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SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

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

#201

Post by disordinary »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #63
lettergram wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if they can launch multiple at once. I assume they can, and on top of that, once they can reuse rockets My guess is the cost might be as little as a million ( or less ) for a satellite in orbit. That would be, what, $9 billion? That sounds like a lot, until you realize they can spread that cost over 2-3 years and have millions (if not billions) of people paying for internet. This would replace cellphone p…

It's a good bet Musk has done the math. It's also a good bet Musk has done the math and thought about future math as well. This won't just be profitable. It has the potential to be a political game changer. After a while it's going to be possible to start running servers on satellites, to move them out of national jurisdictions.

The jurisdiction of the parent company will likely apply, also the us government controls US launches so no doubt they will make sure nefarious payloads are kept on earth.

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

#203

Post by krisroadruck »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #196
ygaels_armpit wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on beer fuel atm and have only read it briefly, but isn't that pure, free energy? With a solid state device. Why do we not have some of these things around our fridge etc.

Because if it generates energy from your fridge it means you deeply failed at insulating your fridge, and you have to spend several times as much energy putting the cold back inside. In most places you can use significantly more efficient devices to turn heat differences into electricity.

I think he is more talking about the heat that the fridge outputs to cool the inside, which is likely warmer than the ambient temperature in the room. Just a guess.

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

#204

Post by Dylan16807 »

WaxProlix wrote: post #149
Tloewald wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's going to be 800 of the suckers. There are only about 33 GPS satellites. Although 700 miles is lowish orbit, it's still above the horizon over 2000 miles away.

Wow. I read this comment and thought, "This has to be bullshit." But lo and behold, the core satellite 'constellation' is only 24 satellites[1]. That's mega impressive. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/at...

And they transmit with about 50 watts.

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

#205

Post by Consultant32452 »

geuis wrote: post #164
manachar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spreading true (well, at least less wrong) information is a noble goal. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're not seeing such information availability providing avenues towards a smarter, more progressive planet. Instead, the internet seems to be helping people create cocoons of ignorance and "evidence" to support even the most specious claims - such as the world being flat. Knowledge does not seem to be enough. Wisdom a…

I suspect this is just a phase. I don't have any hard stats at the moment to back it up, so it's just a feeling. Internet culture is still very young. At least in the US based on the election last week, the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states. These are people who have never known the world without internet access. I guess that the people who voted the other way are folks who have transitioned i…

Nah, those 18-25 year olds are ignorant idiots too. And when they get older they'll start voting conservative just like their parents generation. One anecdote about how ignorant they are... on three separate occasions I had a conversation with a Hillary supporter about her having destroyed subpoenaed evidence. Each of those three cited a factcheck.org article that stated in its third paragraph that she had in fact destroyed the evidence after the subpoena. They don't even read their own citations...

I didn't vote for Trump, so it's not like I was supporting him, but damn Hillary voters were so ignorant of her history. They were so mad that Trump didn't want to welcome more Syrian refugees. How many of them knew Hillary literally created the Syrian refugee crisis in a failed attempt at a coup? Not a single one I talked to.

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

#206

Post by nindalf »

sergiotapia wrote: post #40
sgt101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, given the election I have to ask.... Who's knowledge will we democratize?

Duh whatever Google and Facebook deem to be real news of course. The Ministry of Truth will root out all these evil white supremacist sites like Breitbart and Fox News. I long for the day when only Salon and Slate are considered sources of truth.

I've heard of Breitbart. Isn't that the site that encouraged people to "hoist the Confederate flag high and proud" because the Confederacy was a "patriotic and idealistic cause"? Same one right?

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

#207

Post by phkahler »

mrep wrote: post #160

napkin math (chemistry style): (4425 satellites * 23Gbps) / ((60,000PB of fixed internet traffic / 1 month [1]) * (12 months / 365 days) * (1 day / 24 hours ) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) * (8 bits / 1 byte) * (1024 Tera / 1 Peta) * (1024 Tera / 1 Giga)) = An astounding O(54% of global internet traffic) [2]! Obviously there are many many more variables in this [3]. Nonetheless this will be super…

But if everyone gets 1Gbps then each satellite can only service 23 people. Of course people who have that kind of bandwidth don't use it continuously. But what if we all try to watch some 4k video at say 20mbps? That's 50x23 = 1150 users per satellite or around 5 million users to saturate the whole constellation. It's still cool, but certain things will not be possible.

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

#208

Post by disordinary »

Some countries are not going to like this, network infrastructure are important national assets and are often done with high levels of regulation to ensure availability and pricing, so a lot of nations will not think it's in their competitive advantage to have this provided by a foreign entity.

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

#209

Post by vacri »

geuis wrote: post #164
manachar wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spreading true (well, at least less wrong) information is a noble goal. Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're not seeing such information availability providing avenues towards a smarter, more progressive planet. Instead, the internet seems to be helping people create cocoons of ignorance and "evidence" to support even the most specious claims - such as the world being flat. Knowledge does not seem to be enough. Wisdom a…

I suspect this is just a phase. I don't have any hard stats at the moment to back it up, so it's just a feeling. Internet culture is still very young. At least in the US based on the election last week, the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states. These are people who have never known the world without internet access. I guess that the people who voted the other way are folks who have transitioned i…

> the majority of people 18-25 voted progressive in most states

This is entirely normal - the young like things to change, the old do not. This voting pattern well predates the internet.

> I believe that in general, younger people have become better at filtering out bullshit because they've had access to much more information

I disagree. It's about the same as it always has been. Yellow journalism exists now, just as it existed in the 19th century, and people still fall for it now.

If the internet stopped people from falling for bullshit, "post-truth" would not have been 'word of the year' for 2016.

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

#210

Post by subway »

phkahler wrote: post #207
mrep wrote: post #160

napkin math (chemistry style): (4425 satellites * 23Gbps) / ((60,000PB of fixed internet traffic / 1 month [1]) * (12 months / 365 days) * (1 day / 24 hours ) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) * (8 bits / 1 byte) * (1024 Tera / 1 Peta) * (1024 Tera / 1 Giga)) = An astounding O(54% of global internet traffic) [2]! Obviously there are many many more variables in this [3]. Nonetheless this will be super…

But if everyone gets 1Gbps then each satellite can only service 23 people. Of course people who have that kind of bandwidth don't use it continuously. But what if we all try to watch some 4k video at say 20mbps? That's 50x23 = 1150 users per satellite or around 5 million users to saturate the whole constellation. It's still cool, but certain things will not be possible.

Oversubscription isn't exactly a rare thing in the ISP world.
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