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SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

wsj.com

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Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#41

Post by mlindner »

samstave wrote: post #9

space based global coverage scares the shit out of me, especially when its 100% commercial interests. Thought you could be untrackable off grid? Think again. Think you can be in an RF free zone, anywhere on planet? Nope. There is no "off-grid" when your grid is literally LAT+LONG 100% data access sounds awesome until you realize that its no longer "surveillance state" and its "surveillance planet"

> Thought you could be untrackable off grid? Think again.

If you want to be untrackable and off grid why are you bringing your cell phone with you?

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#42

Post by joshuamoes »

This will shake up a lot of things in the sattelite market. It will take a lot of marketshare from satellite trackers like inreach. Also living in a remote area, and being familiar with the existing tracking solutions for transport this could be a lot cheaper per asset. Also remote sensor locations. Anything low bitrate.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#43

Post by extheat »

basementcat wrote: post #18

AST SpaceMobile will be launching a cellular base station satellite on a SpaceX rocket later this year. https://ast-science.com/

Getting regulatory approval for the spectrum is one of the hardest problems, the hardest non-technical one. T-Mobile agreeing to allocate some of their spectrum to SpaceX is something that will probably happen with other carriers later down the line. AT&T and Verizon in the US are probably going to explore similar moves if the T-Mobile plan works well (IIRC, Verizon has plans for something with Amazon Kuiper). Wouldn't be surprised to see AST SpaceMobile as a target of M&A if they have something that works.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#44

Post by trillic »

Anecdotally, 5G is significantly better at line of sight at significant distances than previous technology. While sailing 40+ miles offshore this summer, I've gotten 5G on deck, with decent upload performance using my iPhone, when in years previous I didn't get coverage much beyond 12 miles anywhere around where I sail, despite there being tall buildings with cell towers on them with a 30+ mile horizon for at least 2 decades. I use ATT, but super excited for this cell service anywhere future, will be switching to T-Mobile SIM for my dev phone.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#45

Post by MichaelCollins »

samstave wrote: post #29
boredpudding wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, wait till you hear about GPS.

Wait until you hear the difference between UPD and TCP.

I think you might have a point w.r.t. tracking, but you brought up "RF free". There's next to nowhere on earth you can go to escape radio transmissions completely, except a faraday cage or maybe a deep mine. Besides GPS, there's been shortwave radio broadcasts bouncing all over the place for a century.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#46

Post by jahlove »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
andrewmunsell wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely what I am interested in-- how existing cell HW can be picked up by their satellites. Even at low data rates for emergency SMS, etc. (caveat, I'm not a HW or radio engineer), this seems like an incredible feat if they can get it to work.

GPS is an 'incredible feat', that's advanced magic. This is many orders of magnitude more signal strength, even without beam steering. That said, it will still require a pretty sensitive receiver, but nothing on the order of what your cell phone already contains for GPS.

GPS receivers do not transmit information back to the satellites. Presumably these cell phone users will want two-way communication.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#47

Post by trothamel »

mlindner wrote: post #36
nootropicat wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the... is that what's possible with 5G? Amazing, and even days ago I was thinking of satellite smartphone internet as something scifi because of (clearly incorrect!) complicated antenna requirements.

It's being transmitted to existing phones, so it's going over 5G, LTE, or both.

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#48

Post by shadowgovt »

nootropicat wrote: post #21
mlindner wrote: post #7

Key notes: * Everywhere in the US and US territories including ocean waters you will get T-Mobile service through Starlink satellites, no additional hardware needed (for the person owning the cell phone anyway) * Beta service starting end of 2023 * Included for free with most T-Mobile plans other than the cheapest plans * More limited features may be added earlier, i.e. texting or emergency calling * Total available…

What the... is that what's possible with 5G? Amazing, and even days ago I was thinking of satellite smartphone internet as something scifi because of (clearly incorrect!) complicated antenna requirements.

Radio's got some crazy physics.

So baseline, a modern cell phone can connect to a tower about 45 miles away. Stsrlink satellites orbir about 10 times out from that. They are solving this problem by some very clever phased array technology to be deployed on the satellites themselves, because when it comes to radio, you can often solve the problem of signal reception by boosting either the transmitter or the receiver side of the story.

This is how we've kept in touch with the Voyagers all this time. The Voyager radio technology is getting no better, but the technology we can throw at it from a ground station has been out-stripping the loss due to distance and degradation (or at least approximately keeping pace).

Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas

#49

Post by harpratap »

mlindner wrote: post #34
basementcat wrote: post #18

AST SpaceMobile will be launching a cellular base station satellite on a SpaceX rocket later this year. https://ast-science.com/

Yes if the SpaceX service succeeds it's kind of a death knell for the likes of AST SpaceMobile and Iridium.

The market seems to be big enough for multiple providers. AST will definitely be providing services to Rakuten in Japan and thus many more clients through their Symphony offerings
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