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FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

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Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#231

Post by lev99 »

raganesh wrote: post #185
lev99 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain why recurring revenue is significantly better for a rocket company? My understanding is Falcon 9 launches are limited by manufacturing and launch pad limitations and not market demand. Launching satellites take away from both of those, so he clearly thinks the direct to consumer business is worth it.

Recurring revenue - launch the satellite constellation once and generate monthly subscription revenue potentially running into billions of dollars a month. Manufacturing limitations & launch pad availability, once they are resolved (along with launcher reuse) will lead to a point where there is not enough demand to fill the launch roster. This internal demand will help them fill it up.

I always hoped ISS resupply and mars transport would work as reoccurring revenue.

This is probably a great use if he has extra rockets and launch pad time, but it seems a bit of a side project compared to manned space travel.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#232

Post by cossray »

walrus01 wrote: post #221
cossray wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I followed this closely and thank you for pointing out the cost implications per house connection. While that's a significant amount in the USA,it's far monstrous in the developing countries/rural areas;which from this forum are touted as the major targets of the SpaceX system. Do you see a way of reducing this cost that can practically serve a rural town in, for example, Africa? (I'm from East Africa and trying to m…

If you have a town/city of population 2,500 to 20,000 that has very poor internet connectivity in general at present, this will probably be most useful in its larger version to bring one relatively high capacity DIA/IP link (like 150 Mbps downstream x 50 Mbps upstream) to a single central location, as an ISP POP in the town, and then local distribution throughout a US county-sized area by point-to-point and point-to-…

Much appreciation for this feedback. I definitely need to dig further, but your comments are painting quite a discernable image of what the system means from an end user POV. We still got almost 5 years to its realization but something worth keeping tabs on.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#233

Post by reaperducer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #165
lev99 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Shooting down satellites is very expensive It's less expensive than launching satellites, and the Chinese goverment has enough money to do it if they want.

> It's less expensive than launching satellites Are you sure? If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs. We’ll also likely implement a suite of sanctions. Shooting down a satellite is an act of war.

>If China knocks out one of ours, we’ll knock out at least one of theirs.

No, we won’t. We’ll impose several decades of meaningless tariffs and embargoes with tons of loopholes so it looks like we’re doing something until everyone forgets what everyone was mad about in the first place.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#234

Post by tomcooks »

bpd1069 wrote: post #4

This is monumental - I claim every major advance in communication technology immediately precedes a major progress for society. This will make the 'Internet' truly global and ubiquitous. So excited for the developing world.

I don't see how corporations meddling with the government can produce any good for the developing world, apart from generating profit for themselves masked as charity. Digital natives will be offered a walled garden, terrorcorp version of "the internet" as we know it (e.g. Facebook meddling with Albanian government).

Decentralized alternatives, like Freifunk, are the best option in my opinion.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#235

Post by GordonS »

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #171
natethinks wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I would love my old Samsung's "ultra power saving" mode. Nothing but calls and texting on a black and white screen. Almost a week of battery life.

What phone is that?

My S7 had it, and so does my S8. Very cool feature that I haven't seen in other phones.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#236

Post by GordonS »

aphextron wrote: post #125

I’m curious to what layer SpaceX will allow application developers access to. If there is to be any hope of having cryptographically secure communications using this network, it will be essential that the whole stack is open source. Putting blind faith in SpaceX seems foolish.

What benefits would a lower-level encryption protocol provide over TLS (or anything else on top of layer 3/4)?

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#237

Post by icc97 »

tomcooks wrote: post #234
bpd1069 wrote: post #4

This is monumental - I claim every major advance in communication technology immediately precedes a major progress for society. This will make the 'Internet' truly global and ubiquitous. So excited for the developing world.

I don't see how corporations meddling with the government can produce any good for the developing world, apart from generating profit for themselves masked as charity. Digital natives will be offered a walled garden, terrorcorp version of "the internet" as we know it (e.g. Facebook meddling with Albanian government). Decentralized alternatives, like Freifunk, are the best option in my opinion.

Bare in mind that Space X doesn't really care about trying to control the internet - their focus is making money from putting stuff in space so they can build the BFR.

So a better comparison as others have said is comcast and mobile broadband providers. The more competition the better as far as I'm concerned.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#238

Post by [deleted] »

Robotbeat wrote: post #210
mozumder wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developing world needs fiber instead of satellite. This isn't going to change much over their current LTE speeds. This type of satellite internet is far too expensive far far too limited bandwidth to be useful for them. The energy cost of RF broadband is so much higher than fiber. Really, the audience for this are ships and other remote regions, not anyplace that has a road going to it.

Nah, You’re thinking of different constellations like OneWeb. This constellation is being way overbuilt by SpaceX. They want gigabit speeds and way cheaper data than LTE. They want to compete with fiber (at least in non-super-dense areas). From Spacex’s perspective, they’re happy to build it so large that it only breaks even (even though I think it’ll do better than that) because it gives them something to launch on…

[deleted]

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#239

Post by t3rmi »

tbabb wrote: post #215

Here's one way I could see this killing Comcast, even in major cities: As a homeowner, you by a small box which lives under the eave of your roof. The box has high-bandwidth, low-latency satellite uplink to SpaceX which gives you your internet. The same box also has a terrestrial wireless repeater which serves the local neighborhood. Internet is available through your "tower" to neighbors and passers-by. You and Spac…

How can satellites have low latency? The current average ping times seem to be around 900ms. Isn't this almost unusable?

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#240

Post by sonium »

t3rmi wrote: post #239
tbabb wrote: post #215

Here's one way I could see this killing Comcast, even in major cities: As a homeowner, you by a small box which lives under the eave of your roof. The box has high-bandwidth, low-latency satellite uplink to SpaceX which gives you your internet. The same box also has a terrestrial wireless repeater which serves the local neighborhood. Internet is available through your "tower" to neighbors and passers-by. You and Spac…

How can satellites have low latency? The current average ping times seem to be around 900ms. Isn't this almost unusable?

SpaceX satellites will have a very low orbit. That’s also why they need so many.
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