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SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#21

Post by revelation »

katzgrau wrote: post #7

Free, global internet access is the next step toward a smarter, more progressive planet. I don't even care about the speed - if the only thing users could access was wikipedia, I'd still personally donate to the project. I cannot emphasize how important democratizing knowledge is to me (and many others).

This still requires ground stations. Though I guess you could pay for "censor resistant" traffic where your data is bounced among the satellites until someone has a US ground station in sight...

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#22

Post by gibybo »

whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

People aren't generally using a 1 gbps connection at 100% capacity 100% of the time. If we assume customers use an average of 1 TB of data per month and the time they use it is pretty spread out (seems reasonable since they are going to be spread out accross timezones eventually), you can serve about 6 million customers with 800 satelites @ 23 GBPS, and with 4400 @ 23 GBPS you could do ~33 million.

Admittedly these numbers are all best case scenarios (except maybe the 1 TB average, that's probably generous), but even if you divide by 2 it's a decent number of people.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#24

Post by creshal »

nickparker wrote: post #14
lettergram wrote: post #3

Does anyone know: (A) the potential lifespan of these satellites are? (B) Why has this not been done to date? I assume SpaceX expects that it'll be relatively affordable since they can reuse rockets. (C) Will this impact the launch capabilities of future rockets (4500 satellites are a lot)? My assumption is that the low earth orbit will likely aid in destroying those satellites as opposed to leaving them up there at…

A) The technical attachment lists the lifespan as 5 to 7 years B) It's a triple play of radically reduced launch costs, rapidly dropping space hardware costs thanks to growth in the market, and improving RF tech to greatly increase the bandwidth such a constellation can provide. Ubiquitous connectivity is a great example of a technology that's going to happen because of the high level industry trends. The interesting…

> It's a triple play of radically reduced launch costs

Which is a very recent phenomenon, and still not fully materializing – SpaceX' Falcon 9 already cut costs in half in its class without reusing anything. Actually reusable Falcon 9s and the planned competitor products will drive down costs further still.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#25

Post by aerovistae »

nabla9 wrote: post #6
whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed and very high price.

Doubt it. Elon's made his fortune by replacing existing products with superior alternatives. He's said in every case that driving cost down is one of the most important parts of creating something people want.

Why do you think he wouldn't do the same here? He knows everyone hates existing telecoms. He's trying to create a better alternative.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#26

Post by lanna »

whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

nobody uses their connection at full capacity 100% of the time

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#27

Post by setq »

I don't know how they're going to get 25/35ms hops. If they're using low orbits to reduce latency, the surface coverage is going to be lower so they're going to have to mesh them in some way to span large areas. That means routers and intelligence which means uplink, interlink, downlink hops in both directions.

600ms here we come again.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#28

Post by NeutronBoy »

whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

The same way terrestrial data links work - you work out your usage patterns and make compromises. You can't guarantee 100% bandwidth available 100% of the time.

This is some of the rationale behind data caps. While you can still exceed the available bandwidth if all your customers get on and use their connection to the max, a data cap forces your customers to meter their usage out over the month and reduce the impact of this concurrent usage pattern.

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#29

Post by mey »

lanna wrote: post #26
whiddershins wrote: post #2

I don't understand the math. 800 satellites at 23 gbps seems to be able to provide 1 gbps to 18,400 connections at any given time. This seems to be many magnitudes off from what would be needed to have any impact. What am I missing?

nobody uses their connection at full capacity 100% of the time

That sounds like a challenge

Re: SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

#30

Post by krastanov »

revelation wrote: post #21
katzgrau wrote: post #7

Free, global internet access is the next step toward a smarter, more progressive planet. I don't even care about the speed - if the only thing users could access was wikipedia, I'd still personally donate to the project. I cannot emphasize how important democratizing knowledge is to me (and many others).

This still requires ground stations. Though I guess you could pay for "censor resistant" traffic where your data is bounced among the satellites until someone has a US ground station in sight...

I agree that the US is above average in terms of protection against censorship, but I imagine that if it is an option a lot of people would specifically avoid US ground stations (US is above average in tracking online activity as well).
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