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Starlink Aviation

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Re: Starlink Aviation

#321

Post by Arnt »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #292
Arnt wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend lives in a city with a lot of startups, a lot of technology companies and a research university that's been on the internet since before the DNS. He's on the waiting list for Starlink because the fastest residential connection he can get is 3Mbps. There's much fiber there, but also many streets where no fiber is available. AFAICT that kind of spottiness is the most common case and few cities have uniformly g…

You'd think there would be investors popping up left and right to improve it, because offering 500 Mbps in an area where you can only get 3 Mbps is sure to sell. Is this where the weird dichotomy between the US being on the one side very liberal for businesses yet on the other very restrictive? (the restrictive being protectionist practices from the established companies in this case)

Sure to sell is one thing, sure to make a profit is quite another. ISPs have cost models along the lines of "requires x permits from y entities and z meters of digging", except more complex, and the costs have to be smaller than the expected additional sales over a fairly small number of future years.

The expected additional sales, because some/many of the customers will buy a 16/1Mbps DSL connection if the provider doesn't offer them 500/500 fiber, and the price won't be that much lower.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#322

Post by postingawayonhn »

kensai wrote: post #296
FireBeyond wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In-flight wifi (and otherwise all other transmissions) have pretty much always been air to ground This has not been the case for several years. Most in flight Wifi is now being provided by Viasat which, as the name suggests, is air to space. Even Gogo started rolling out satellite service in 2015. Very few services are now air-to-ground. Random pictures: https://i.stack.imgur.com/I7Yfd.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.n…

If this has been working correctly for many years, how is it that we still lose planes? :( Isn't such connection bulletproof for the trajectory of the plane, even if simply passively tracking?

Not all plans have these systems installed.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#323

Post by postingawayonhn »

bobthepanda wrote: post #306
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think there would be investors popping up left and right to improve it, because offering 500 Mbps in an area where you can only get 3 Mbps is sure to sell. Is this where the weird dichotomy between the US being on the one side very liberal for businesses yet on the other very restrictive? (the restrictive being protectionist practices from the established companies in this case)

The primary issue is * there isn’t any sort of provider like Openreach where all the ISPs share some portion of the network (in Openreach’s case, the last-mile network) so every ISP has to build every last inch to the home themselves * generally speaking, ISPs have to get permits from localities, which are often cash-strapped and thus looking to scrape as much money as they can from an unsympathetic sector

> where all the ISPs share some portion of the network (in Openreach’s case, the last-mile network) so every ISP has to build every last inch to the home themselves

There could be though if US regulators wanted too.

In my country (New Zealand) for example the government did a deal during the switch from copper to fiber that regulated the network owners. A network owner would get exclusive rights to install their cables in a particular city and in return they would be prohibited from retail sales and would have to provide wholesale access to their network to ISPs at regulated prices.

Now something like 90% of the country has access to at least gigabit fiber (up to 8 gigabit available in some areas) and a choice of a dozen or so ISPs.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#324

Post by quacksilver »

bobthepanda wrote: post #306
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think there would be investors popping up left and right to improve it, because offering 500 Mbps in an area where you can only get 3 Mbps is sure to sell. Is this where the weird dichotomy between the US being on the one side very liberal for businesses yet on the other very restrictive? (the restrictive being protectionist practices from the established companies in this case)

The primary issue is * there isn’t any sort of provider like Openreach where all the ISPs share some portion of the network (in Openreach’s case, the last-mile network) so every ISP has to build every last inch to the home themselves * generally speaking, ISPs have to get permits from localities, which are often cash-strapped and thus looking to scrape as much money as they can from an unsympathetic sector

I am in an apartment building in a large city where OpenReach will only supply 3mb fibre despite how many times we ask or complain.

There are other 2 or 3 year newer apartment buildings 10 meters away in 3 directions which have fiber to the premises rather then awkwardly run lengths of the cheapest aluminium cable that they could find.

I was considering using starlink but found prepaid MVNO 5G cheaper (though it is unreliable)

Re: Starlink Aviation

#325

Post by Gasp0de »

ggregoire wrote: post #161

Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.

Elon Musk has a strong vision for environmentally friendly means of transportation, and I don't think that is currently possible with planes.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#326

Post by 1123581321 »

ggregoire wrote: post #161

Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.

“I’ve got an idea for an electric jet.” -Elon Musk, Iron Man 2.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#327

Post by numpad0 »

_flux wrote: post #315
acover wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say cities have 3000 people per square kilometer. Farms have 1 person per square kilometer. Only 1 in 3000 people need to desire starlink for cities to have more demand. Strange situations happen. Not having good service in your neighborhood, hating the one provider available, wanting a backup, liking the idea of internet from space, lower latency over seas and thousands of other reasons I'm not crazy enough to…

To use Starlink you need to have a line-of-sight to the satellites, and that basically requires you'll get to install the ceiling of the whole building and even that might not be enough, right? To do that you probably need to get the whole building (or the building manager) to go along with this. So if you have 1/3000 of people wanting this in the city, those same people also need to be in a matching situation to hav…

And that's how you get a satellite internet that works like satellite internet, or at best a 3Mbps cable. duh.

I think there are misunderstandings in the concept of a "city", that what kind of density it refers to, and how much space - on top of area - is allocated for a resident in such a city. To me, a city is straight up Bladerunner, luxury apartments having such privileges as shared library rooms or balcony railings with sightlines workable for some GEO satellite dishes. To GP a city might be towards houses with single-car garages. That kind of definition mismatch happens both ways, by the way, in forms of city dwellers mistakenly offending other city as rural areas and complicating discussions.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#328

Post by cjrp »

kensai wrote: post #296
FireBeyond wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In-flight wifi (and otherwise all other transmissions) have pretty much always been air to ground This has not been the case for several years. Most in flight Wifi is now being provided by Viasat which, as the name suggests, is air to space. Even Gogo started rolling out satellite service in 2015. Very few services are now air-to-ground. Random pictures: https://i.stack.imgur.com/I7Yfd.jpg https://cdn.arstechnica.n…

If this has been working correctly for many years, how is it that we still lose planes? :( Isn't such connection bulletproof for the trajectory of the plane, even if simply passively tracking?

Several changes came in post-MH370 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370#A...

Re: Starlink Aviation

#329

Post by zx10rse »

ggregoire wrote: post #161

Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.

He does not need to start an airline company, he is going to change the airline industry if fingers crossed we will live to see Starship Earth to Earth happening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqE-ultsWt0

And what we will be even better a strong competition, so that kind of flights will be available to all.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#330

Post by robertlagrant »

M3L0NM4N wrote: post #244
ggregoire wrote: post #161

Slightly unrelated but makes me wonder how different would be the airline industry nowadays if Musk had launched a airline company at the same time he launched SpaceX. How different would it be to take a plane and travel across the world.

The same but the screens on the back of the seats would be slightly larger.

The pilot's controls will all be touchscreen :)
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