarLink) into the dark ages with no way to communicate.
Alright, Barbara Broccoli, you know where to send the check.
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Closer look at orbits and transmission times in one year old proposed Starlink constelation.
SpaceX's plans changed few times since then, but it is a good starting point for the initial ~1500 piece low altitude constellation.
SpaceX's plans changed few times since then, but it is a good starting point for the initial ~1500 piece low altitude constellation.
I think the biggest benefit is going to be giving US telecoms a huge kick up the ass. Gigibit speeds for just $60, potentially no data caps and the only installation you need is basically a small dish on your roof? That would destroy the telecom duopoly overnight. Telecoms can try to justify trying to ban municipal broadband, but they can't justify trying to lobby against a private competitor.
Seriously, such much-needed competition is the worst nightmare of incumbent telecoms who want to carve out their own territory and be able to just do fuck all and treat their customers like shit.
Seriously, such much-needed competition is the worst nightmare of incumbent telecoms who want to carve out their own territory and be able to just do fuck all and treat their customers like shit.
You'd think that would be obvious, but telecoms, especially in the US, have little inventive to expand, especially in rural areas. Whereas something like this by its very necessity needs to basically have universal coverage to feasibly work, as the satellite constellation needs to be a tightly-woven mesh of sorts, which has the extra benefit of providing universal area coverage, allowing internet access virtually anywhere in the world (unless you live in the Arctic or Antarctica but that's another matter entirely). Starlink isn't limited to a single country, the service basically could have customers from across the globe.
I live in an area (in the US) where I have 1 land based ISP option (I don't even consider the current Satellite ISP's an option because let's be realistic, they aren't) and their service is still DSL based.
The likely hood of my area ever getting something like Gigabit fiber is very low. Even if we did, it would be super expensive.
Between my Internet and land line phone (no cell service where I live) I'm paying $140 a month.
Elon save me.
The likely hood of my area ever getting something like Gigabit fiber is very low. Even if we did, it would be super expensive.
Between my Internet and land line phone (no cell service where I live) I'm paying $140 a month.
Elon save me.
cost matter though. b/c spacex not only has their own launcher, its also re usable, the cost of doing it is way way way cheaper than laying a ton of fiber.
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This service will be a lot more than home internet as well. At some point in the future you will be able to play a good multiplayer match on a Switch, while traveling on a plane or a cruise. You can be on top of mount Everest and you will still have internet. The stock market will definitely pay for the lower latency from the US to Europe. You can see an explanation of this on the second video I posted.
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I absolutely love the technology and the idea of having high speed low latency internet access anywhere in the world.
However, I think it is a hard sell for people worried about cluttering the sky, wasting natural resources and pollution.
I am currently stuck with 4G internet in a city where something around 90% of people have access to fiber optics, but I still think this tech sounds a bit wasteful.
How can we justify launcing tens of thousands of satellites that only have a life span of five years? What is the environmental impact of producing these satellites, launching them into space and having to produce new ones on a regular basis?
Kind of clashes with the whole sustainable development movement.
I am not saying that that digging millions of miles of cable has no environmental impact, but this seems excessive.
However, I think it is a hard sell for people worried about cluttering the sky, wasting natural resources and pollution.
I am currently stuck with 4G internet in a city where something around 90% of people have access to fiber optics, but I still think this tech sounds a bit wasteful.
How can we justify launcing tens of thousands of satellites that only have a life span of five years? What is the environmental impact of producing these satellites, launching them into space and having to produce new ones on a regular basis?
Kind of clashes with the whole sustainable development movement.
I am not saying that that digging millions of miles of cable has no environmental impact, but this seems excessive.
Fantastic and very informative response. Thank you for taking the time to reply with this context.
To the guy complaining about US and Canada first when "it should be very cheap for the entire world" = You need to start somewhere. Once the initial phase (US and Canada) proves viable (once all the required satelites are operational and the logistic is bullet proof), the rest of the world will eventually get the benefits.
I like how people just post whatever problem they think it will have just straight off the top of their head. 'The satellites might bang into each other' 'We should just set up a fibre grid across the whole world including continents like Africa'.
shit, you should contact all the engineers and literal rocket scientists and let them know about your insights, they probably haven't even thought about it! They were probably too busy building reusable rocket systems that are orders of magnitude cheaper than previous systems, and doing basic shit like building satellite fleets, to think about the clever things that just occurred to you. Let those dummies know that their satellites will probably just bang into eachother, or that space realestate is too valuable to be used on trivial shit like a truly global high speed communications network.
shit, you should contact all the engineers and literal rocket scientists and let them know about your insights, they probably haven't even thought about it! They were probably too busy building reusable rocket systems that are orders of magnitude cheaper than previous systems, and doing basic shit like building satellite fleets, to think about the clever things that just occurred to you. Let those dummies know that their satellites will probably just bang into eachother, or that space realestate is too valuable to be used on trivial shit like a truly global high speed communications network.
I think those concerns posted in the thread more points to the Starlink project's lack of explanation for things concerning crowding the stratosphere and emissions.
I do think that "a truly global high speed communications network" is fantastic, but not at any cost.
It is up to Starlink to provide the details I think.