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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

#411

Post by Robotbeat »

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

The technology has already been demonstrated in a similar form by Lynk. The large gen2 satellites have already been built, and you can see the deployed fitted into the Starship prototype in Texas, which is planning an orbital flight test shortly (low single digit months is the desired plan, but don’t get too excited until the static fire tests have been completed on both the booster and the upperstage). They have several other Starships being built as we speak, you can watch them on livestreams on YouTube right now, and these will be the ones that start deploying the new satellites (the first Starship will not enter a permanent orbit as they want to ensure that if there’s a problem with Starship it doesn’t stay in orbit as debris… like Shuttle External Tanks, it’ll splash down in another ocean).

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

#412

Post by Robotbeat »

itsoktocry wrote: post #387
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self driving is one of the hardest, if not the hardest software problems ever to be solved. I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is. Must says a lot of stupid stuff but in reality he has delivered on the vast majority of it, though as he says it's not always in the time frame he expects.

> I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is Is this the shifting of the narrative? "People" aren't underestimating the problem. It's widely known to be an extremely difficult problem. Musk said he'd have it done by now, and actually sold the technology. People have been skeptical of it for the better part of a decade.

I remain skeptical Tesla is anywhere near let-the-driver-sleep self driving (except perhaps in tunnels), but I’m very glad they’re trying to do it, and do it at scale for consumer cars, not just company-owned hyper-sensored vehicles that cost as much as a house.

Literally every company working on the problem a decade ago was over-optimistic, but many pursued a strategy that would keep the technology only for company-owned vehicles, which I find less satisfactory. The whole point of personal cars is independence. We already have buses and transit vans if we want mass transit. If you want self-driving to actually save all the lives it supposedly could, it has to be scalable to everyone.

Musk is terminally optimistic on AI generally, including paranoia about AGI. I don’t expect let-the-driver-sleep self driving for a good 10 years, but it’ll be never if no one tries. The technology does not advance by itself.

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

#413

Post by Robotbeat »

jacquesm wrote: post #149
wongarsu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Starship's orbital test may happen somewhere in the next 6 months, so until they succeed with that Falcon 9 is all they have (it's plenty though).

It could be earlier than that, but they won’t deploy Starlink satellites to a permanent orbit until later flights, so I agree.

And Falcon 9, with droneship landing and fairing recovery now routine, is really a workhorse. Remarkable how much they fly it.

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

#414

Post by londons_explore »

black3r wrote: post #394
dfadsadsf wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If recipient does not have iMessage he will get it as SMS.

iMessages aren't converted to SMS on Apple's servers side. It's a fallback on the phone's side. When you're on a WiFi but with no cell coverage, you can send an iMessage but can't send an SMS.

But, for such a satellite phone service, Apple totally could make a SMS to iMessage gateway, or even just a web interface where non-apple users could log in and see that someone had sent them an iMessage.

Obviously Apple will make the process as painful as possible to encourage buying iPhone.

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

#415

Post by muttled »

yreg wrote: post #325
BurningFrog wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today's announcement says my existing T-Mobile phone already had satellite capability!! They just need to get the satellites up.

It's not the first time I hear about this tech. AST SpaceMobile[0] wants to do exactly the same with existing 4G/5G phones. Of course, they are launching with SpaceX. They might get sherlocked before even finishing their product. [0] https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/

They're ready to launch their test satellite in the next few weeks and are already building the capabilities for the next satellites in the constellation. I'm watching them carefully as it looks like they're going to be able to do it.

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

#416

Post by _abox »

danellis wrote: post #280
arbuge wrote: post #55

More detail here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/spacex-and-t-mobile-team-up-... "T-Mobile users will be able to use messaging, MMS and certain messaging apps, from remote points across the lower 48 states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and even some remote points in the water. Eventually, the service will work with voice, Sievert said. T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did…

Interesting. Is there no distance limit? I don't know how 5G works, but in 2G there was a limit of about 30km, since that's as much as the timing advance would allow for (sending the signal early so that it arrives in its timeslot despite the speed-of-light delay).

In 2G GSM there was this limit, because GSM used very strictly managed timeslots for each call. If a phone was too far away, its signal would arrive out of bounds of the timeslot and this was the reason. The protocol didn't have any compensation built in.

However 3G and onwards were based on CDMA tech (which was the competing 2G tech to GSM), which is very different. CDMA doesn't have strictly managed cells, but rather the basestation picks the signals out of a cacaphony (very simplified). So the same issue doesn't apply.

2G was much more static than CDMA, it had a strict capacity of a number of calls per cell. But the range (up to this 30km) was pretty good because when a phone transmitted the air was clear. CDMA cells used to 'breathe': Have much lower reach during busy times (because weak signals could no longer be identified) so gaps could drop in the network. ON the other hand, 2G got busy with a fixed capacity.

2G did have prioritisation though when the network was full. If you called 112 (the international emergency number) it would kick someone else off to make space for you.

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

#417

Post by omellet »

rocqua wrote: post #363
arbuge wrote: post #55

More detail here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/spacex-and-t-mobile-team-up-... "T-Mobile users will be able to use messaging, MMS and certain messaging apps, from remote points across the lower 48 states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and even some remote points in the water. Eventually, the service will work with voice, Sievert said. T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did…

The quotes here are only about transmitting to cellphones, not about receiving from cellphones. Is uplink also a part of the plan?

If it's TCP then there's an uplink implied.

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

#418

Post by stetrain »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #19
verdverm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs no new towers, direct cell / sat comms with current phones

Won't that require a bunch of phone hardware for sat comms?

They are using standard 5G midband spectrum from T-mobile

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

#419

Post by consumer451 »

NavinF wrote: post #350
hoseja wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that an actual concern? Honestly sounds kinda nonsensical to me but I don't know enough about antenna size in orbit regulation.

It is indeed nonsensical, but it was covered by every news outlet a couple of years ago. Astronomy issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare#Mega-constella... Orbital debris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Potential_tri... Nobody bothered to look at the details.

> Nobody bothered to look at the details.

This is a solid contender for humanity's epitaph.

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

#420

Post by fivestarman »

bottlepalm wrote: post #199
fivestarman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

He's actually a pretty incredible engineer who was been making important engineering decisions daily for 20 years. Decisions that make or break products and companies.

He never studied to be an engineer. He doesn't have his name on any designs or inventions within his companies. He isn't an engineer. A lot of claims have been made that he also hasn't actually coded anything that's been used.

The guy is a liar, look it up.

Go on youtube and search "elon musk debunked". There are lots of videos with sources showing how elon is a fraud.

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