Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
blog.apnic.net
Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
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Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#2Are there any companies that are doing something similar in the bay area?
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#3Are there any companies that are doing something similar in the bay area?
OneWeb has an office in Mountain View apparently: https://www.oneweb.world/contact-us
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#4If you enjoyed this, Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story by John Bloom is a good book on the similar topic from few decades back. Spiced with a healthy bunch of politics, entrepreneurship and action.
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#5The first generations of Starlink satellites will serve as bent pipes. They're not doing intersatellite links. This will require dozens of small trunk-link earth stations around the USA, in the same general region for rural services.
For example an earth station near the fiber in Boise, ID would have visibility for bent-pipe type relay to the same satellites presently overhead of many very hard to reach, rural, remote Idaho locations. The remote parts of ID which are presently only serviced by small geostationary VSAT terminals (viasat/wildblue/hughesnet etc).
About a year and a half ago Elon Musk fired the part of the starlink team, based on Redmond WA who wanted to go directly to intersatellite links in the first generation, most of whom have now ended up at Kuiper.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-starlink-insight/m...
This also means that in order to establish service in a particular area it will require putting in place starlink earth stations in the general region. Meaning that there might be full satellite coverage over the same latitudes in Canada, and Russia on the same calendar date, but Canada will receive live service much earlier.
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#6Are there any companies that are doing something similar in the bay area?
oneweb, kuiper, starlink, telesat, and SES (o3b) are all hiring. Not necessarily in the bay area.
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#7The first generations of Starlink satellites will serve as bent pipes. They're not doing intersatellite links. This will require dozens of small trunk-link earth stations around the USA, in the same general region for rural services. For example an earth station near the fiber in Boise, ID would have visibility for bent-pipe type relay to the same satellites presently overhead of many very hard to reach, rural, remot…
That’s really disappointing to learn. It was the inter-satellite linking part that make it really interesting (to me) and which promised to provide big latency improvements over fiber (over longer distances). I wonder if it proved too hard in practice?
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#8If you enjoyed this, Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story by John Bloom is a good book on the similar topic from few decades back. Spiced with a healthy bunch of politics, entrepreneurship and action.
Have to second this comment. The Audible version of it had me riveted. A great story well-told, with a raft of good quotes, such as "People didn’t like game changers in the 90s anymore than the owners of of the Erie Canal liked the transcontinental railroad. New technology always leaves a battlefield littered with bodies."
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#9Yoo, I met the author when I toured ETH Zurich for visit days. If you're reading this, super excited for you :D
Re: Network topology design at 27,000 km/hr
#10The first generations of Starlink satellites will serve as bent pipes. They're not doing intersatellite links. This will require dozens of small trunk-link earth stations around the USA, in the same general region for rural services. For example an earth station near the fiber in Boise, ID would have visibility for bent-pipe type relay to the same satellites presently overhead of many very hard to reach, rural, remot…
That’s really disappointing to learn. It was the inter-satellite linking part that make it really interesting (to me) and which promised to provide big latency improvements over fiber (over longer distances). I wonder if it proved too hard in practice?
It's definitely on the design road map, and the starlink satellites are designed to have relatively low orbits and short service lives. But it was too ambitious to jump directly to in the first generation. The ground footprint of visibility of a starlink satellite looking down, with its various spot beams, is a circle many hundreds of km in diameter. It's not like they'll need to put earth stations in a vast number of areas, just concentrated in small to mid sized cities with decent fiber connectivity that happen to be within a 300-400km radius of the remote areas to be served.