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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

#231

Post by fragmede »

extheat wrote: post #174
ericabiz wrote: post #153

I believe this is SpaceX trying to stay one step ahead of Apple. Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago? https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le... Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead. Of cours…

Apple phones are a lot less ubiquitous than general cell phones. Anything with an antenna and a (e)SIM card can get access to the T-mobile network, so what Apple is providing might be nice but I can't see how they compete at the level SpaceX can. And the global regulatory approvals needed will be a problem for everyone.

Apple could partner with SpaceX and T-Mobile, like they did with AT&T and the original iPhone launch instead of trying to compete with them.

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

#232

Post by epgui »

kelnos wrote: post #222
bottlepalm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in its current state with FSD beta my car drives itself 95% of the time.

I'm not sure what software was present on this random Lyft I took a couple months ago, but I was seated in the front, watching Tesla's infotainment screen the entire ride, which on one side was displaying a sort of wireframe (not the right word, but they weren't realistic drawings) of objects in front of and around the car as we were driving. I was alarmed to see how often pedestrians, and even cars passing while wai…

The display is not a great indicator of what the car "sees". Ideally the display would reassure the passenger, but you could totally solve self driving without solving this UX problem.

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

#233

Post by wmf »

mandeepj wrote: post #223

How many of you are not convinced that StarLink will launch a smart phone soon? Tesla has all the related tech and StarLink has the connectivity. I guess at this point, it's just a matter of time.

Remember the Facebook phone? A slam dunk, right? Or the Fire Phone? (More like Fyre Phone.)

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

#234

Post by tshaddox »

mlindner wrote: post #92
judge2020 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would expect our pricing for this service to be the un-carrier's favorite price: we expect, on our most popular plans, for this service to be included for free" https://youtu.be/Qzli-Ww26Qs?t=851

Yes, that's what I said. Edit: Downvotes are happening for some reason. "most likely" and "I would expect" mean basically the same thing unless we're playing grammar police. The entire point of my above post was to deny the fact that they "did not disclose specific pricing". That was the part that was incorrect that I was correcting, as shown in the long form direct quote.

> "most likely" and "I would expect" mean basically the same thing

And so does just saying the claim with no qualifiers. Of course when you’re making a claim you’re expressing that you expect it to be the case with high likelihood. That’s what making a claim is.

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

#235

Post by jupp0r »

extheat wrote: post #23
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…

> Included for free with most T-Mobile plans other than the cheapest plans This is big. Only concerning part seems to be the large antenna required on the satellites, which would probably incur some extra scrutiny by regulators, but IMO the benefits of something like this far exceed the downsides.

Why would large antennas require scrutiny by regulators?

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

#236

Post by bottlepalm »

kelnos wrote: post #222
bottlepalm wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in its current state with FSD beta my car drives itself 95% of the time.

I'm not sure what software was present on this random Lyft I took a couple months ago, but I was seated in the front, watching Tesla's infotainment screen the entire ride, which on one side was displaying a sort of wireframe (not the right word, but they weren't realistic drawings) of objects in front of and around the car as we were driving. I was alarmed to see how often pedestrians, and even cars passing while wai…

It's a beta so you shouldn't trust it. I'm just saying, I've driven thousands of miles and 95% of the time no issues. The other 5% I almost always know where it will have issues and manually take over before it even gets into a bad situation. A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes that will be resolved with future updates. I agree the object recognition is a bit jumpy, but it hasn't really affected the driving afaik, and I'm sure over time that will stabilize. It is really cool Tesla shows you exactly what the car sees. In other self-driving systems the user usually has no idea what the car is seeing. Tesla could do that as well, but this way it is much more honest. I'm looking forward to getting the latest release which is able to recognize the 3d model of unknown objects and avoid them.

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

#237

Post by Hextinium »

shadowgovt wrote: post #65
mlindner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Good question. I've had a bear of a time sourcing good info on this and would welcome a solid analysis.

This [1] may help but I'm wholely unfamiliar with the field. A guy at Defcon did a talk about how HAM radio in Florida allocates their bandwidth and goes into the nitty details of propegation.

[1] https://youtu.be/fH-yyTZffAk

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

#238

Post by phillipseamore »

ericabiz wrote: post #153

I believe this is SpaceX trying to stay one step ahead of Apple. Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago? https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le... Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead. Of cours…

From the rumours I've heard, OneWeb is involved with that. OneWeb sats are basically LTE basestations.

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

#239

Post by jahlove »

fragmede wrote: post #228
bhauer wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are right, T-Mobile's effort to get Apple onboard with making the necessary changes to separate iMessage payload from regular cell data on these special low-bandwidth space-cells could be a challenge.

Not really. Apple gives T-Mobile the hostnames/IP addresses they use for iMessage, and T-Mobile configures their APN to only allow connections to those addresses. There's a lot that happens on the backend for cell data to work that consumers don't see.

They need to know more about the payload, so that they don't try to upload a video through starling, for instance.

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

#240

Post by jupp0r »

fragmede wrote: post #35
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.

Satellite phone Internet previously existed, it's just crazy expensive.

It’s $10 per month for my Garmin InReach which gives you emergency comms and let’s you upgrade to unlimited SMS and some other stuff for $60. I use it a lot and it’s very reasonable. Runs on Iridium.
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