How will this work in terms of spectrum usage across countries? Will every country have to allocate the same frequencies as the carriers involved in the US? Will every phone have to support particular bands used in the US? A bit confused about how they anticipate tackling the hurdles here.
SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
101–110 of 496 posts
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
No, it's will be using standard cell phones with no additional hardware on the cell phone.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
GPS receivers do not transmit information back to the satellites. Presumably these cell phone users will want two-way communication.
It's straight up, line of sight. The biggest issue will be water in the atmosphere. Compared to your average urban canyon it probably isn't all that bad. Consider that HAMs routinely work insane distances with extremely little power LOS is relatively easy, especially if one side is a satellite with a beefy antenna for both transmission and reception. I'm more interested in the power budget than whether or not they ca…
Line of sight will be needed for upload transmit, definitely. However, with sufficient power on the satelites it should be able to transmit loud enough at lower frequencies (better penetration) so it should be receivable inside of a phone pocket or underneath something shallow.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
They claimed it will work on most existing phones, but they did caveat with "aspirationally" all over the place.
If it’s send-only than a satellite receiving a ping isn’t insane - they’re only 340 miles up.
It's not send only. It's a standard cell phone service.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#105I'm still baffled that I get better service in the middle of a lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness than on the shore. I tried T-Mobile for service, I tried Verizon, and I tried AT&T, and for whatever reason, I could run a decent speed test in the middle of many lakes, but not anywhere else.
Fresnel zones are weird. Radio waves don't always behave like line-of-sight would suggest. So out on the water, you might be farther from the tower as the crow flies, but there may be less interference, obstruction, multipath error, etc.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#106Earlier 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.
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…
Also 10x may not be representative since the 45 miles to a cell tower is all through atmosphere but Starlink is 400 miles up, so there's only 5-10 miles of atmosphere at any noticeable density.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's straight up, line of sight. The biggest issue will be water in the atmosphere. Compared to your average urban canyon it probably isn't all that bad. Consider that HAMs routinely work insane distances with extremely little power LOS is relatively easy, especially if one side is a satellite with a beefy antenna for both transmission and reception. I'm more interested in the power budget than whether or not they ca…
Line of sight will be needed for upload transmit, definitely. However, with sufficient power on the satelites it should be able to transmit loud enough at lower frequencies (better penetration) so it should be receivable inside of a phone pocket or underneath something shallow.
It will be interesting to see how well it performs inside structures. Is there any info on what kind of power those satellites can output or is that classified?
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#108Can someone smarter than me explain what’s in it for Starlink?
T-Mobile is paying for this. They might be paying quite a bit since it requires adding a large antenna to every Starlink satellite.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#109I 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
Self-driving cars have proven harder than expected, but given the rest of Musk's tale, I wouldn't bet against him. SpaceX is already launching satellites, and Starlink is already providing service. T-mobile owns the frequencies for it, it's "just" a matter of building the satellites and putting them into space. If the claim were more outlandish, it would be harder to buy, but the technology is eminently doable.
Yes, I expect this to be one of many announcements going forward, with Amazon Kuiper and OneWeb coming into the party -- eventually. However, SpaceX has the advantage of vertical integration (they launch their own rockets) which substantially helps with costs.
Re: SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
"This isn't just Theranos, this is Walgreens as well."
Why do people keep comparing to Theranos when Starlink is already being used by hundreds of thousands of people? Starlink exists. In fact, SpaceX/Starlink now operates more satellites in Low Earth Orbit than every other country and business in the world, combined. Theranos had no proven track record. Like, what's enough to satisfy you?
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