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Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

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Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#41

Is this a case of doubling down, whilst SpaceX waits for the demand to launch satellites at the lower price grows. Its one thing to be able to launch satellites far more cheaply than other companies, perhaps the economics demands certain number of launches a year to keep capacity up and price down? The question is what happens when they launch all 1000 satellites?

I've always seen this as two things. The first being space x filling in gaps in their launch schedule as you've pointed out. The second is to launch a commercial services which can provide a constant, predictable income to fund other projects. The upfront capital must be huge but with debt markets still this cheap i'm not surprised they're investing.

I always thought of it as Elon Musk advertising.

But I visit reddit where tesla/elon/spacex topics are boosted with upvotes.

Im just bitter because I believed in him, but his promises fell flat.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#43

The headline is completely misleading. The transport layer won't use IPv6. It's like saying ethernet doesn't use IPv6. That's unsurprising.

He specifically mentions a much lower protocol overhead, implying a translation of some sort, as opposed to just encapsulation. As an ex-programmer, is unlikely Musk would make that confusion.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#44
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the developed world, coverage of high speed wireless broadband (e.g. 3G and up) isn't complete. In the less developed world the coverage is even worse[1]. I don't know the costs to set up and run the network, but I do feel like there is a large possible customer base. [1] https://opensignal.com/reports/2016/08/global-state-of-the-m...

Well populated and tech heavy parts of the UK have spotty and unreliable 4g which is baffling to me. If Elon can deliver a low latency satellite network even just for peering it will be a big step potentially.

Even parts of London have spots where even 3G coverage is poor.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#45
post #24

I don't think the market for satellite Internet is only where other services don't provide fast enough internet. Of course, the technology of glass fiber in the ground can't be beaten qualitywise, but glass fiber can more easily be controlled by your ISP and your government, unlike satellite internet. If SpaceX manages to provide unfiltered, net neutral, cheap internet, I'd consider getting it to complement my curren…

> but glass fiber can more easily be controlled by your ISP and your government, unlike satellite internet.

What would lead you to believe that? The reality is that the reverse is true, satellite internet is more heavily scrutinized as it’s far easier to intercept and very few companies are doing it.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#46
post #20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at Motorola when Iridium went up, and witness first hand the changing market dynamics that were happening even before their first satellite was deployed. Was thinking then that if they mad the satellites generic data switches instead of a flying phone switch, they would have had a much bigger market. So for Musk's network, it really depends on if 80% of the potential customers (people with money to spend on the…

It would be most interesting indeed if the satellite network allowed operating your own ISP for extremely low cost. Making 3-5G available to phones and peering to existing networks maybe? (I'm not that familiar with Mobile ISP Politics, unlike BGP Politics)

An "ISP in a box" is something I've toyed with, but on the basis of connectivity options ranging from a leased line, a microwave link and high gain wifi, but that stills ranges from expensive to "just" allowing you to extend out from the borders of nearby services. Having a cheap satellite option so that people can start providing that in rural locations where they are effectively an island of coverage would certainly be very interesting.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#47
post #14

How would the tech work exactly? Would this make it more difficult for the government to tap into connections as one could technically (outside of an ISP) jack straight into that network?

I would imagine that those governments would make it illegal for people to own the receiver equipment. Just like some (in the past) have made it illegal to own a shortwave radio.

Agreed. Or Musk will have to agree to filter traffic.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#48
post #17

For those of you in the know here. Is this a realistic project/enterprise he is working on? Seems both costly to deploy that many satellites and risky in the sense that you can't count on getting a lot of customers. Especially with the new super speedy 5G networks and so on.

Hell of a lot of places without 5G, or any , mobile internet. Don't forget aviation and to a lesser extent maritime either. People love their onboard wifi. Owning the launch platform could mean that he's able to significantly undercut current players, although funnily enough soon-to-be competitor Iridium recently launched a whole bunch of new satellites using SpaceX. Good position to be in when your competitors are d…

> Don't forget aviation and to a lesser extent maritime either.

And trains, busses (it might be orders of magnitude cheaper than paying for cell data to provide those local hotspots people use on busses to/from work everyday), cars (I could easily see teslas using it over cell for data in the future), and rural areas where laying fiber is expensive.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#49
If they can make it so you could get a cheap subscription to starlink, without needing your own receiver, to route your udp traffic I would pay for sure. Since it's going to be a LEO constellation the pings will be crazy low round the world and you could play US-EU games at under 100 ms even if you had to have a hop or two via fiber to the nearest starlink connected hub.

Re: Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well populated and tech heavy parts of the UK have spotty and unreliable 4g which is baffling to me. If Elon can deliver a low latency satellite network even just for peering it will be a big step potentially.

Even parts of London have spots where even 3G coverage is poor.

Can confirm that there's a radius of about 600m around my flat (SE3) which has spotty 3G coverage on Three with the inner ~100m being as good as zero (and my flat has had nailed-on zero 3G signal since 2010.)
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