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Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

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Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#381

Post by roelschroeven »

40four wrote: post #201

”Starlink satellites are over 60 times closer to Earth than traditional satellites ” Goodness! I really need to learn more about satellites! For some reason that statement really strikes me. I wonder what the ‘band’ of distance from earth most satellites fall into. The range of area a satellite can orbit earth must be pretty wide if this is the case. Now I need to look up what is the closest & furthest distance a sma…

Let me suggest some starting points for your reading.

The Wikipedia pages on low earth orbit, medium earth orbit, geostationary orbit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Earth_orbit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_Earth_orbit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit

Interactive 3D visualization of synthetic satellites in orbit around earth (including the ISS, rocket bodies, debris):

http://stuffin.space/

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#382

Post by rkangel »

escalt wrote: post #362
sgtnoodle wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, the fact that they just went with IPv4 supports the theory that they know what they're doing. I've read multiple tutorials on IPv6 and it's so complicated that I still can't grasp how it all works in my head. For some context, I've personally written an Ethernet IPv4 network stack with DHCP from scratch. I also worked on Ethernet switch firmware, coincidentally for SpaceX...

I guess I don't have as much low level experience as you do, but in my eyes IPv6 is literally just IPv4 with more bits. Due to the increased number of possible addresses, IPv6 is used with some different (better) concepts than IPv4. For example having (very likely) unique local networks (ULAs) is amazing when you happen to merge previously independent networks together or do some VPN stuff. You pretty much never have…

The thing about IP and therefore with IPv6 is it's not just an address format - it's a set of protocols and practices so a lot of it changes.

Address asignment in an IPv6 world is more complicated - you can do DHCPv6, or your can do stateless auto-config. Which should you choose and when? Many other aspects of the stack require more knowledge.

And THEN you ALSO need to understand how v4 and v6 interacts so you can provide suitable compatibility - the various different methods of tunnelling and negotiation.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#383

Post by m101 »

Hi hackernews, I have a couple of questions on the potential to undermine existing telcos.

1) what is the theoretical capacity near term of the network in terms of # users per unit area and bit rate per unit area? What do you think the maximum single connection speed using the spectrum they have available?

2) is there potential to increase that capacity in the future? To what level? Perhaps they can develop multi-dish base stations which connect to many satellites at once? Beam forming? Multiple frequencies?

3) is there potential for starlink to offer more density by linking to space in one location and installing a cell phone tower to spread the connection locally? This has potential to drastically cut the cost to the user (standard hardware) and also increase density, but it requires fast single location connectivity to space.

4) has there been an analysis done of which existing telco customers starlink could potentially steal? Which telcos are most exposed? How many customers are in the group that would switch?

5) have you guys considered starlink from the perspective of zero marginal cost per customer acquired, Vs standard cable is high marginal cost per customer acquired? Said another way - all of starlink costs are upfront whether they have 1 customer or 1m customers, but standard telcos need to decide on investing in cable spend on a per customer basis. From this viewpoint have you guys thought about which customers normal telcos will decide to let go to starlink and not invest in new infrastructure in the face of starlink competition?

6) is it likely that Musk is sandbagging the potential capabilities of starlink in order to put cable/Telco companies at ease of the threat in case they look for regulatory protections?

7) have you guys compared starlink services to software services and what the implications of this might be? Software is all upfront in development and then zero marginal. Sounds like starlink may be quite similar. The other telcos are not in this position however (see #5 above).

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#384

Post by roelschroeven »

algorithm314 wrote: post #300
nickik wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How does that article support your claim?

I'm convinced that the primary purpose of Starlink is funding SpaceX's R&D for eventually going to Mars. Providing internet service to the public helps, providing internet service to the military helps too. I don't think the really prioritize one above the other.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#385

Post by buggythebug »

whylo wrote: post #316

Interesting snippet from the terms of service: > For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.

Kuato will decide.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#386

Post by devoutsalsa »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #169
GoOnThenDoTell wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the markets need lots of bandwidth? Or just-enough with the lowest possible latency

Markets don't, but, GP said: "I can't imagine much appetite for any future under-sea cabling out of Australia" And the reality is that satellites can not compete with the bandwidth of subsea cables for bulk data transfer, HFT is a whole other world.

I’d guess that high speed data transfer competes with overnight shipping a hard drive in most current cases. In my day to day life, for most cases I’d rather has 10 Mbps with 10 ms latency than 1 Gbps with 250 ms latency. Generally speaking I’m looking for a snappy user experience and fast enough for Netflix streaming to a non-premium television. But high bandwidth and low latency would be super nice!

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#388

Post by _ph_ »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #274
stjohnswarts wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure very soon you'll be able to pay a premium to use any cell.

There are almost certainly always going to be restrictions, because the bandwidth density on the ground is going to be limited. For example, a lot of recreational boaters are likely to get a terminal, which will work well over the open ocean. However, when all of those boaters tie their boat at the LA marina, there is absolutely no hope that the system can provide anything even approximating good service to them. So…

Not sure that the LA marina would be the bottleneck, but it totally makes sense to limit customers to one cell in the early phases of the software. On the one side there are capacity concerns, which will lessen as they have more satellites up. On the other side, it can be quite simple software limitations, like implementing the hand-over between cells. By limiting the system to fixed cells initially, a lot of complexity is removed.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#389

Post by nickik »

algorithm314 wrote: post #300
nickik wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The article doesn't prove anything other then that the Russian are scared about free access to information and hate SpaceX in particular because SpaceX is basically destroying Russian space flight.

And we do actually have sources that military have test Starlink, these contracts are not super secret. We also no that military has contracts with other sat providers already.

Yet there is no such contract with Starlink.

You just have opinion based on nothing that the consumer market is not worth it and nothing to back it up with, and it contradicts everything said by SpaceX and what many analysts believe.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#390

Post by ankurpatel »

This is just hype created as part of SpaceX and marketing it as sci-fi tech. Satellite internet has been there for a long time. They are unreliable in bad weather and best for rural areas where there is no internet connection or slow option. For $99/month it is very expensive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Inte...
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