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Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

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Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#291
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> beta-only limitation though There's no way you are crossing borders with it and transmitting from a country where it's not approved.

That's an interesting point. I noticed this: https://www.canadasatellite.ca/Satellite-Phone-Limitations.h... "While satellite phones work essentially anywhere on earth, there are some physical and political limitations." one limitation was not what I expected: "Cuba restricts the use of satellite phones because they’re seen as tools for subversive purposes" Back to starlink - I think distributed living is a wonderful…

I believe you can get into a metric ton of trouble if you try to import a satphone in India as well.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#292

What most people don't understand, is that Starlink is a military first service. Their primary customer is the US military. The most obvious application is UAVs where latency is critical. The consumer part is probably just marketing. It doesn't make much economic sense. Imagine they wanted to launch 1000s of classified military satellites. Everyone would be opposed.

I have no idea if this number is realistic but lets say the US military pays 10 billion dollar a year for this. The consumer price is about a thousand dollar a year so they would need about 10 million customers to get the same revenue. If the whole system has enough bandwidth to support that many consumers I don't think it's just for marketing.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satellite typically doesn't use cdma. See dvb-s

There's no reason to assume starlink works like a typical satellite, though. Digital video broadcast in particular is in one direction from geostationary orbit. Latency is on the order of several seconds due to all the forward error correction that's necessary to tolerate bit errors in reception. There's not really any need for a "multiple access" scheme because "channels" are statically allocated frequency bands. I…

> There's no reason to assume starlink works like a typical satellite, though.

And it does not. Starlink satellites do active switching unlike BSS satellites which only transmodulate and redirect.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#294
post #258

Curious to see how this plays out in a country like mine (India) where the government loves [1] to shut off Internet access on the flimsiest of excuses. Everything from entire states (like Kashmir), to few localities (farmer protests around Delhi) have had their mobile Internet access switched off because the government likes to curtail communication when it suits them. [1] https://www.indiatoday.in/diu/story/more-th…

Currently the traffic runs through a local base station, so it's not really an different from other ISPs when it comes to government control?

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#295

I was able to place an actual order just last week in St. Louis, MO. I will be using it and doing some tests in an area that actually has cable Internet (though spotty, and until very recently was limited to less than 20 Mbps up, no matter how much you paid). But you have to realize, when you look at the $600 initial cost and $100 monthly fee—this will bring 100+ Mbps down and 15+ Mbps up to so many places (even in s…

That's not true. Viasat and hughes cover everywy in the USA with speeds faster than that.

With latency >600ms to the first hop

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#296

What most people don't understand, is that Starlink is a military first service. Their primary customer is the US military. The most obvious application is UAVs where latency is critical. The consumer part is probably just marketing. It doesn't make much economic sense. Imagine they wanted to launch 1000s of classified military satellites. Everyone would be opposed.

This is something that is fascinating to me about really all of Musk's businesses - they all seem to be in some way misrepresenting themselves to the general public. And they all actually rely on insights into how governments have to spend at an enormous scale. And all of them make things that are of extreme strategic importance on a global scale. Like I'm not one for conspiracy bullshit, but there must be a deeper story going on behind the scenes. Right?

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#297
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> b. no ipv6 yet. > c. all IPs are in cgnat IP space Interesting, this is more like an internet proxy than connecting devices to the internet. Hope they fix it soon. Does the TOS forbid running eg ssh or remote desktop services? Or VPNs?

It is a consumer internet eyeball service. Having an assigned routable address is not a thing in many countries, and you really shouldn't expect it as a "feature" in the future. Eventually the Comcasts of the world will sell off the majority of the IPv4 they hold to the AWSs of the world.

> Eventually the Comcasts of the world will sell off the majority of the IPv4 they hold to the AWSs of the world.

And so died what was knows as "Internet" and AOL was resurrected…

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#298

What most people don't understand, is that Starlink is a military first service. Their primary customer is the US military. The most obvious application is UAVs where latency is critical. The consumer part is probably just marketing. It doesn't make much economic sense. Imagine they wanted to launch 1000s of classified military satellites. Everyone would be opposed.

Please provide actual sources to these claims. SpaceX has made roll out of consumer terminals a priority and started basically as early as it was possible.

If the military was really the primary target, why would they do it like that?

Not launching it until you have laser link would also made more sense if you wanted to sell to the military primarily.

The military and other commercial have run some trial test but they are not close to ready to adopt them. The military also doesn't need nearly as many sat to get the coverage.

Launching 12k+ sats just for the military makes no sense what so ever.

So please, substantiate your claims with something other then speculation.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How well would this work on oceangoing boats? I have tugboats in the Caribbean that could use cheaper connectivity.

theoretically, great, and I would be shocked if they did not release a product functionally equivalent to the iridium and inmarsat aviation and maritime terminals, because of how much potential revenue is there. it will also be much better and faster than a multi-axis motorized tracking geostationary maritime terminal ($40,000+ things you can find in radomes on large ships, operating in various ku and ka band network…

Can anyone comment on how much motion the current terminal will tolerate? I’m wondering about a boat at anchor.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#300
post #298

What most people don't understand, is that Starlink is a military first service. Their primary customer is the US military. The most obvious application is UAVs where latency is critical. The consumer part is probably just marketing. It doesn't make much economic sense. Imagine they wanted to launch 1000s of classified military satellites. Everyone would be opposed.

Please provide actual sources to these claims. SpaceX has made roll out of consumer terminals a priority and started basically as early as it was possible. If the military was really the primary target, why would they do it like that? Not launching it until you have laser link would also made more sense if you wanted to sell to the military primarily. The military and other commercial have run some trial test but the…

For source just ask what Russians say. https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/russia-may-fine-citi...

Keep in mind, that searching for sources for military stuff, doesn't make a lot of sense. They are mostly classified.

But yes while the project was initiated for military purposes, they also want consumers to reduce the amount they have to pay.

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