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Starlink Aviation

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Re: Starlink Aviation

#411

Post by sekai »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #365
zuhayeer wrote: post #100

Once upon a time, all plane transmissions were pretty much air to ground. As inconsequential as it may seem, the positioning of antennas above the plane are a bit metaphoric for flipping things up side down. Looking out into space instead of back to earth. Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Pretty much dogfooding…

> Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Like sending Ukraine "free" base stations and charging them $4,500 a month for service.

> Like sending Ukraine "free" base stations and charging them $4,500 a month for service.

Are there any alternatives? Nope. Also, let's not talk about how SpaceX "should" sponge up the costs, because you would not ask Lockheed Martin or Raytheon Technologies to do that. Compared to regular prices of military hardware, Starlink costs nothing.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#412

Post by zaroth »

lm28469 wrote: post #378
zx10rse wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People believing in this are the same people who believed we'd have flying cars by the year 2000. I can't believe people are falling for such blatant sci fi marketing bullshit I bet in 30 years we'll still be arguing that "fully autonomous cars are just around the corner" and "Musk will put a colony on Mars in 5 years"

I hope you’re wrong. In 30 years another couple million people will have died in car accidents if we haven’t mostly solved autonomous driving by then.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#413

Post by blitzar »

zaroth wrote: post #408
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also notable that SpaceX keeps finding these cool (revenue generating) use cases to further cheapen the cost of sending things up to space. Like sending Ukraine "free" base stations and charging them $4,500 a month for service.

The base stations were never free - they were subsidized by various sources. But that $4,500 a month is insanely cheap and an absolutely incredible value for Ukraine. The media loves to whip up a frenzy over Musk, but Ukrainian commanders on the front have said Starlink is the single biggest advantage they have, their efficacy would drop by more than half without it, and even, they’d rather have more Starlink than mo…

> that $4,500 a month is insanely cheap and an absolutely incredible value for Ukraine

"I have bought over 50 StarLinks, with official prices right from the website in EU countries - Poland, CZ, Germany - like 400-500 bucks each, then enable portability for extra IIRC 50$, then payed monthly fee of 60$ (was 120$ before). It’s the same for everyone else in EU" Dimko Zhluktenko, the head of Dzuga’s Paw charity fund, tweeted in his response to the development.

So regular joe donates them for $500 with monthly fee of $60 but $4,500 a month is insanely cheap?

I have a $10,000 toilet seat to sell you.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#414

Post by mytailorisrich »

lxgr wrote: post #395
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…

There‘s a new hybrid system in Europe called EAN, based on a specialized LTE network and an S-band satellite to fill in gaps in coverage (mostly over the oceans). I recently got to use it, and as expected latency is significantly better than on a pure GEO system.

Gogo is also working on an air-to-ground 4G/5G network covering the continental US.

The thing is that once Starlink has the service working, and they have, it does not require a lot of extra investment to support ships and aircrafts.

On the other hand, an air-to-ground system requires a full cellular network on the ground (at the very least with dedicated RF and antennas), although with fewer sites because cells can be massive, and that still only covers land.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#415

Post by moffkalast »

kilroy123 wrote: post #350

Slightly off-topic. I hate that internet is becoming more common on flights. One of my favorite things about flying is that it's a good chunk of time where you disconnect and don't worry about emails or messages. Just sit back and watch a movie or listen to music. Or catch up on sleep.

> Just sit back and try not to listen to the absolutely deafening roar of the turbofans.

I had once planned to sleep on a 10h flight. It did not go to plan.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#416

Post by quacksilver »

Arnt wrote: post #382
quacksilver wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

You mean an actual strand of glass with three megabits of capacity? Where can they buy CPE hardware to support that combination?

was tired - i meant 3mb FTTC/VDSL (which I think they brand as fibre still)

Maybe 1960s/1970s era GPON does that

Re: Starlink Aviation

#417

Post by rootusrootus »

Petersipoi wrote: post #179
rootusrootus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to say the rest of the auto industry is dragging its feet when several of them make objectively superior EVs. They’re putting in the effort.

> objectively I do not think that word means what you think it means. Besides, you definitely can't claim it's "objectively" better unless you're really cherry picking the stats/features you're comparing.

Just on features alone. What can I get on a Tesla that I cannot get somewhere else? Anything? What can I get on a non-Tesla that I cannot get on a Tesla? Rain sensing wipers. CarPlay. HUD. Dashboard screen (in front of the driver). Physical buttons for things that matter. 360 camera. Blindspot and cross traffic warning. Can a Model 3 hit 350kW DC charging yet?

What if I want a pickup? I can buy a Rivian. I can buy a Ford. I will be able to buy a Chevy before the Cybertruck is available. What if I want an SUV but don't want to pay Model X prices?

Tesla is sitting back on their early success, riding a wave of popularity. Good for them. But real competition arrived in the last couple years, and it looks really good. I enjoyed my Model 3 and when I bought it there was no competition, but I'm in the market again and I cannot find a compelling reason to choose a Tesla again. Even if there were feature parity, Tesla's consumer-hostile behavior has me worried about committing to another relationship with them.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#418

Post by mytailorisrich »

rkangel wrote: post #358
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…

There's a new air-to-ground provider though: https://smartskynetworks.com/connectivity/ (I worked on this technology)

Interesting. Is it based on 4G/5G or something ad-hoc?

Re: Starlink Aviation

#419

Post by qeternity »

Thlom wrote: post #186
wolrah wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure Starlink will be better in some way, but it's almost double... The most important difference is that Viasat uses a couple of GEO satellites where Starlink uses a massive swarm of LEO satellites. Viasat's satellites are flying just short of 35,800 kilometers over the equator, which means that your absolute best case scenario user standing right next to a gateway, both directly under the satellite, bare mini…

As long as you have bandwidth latency really isn’t that important for most activities. It can suck a bit for voice and video calls (but not as bad as you might think). Online fast paced gaming is of course out of the question.

There is something beautiful in humanity's advancement to the point that we're debating the feasibility of playing multi-person video games over satellite internet while hurtling through the air at 500mph in a pressurized tube.

Re: Starlink Aviation

#420

Post by traceroute66 »

quacksilver wrote: post #324
bobthepanda wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

> There are other 2 or 3 year newer apartment buildings 10 meters away in 3 directions which have fiber to the premises

Yup.

Sounds like you've stumbled across one of OpenWretch's many failings.

Sounds like your building is one of the many unfortunate older buildings throughout the country that is connected via EO lines. EO = "Exchange Only", i.e. copper goes direct back to the exchange, not via a street cab.

Buildings served via EO lines are very much "back of the back of the back of the queue" at OR when it comes to FTTP upgrade.

OR seemingly deem it "too difficult" to pull fibre back down the same EO ducts to the exchange. Others might say "can't be arsed" or "easier to sweat the copper assets" or "waiting for another government handout" .... I couldn't possibly say.

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