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With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

arstechnica.com

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Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#91

Post by jblow »

mabbo wrote: post #90

It's been said before, but what people need to understand is that the goal of this service isn't to make money- it's to balance demand. SpaceX can plan to launch be 30% more launches than their actual customers need. All those extra rockets are used for internet satellites. If there's an accident (boom) or a sudden need for more rockets, the internet satellites get delayed, and the paying customer gets a rocket. If c…

If there's an accident (boom) then the paying customer's payload is destroyed and in most cases they will not have a duplicate payload just standing by to be launched. Building satellites takes a while.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#93

Post by CoolGuySteve »

modeless wrote: post #45

Shorter summary of SpaceX's Senate testimony https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6c08b6c2... : Initially, the SpaceX system will consist of 4,425 satellites operating in 83 orbital planes (at altitudes ranging from 1,110 km to 1,325 km). SpaceX has proposed an additional constellation of 7,500 satellites operating even closer to Earth. For the end consumer, SpaceX user terminals—essentially, a relativ…

For comparison, the Iridium constellation gave a mode of 1300ms latency with a constellation of 66 active satellites orbiting at 780 km in 6 planes.

SpaceX launched 10 new Iridium satellites in 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_satellite_constellatio...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications#Iridium...

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#94

Post by mcbits »

jblow wrote: post #91
mabbo wrote: post #90

It's been said before, but what people need to understand is that the goal of this service isn't to make money- it's to balance demand. SpaceX can plan to launch be 30% more launches than their actual customers need. All those extra rockets are used for internet satellites. If there's an accident (boom) or a sudden need for more rockets, the internet satellites get delayed, and the paying customer gets a rocket. If c…

If there's an accident (boom) then the paying customer's payload is destroyed and in most cases they will not have a duplicate payload just standing by to be launched. Building satellites takes a while.

I think the theory is that the next customer scheduled for the dead rocket can share some other rocket instead. The internal satellite(s) on that rocket get delayed, but at least it would be loaded to capacity even if the previous rocket didn't go boom.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#95

Post by BenjiWiebe »

akgerber wrote: post #7

My aunt's town in rural Western Massachusetts still only has broadband in the library plus scanty LTE service and current terrible satellite— how and whether to wire the town with broadband is driving the first contested election in decades. This could make a major difference for that type of rural town.

I'm in central Kansas. The options here are basically satellite or if you are close to town, then up to 6Mbps DSL. We have DSL, but most of our friends/neighbors can't get it...

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#96

Post by BenjiWiebe »

mistermann wrote: post #57
ChuckMcM wrote: post #54

Neat, TeleDesic[1] V2.0 (or is it 3.0?) :). That effort stalled when single stage to orbit rockets became impractical due to insufficent launch demand when Regan's StarWars program was cancelled. With a fast turn around re-usable F9 booster (so its relaunch costs are significantly less than launching a new one) Musk would have control over his destiny in this case. When Iridium was being built the whole ground statio…

> it would really mess with the powers that be I'm fairly surprised the US government is a-ok with all of this, or maybe they've already sat down and had a chit chat with Mr Musk. Or, if everyone moves to SpaceX internet service does it make no difference whatsoever to the NSA?

The NSA will probably monitor the lines going from SpaceX ground stations to what ever Tier 1 ISP they are peering with.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#97

Post by mobilefriendly »

akgerber wrote: post #7

My aunt's town in rural Western Massachusetts still only has broadband in the library plus scanty LTE service and current terrible satellite— how and whether to wire the town with broadband is driving the first contested election in decades. This could make a major difference for that type of rural town.

Same situation for our mid-Atlantic home. There's a ton of pent up demand for this service in all of the rural and semi-rural pockets of the U.S. We have been very poorly served by Congress, state, and local government.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#98

Post by seiferteric »

dingaling wrote: post #28
_archon_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do this? EDIT: Data customers would pay for access on an individual basis. Helicopter-parent countries might cry foul, but what leverage do they have? It's not like they were going to launch things with SpaceX and they can threaten to stop.

> Data customers would pay for access on an individual basis. At a subscriber level, monthly billing to 'SpaceX Broadband, Redmond' might be cause for inquisitive State Police to visit. At a state level, the legality of jamming / interfering with satellites over national territory has never been definitively established. So SpaceX might find it easier to just turn-off over hostile nations than have them upset the net…

It would be really cool if they offered a free tier with like say 200kbps or something.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#99

Post by seiferteric »

oh_sigh wrote: post #26
_archon_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they do this? EDIT: Data customers would pay for access on an individual basis. Helicopter-parent countries might cry foul, but what leverage do they have? It's not like they were going to launch things with SpaceX and they can threaten to stop.

They can jam whatever frequency the networks operates on. Or embargo any receiver/tramistter that could be used to connect to the network. Yes, some people would be able to work around any attempt at blockage, but that wouldn't scale to providing non-technical people with cheap/unrestricted internet.

Question for anyone who might know, would jamming work if you used highly directional antennas? Seems like it wouldn't really.

Re: With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019

#100

Post by woah »

mistermann wrote: post #57
ChuckMcM wrote: post #54

Neat, TeleDesic[1] V2.0 (or is it 3.0?) :). That effort stalled when single stage to orbit rockets became impractical due to insufficent launch demand when Regan's StarWars program was cancelled. With a fast turn around re-usable F9 booster (so its relaunch costs are significantly less than launching a new one) Musk would have control over his destiny in this case. When Iridium was being built the whole ground statio…

> it would really mess with the powers that be I'm fairly surprised the US government is a-ok with all of this, or maybe they've already sat down and had a chit chat with Mr Musk. Or, if everyone moves to SpaceX internet service does it make no difference whatsoever to the NSA?

The US funded tor for most its existence
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