Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#81

Post by Vordax » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #72

Tangential followup: Recently there was a flap about a satellite having to move out of a Starlink sat's way because the latter wouldn't. On the Starlink website they call out the automated collision avoidance system. Seems the Starlink sat would have moved away automatically if there was a risk.

Not that big of a deal, they move satellites if there is more than a 1 in 10,000 chance of a collision, in this case it appears a bug was the problem: https://www.cnet.com/news/esa-spacex-starlink-satellite-near...

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#82

Post by tpmx » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

knbknb wrote: post #80

Will Starlink, when operational, put price pressure on satellite phone and internet service providers such as Inmarsat? Or will prices for internet coverage in remote areas just as expensive as before?

I'd think it could definitely be substantially cheaper than Inmarsat. In a totally crushing way. So much more bandwidth capacity and lower latency.

Note: SpaceX is building out the Starlink coverage in a gradual way - they won't have satellites around the poles early on. Until the have truly global coverage Inmarsat will obviously stilll have an edge.

It will be interesting to see how the pricing plays out for the high latency satellite broadband offerings compared to the low latency Starlink offering.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#83

Post by Klathmon » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #79

sebringj wrote: post #66

This is an amazing time to be alive. Starlink opens up bandwidth potential and global service reliability to bring completely new business models and capabilities. There is no more edge for trading on fiber under the ocean wires either (It seems so to me at least).

For us non-Americans this is not that great. How would you feel if China or Russia launched such a system? Or even Germany?

Why would I feel anything but good about this?

At the worst it doesn't impact me at all, at best it means a large number of people are going to be able to get online for cheap who previously weren't.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#84

Post by z3ncyberpunk » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

sebringj wrote: post #66

This is an amazing time to be alive. Starlink opens up bandwidth potential and global service reliability to bring completely new business models and capabilities. There is no more edge for trading on fiber under the ocean wires either (It seems so to me at least).

How about new potentials for humanity, I don't give a damn how it helps businesses or helps Wall Street crooks.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#85

Post by ty7yt » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

imagine Elons greatest gift to mankind was a internet that could not be abused or spied on, and you only needed a satellite dish to access it. even if it was too slow to play games on.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#86

Post by z3ncyberpunk » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #83

sschueller wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For us non-Americans this is not that great. How would you feel if China or Russia launched such a system? Or even Germany?

Why would I feel anything but good about this? At the worst it doesn't impact me at all, at best it means a large number of people are going to be able to get online for cheap who previously weren't.

Given the cesspool of trolls, advertisements, fake media, bullshit social media (all of it), mass surveillance, the harvesting and sale of your personal information at every turn, and what is essentially unchecked psychological warfare taking place all across the net, I'm not sure just dumping people on it is the best thing

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#87

Post by donkeyd » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

sschueller wrote: post #79

sebringj wrote: post #66

This is an amazing time to be alive. Starlink opens up bandwidth potential and global service reliability to bring completely new business models and capabilities. There is no more edge for trading on fiber under the ocean wires either (It seems so to me at least).

For us non-Americans this is not that great. How would you feel if China or Russia launched such a system? Or even Germany?

This is a commercial, privately owned, satellite network. It will probably be available world wide, at least that seems to be the plan. You could compare it to Microsoft, with many critical infrastructure worldwide depending on Windows. Also, a lot of the fiber used for the internet is provided by private companies, a very important network being owned by an Indian company.

Then, there are already multiple satellite networks for positioning (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BDS). Then there are a bunch of spy satellites.

So I don't really understand the problem for non-Americans, which I am too.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#88

Post by Rebelgecko » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #30

plopz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought I read somewhere that they cancelled the plans to use lasers and were going to use radio instead. But now I can't find anything about it.

The current generation of Starlink satellites don't have satellite-to-satilite links, but I haven't seen any indication that that feature is canceled for future iterations.

How do they work without sat to sat links? Are they going to build thousands of ground stations?

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#89

Post by rumanator » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

donkeyd wrote: post #87

sschueller wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For us non-Americans this is not that great. How would you feel if China or Russia launched such a system? Or even Germany?

This is a commercial, privately owned, satellite network. It will probably be available world wide, at least that seems to be the plan. You could compare it to Microsoft, with many critical infrastructure worldwide depending on Windows. Also, a lot of the fiber used for the internet is provided by private companies, a very important network being owned by an Indian company. Then, there are already multiple satellite…

> You could compare it to Microsoft, with many critical infrastructure worldwide depending on Windows.

We can compare it to Windows, and the end result is exactly the same: not great.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#90

Post by asenna » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

z3ncyberpunk wrote: post #86

Klathmon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I feel anything but good about this? At the worst it doesn't impact me at all, at best it means a large number of people are going to be able to get online for cheap who previously weren't.

Given the cesspool of trolls, advertisements, fake media, bullshit social media (all of it), mass surveillance, the harvesting and sale of your personal information at every turn, and what is essentially unchecked psychological warfare taking place all across the net, I'm not sure just dumping people on it is the best thing

I'm not denying the bad things the Internet brings but are you saying because of those things you listed, it's better to have remote/poor people with limited access in third world countries remain disconnected?