61–70 of 496 posts
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.
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"
Oh man, wait till you hear about GPS.
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Garmin inReach but works on any phone and a bit more bandwidth so not restricted to emergency messages. Also free with most T-Mobile plans (inReach is currently expensive, but may drop in response if that isn't a capacity only issue).
Doesn't this require specific hardware?
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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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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 s…
> So baseline, a modern cell phone can connect to a tower about 45 miles away. Isn't that primarily because of the Earth's curvature and obstructions/hills?
The Justice Department blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger has had huge benefits for consumers. Even though I am on another cell carrier, the competition has pushed them to increase their level of service and lower prices.
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I thought existing Starlink needed a phased array antenna to get decent signal strength. How the hell is a cell phone radio going to reach a satellite?
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.
I watched the announcement. Knowing Musk, I'll believe it when I see it, but it sounds promising. Apparently the G2 Starlink satellites will be equipped with large antennas to support cellular users on the existing spectrum. Video was live-streamed, and still available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs
This isn't just SpaceX, this is T-Mobile as well.
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…
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.