Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 496 posts

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

#241

Post by Robotbeat »

kibibyte wrote: post #143
wongarsu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4G/LTE was commonly quoted as 3km range for rural installations (using the 2GHz bands). 5G added 700MHz and 800MHz bands that are quoted as 10-20km achievable range. For typical cell tower heights 20km is about the range where they would sink behind the horizon, so that might be the practical limit here. Starlink satellites are about 330km up, so one order of magnitude further. But they also have basically unobstruct…

GPS is a thing, so I can imagine that a phone would be able to receive satellite signals pretty easily. But for transmission, I can't imagine this working without having your phone put a ton of power into sending a powerful enough signal, perhaps more so than how much power you need to passively receive GPS signals in the absence of traditional cell towers?

It works because the satellites will have a HUGE antenna, 5m by 5m. And to enable the launching of this many big satellites, SpaceX will launch (most of them) on Starship.

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

#242

Post by mandeepj »

wmf wrote: post #233
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.)

You notice a pattern there? A phone should be generalized; both the phones that you mentioned were narrowed down by its parent company to their own use cases. I guess maybe that's why they FAILED.

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

#243

Post by pokerhobo »

tomcam wrote: post #150

Color me not the least impressed. I pay $200/month for my family to use T-Mobile. Data barely works in my backyard--and I'm one city over from their headquarters. I've called them and I've Tweeted. They energetically tell me they're taking action and... nothing happens.

So why haven’t you switched carriers already?

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

#244

Post by Robotbeat »

wongarsu wrote: post #121
fragmede wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just a couple days ago they announced that they will also be using Falcon 9 to launch the new Gen2 Starlink satellites, instead of the original plan to launch all of them using the still-in-development Starship. So it seems like Musk is pretty committed to doing this in a reasonable timeline, with smaller technology risk.

F9 is the backup plan, but they're still planning to launch within a few months on Starship.

You'll know Starship is about ready to launch after they've completed static fires for both stages.

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

#245

Post by vineyardmike »

CharlesW wrote: post #205
ericabiz wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, right. I agree with you on that front. I see it working this way: If you are standing on top of a mountain, right now you can’t send anything. With Apple’s upcoming announcement, you’ll be able to send an iMessage. If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today. I hope Apple allows it for all messages, personally. But I could definitely see them restricting it, especially at the beginn…

> If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today. I may be confused about the scenario then, because this does work for me. Specifically, when I turn off my cellular radio (I'm a T-Mobile customer) I can still send and receive messages to people not using iDevices.

Most carriers have wifi-calling (and wifi SMS) that you can enable.

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

#246

Post by MichaelCollins »

rvz wrote: post #177
ALittleLight wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you damage your own credibility more than Musk's by saying things like this. He's delivered on electric cars and reusable rockets. It's fair to say promises more than he delivers, but he delivers an awful lot.

> I think you damage your own credibility more than Musk's by saying things like this. Why are you making it about this commenter? They are not wrong. Unless you can answer this next question: > He's delivered on electric cars and reusable rockets. It's fair to say promises more than he delivers, but he delivers an awful lot. So where are the 1 million robo-taxis driving around at Level 5 FSD ready for release in 202…

Ardent Musk critics look at FSD, see a scam, and conclude that Musk is a scammer and everything he does is a scam.

Ardent Musk fanboys look at the rockets, see them actually work, and conclude that Musk is legit in everything he does.

Personally I think Musk's ventures are a mix of scam and legitimate. His rockets are real, but I don't believe for a minute they'll ever send a colony to Mars. His cars are real, but anybody who bought one hoping it would make passive income as a robotaxi got burned. Musk ventures are like going to a circus; the lions are probably real, the mermaid exhibit isn't, and the "world's strongest man" is certainly strong, but not the world's strongest.

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

#247

Post by Robotbeat »

nebula8804 wrote: post #118
anonymousiam wrote: post #5

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

Seems like it requires Starship to launch unless I heard it wrong? Its too big for Falcon 9. Starship is still not space ready so it seems like it really depends on that program moving forward before we see these satellites in space. Given Musk's track record, I expect probably a year extra delay before it finally is opened to users. He did mention that they will probably produce a mini version of the satellite if St…

I would bet money there will be some availability of the service by 2023, when they said it'd be available.

I know the meme is that Musk's track record is to delay, but Starlink has been regularly underestimated and has kept pace pretty successfully. Much more than industry insiders expected.

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

#248

Post by vineyardmike »

ericabiz wrote: post #182
CharlesW wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage. What makes you think that? (Messages doesn’t need to be on your carrier’s network to send/receive MMS/SMS messages.)

I wasn’t looking at this from a technical perspective, more of a business/finance/operations perspective. This is Apple we are talking about. They wouldn’t make this play without some form of vendor lock-in. They will probably choose to lock in based on hardware (“must have iPhone 14 for this capability!”) — but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them lock in on the software side as well. If I were Tim Cook, I might play…

I doubt it.

The value-add now is that you keep and iPhone so you have iMessage. You stay blue bubble etc.

The value add of satellite is that you have service on a mountain (or a plane?). The value is that most androids won’t have that (a musk-maybe-one-day project aside).

It’s way more likely they’ll make it exclusively available on high end phones. Thats a way more obvious play for apple.

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

#249

Post by vineyardmike »

bhauer wrote: post #163
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…

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.

They figured it out for the free inflight wifi that allows messaging.

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

#250

Post by fomine3 »

woevdbz wrote: post #164
xcskier56 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To everyone saying “just don’t bring your phone” 1) Camera: iPhones are about the best lightweight camera I’m willing to purchase 2) Navigation: Offline maps with details like slope angle are critical when traveling in the backcountry in winter. Yes I use paper maps too, but some things are much easier digital. 3) I don’t want to leave it in the car to get stolen. And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choi…

> And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choice”, but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off. Leave your SIM card home

Remove current APN (and keep memo away) so it can't connect to internet but phone/SMS is still available.
Post reply on HN