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Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

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Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#61

Post by quirino »

cpncrunch wrote: post #52
version_five wrote: post #27

This will hopefully give Canadians real options for mobile phone plans. It will be "illegal" because our telecom monopoly (oligopoly) writes the laws, but presumably with a US address it will be possible, like it was with satellite dishes, to get a proper phone on a network that doesn't gouge you. I'll be curious what the monopoly does to try and fight it.

There are affordable plans in Canada. It's just that they aren't really advertised. I have unlimited Canadian talk+text + 2GB for $35/month. Without the data (just unlimited domestic text+voice) it's $20/month. This plan isn't public...for some reason my wife got emailed about it and she got signed up. They allowed me to sign up too, even though they hadn't notified me about it. I think these plans are used to entice…

Maybe you're not aware how much cheaper data is in other countries. Here in Brazil, unlimited Whatsapp + Voice + 5Gb costs 8$/month.

Surely there are many factors to this but those Canadian prices still sound insane to me. This website (https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/#pric...) lists Canada as having 50x more expensive data than Italy for instance.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#62

Post by makeitdouble »

jojobas wrote: post #15
RC_ITR wrote: post #2

Just as a PSA in case not everyone knows this new feature. In the US and a growing number of other countries, the latest iPhones have a satellite network for emergencies. If tech giants are going to spend money on something cool, might as well use it. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

It's not exactly "satellite network", it's piggy-backing on an existing SAR reception infrastructure that used to require somewhat expensive dedicated devices. Not sure it's a good idea, I'd expect a wave of SAR requests for not real emergencies.

First time I heard about it, and looking at this after some googling: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/search-and-rescue-satellites/

If I am getting this right, Apple and other device makers would have some kind of beacon registration for every single device it produces with the feature ?

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#63

Post by wyager »

jrexilius wrote: post #13

This sounds to me like a single, global, commercial IMSI catcher that can track international movement of cell phones.. I guess the question is how good their triangulation will be, but I imagine the back-end data market for this will be fairly lucrative for them. And they don't really need any countries permission to _listen_ from space... .. .

What are the chances of convincing a regulatory body to overturn laws mandating hard-coded hardware identifiers on a privacy basis? Probably not very good

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#64

Post by toast0 »

bee_rider wrote: post #55
copperx wrote: post #4

I'm just glad because that's going to end the longstanding misconception that phones are connected to satellites. They will finally be.

Ya know I am now realizing that I always assumed that I thought the link was phone -> tower -> satellite, and I’m just now realizing that that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They are often off in the woods, though! Do some connect to satellites? Edit: apparently satellite backhaul is a thing but kinda rare.

Bouncing off a geosynchronous satellite makes the latency awful, but it is an option. Fiber, copper, or point to point wireless are better options, though.

Latency for bouncing off LEO satellites isn't too bad though.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#65

Post by jychang »

cpncrunch wrote: post #52
version_five wrote: post #27

This will hopefully give Canadians real options for mobile phone plans. It will be "illegal" because our telecom monopoly (oligopoly) writes the laws, but presumably with a US address it will be possible, like it was with satellite dishes, to get a proper phone on a network that doesn't gouge you. I'll be curious what the monopoly does to try and fight it.

There are affordable plans in Canada. It's just that they aren't really advertised. I have unlimited Canadian talk+text + 2GB for $35/month. Without the data (just unlimited domestic text+voice) it's $20/month. This plan isn't public...for some reason my wife got emailed about it and she got signed up. They allowed me to sign up too, even though they hadn't notified me about it. I think these plans are used to entice…

In the USA, unlimited talk/text with 2GB data is $14/month with Tello. $8/month without data. $29/month with unlimited data.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#66

Post by martyvis »

dmitrygr wrote: post #33
rolenthedeep wrote: post #30

Huh, I wonder how they manage to pick up the tiny amount of RF energy a normal phone can output from that far away, and through the noise of literally millions of other phones in the satellite's field of view. Gotta be some real weird RF voodoo happening in there.

Well, so far they only promised to. So, probably it’ll be done the same way that Teslas could self drive, across the county, unassisted in 2017

It's strange that you think that this is so unachievable yet we have things like Bluetooth, WiFi, LoRa and regular cell phone all working with relatively tiny amounts of power and discriminating from the noise generated by other nonparticipants. This would amaze anyone from before the 70s.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#67

Post by ipdashc »

walrus01 wrote: post #48
bagels wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that there aren't already intelligence satellites up there listening to as much RF as possible everywhere all the time.

There literally are, there's very good declassified evidence that has leaked out periodically in small pieces since the mid 1980s that some of what the NSA has are very large satellites with big unfolding umbrella-like antennas aimed directly down at the ground. For SIGINT collection and analysis. Or possibly some combination overlap between the black budget parts of the NRO and NSA. Same size satellite bus as the la…

I believe you're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(satellite)

> The satellites have estimated mass close to 5,200 kg and very large (estimated 100 m diameter)[2] radio reflecting dishes. USA-223 (NROL-32), which is seen as the fifth satellite in the series, is according to NRO director Bruce Carlson "the largest satellite in the world".[3] It is believed that this refers to the diameter of the main antenna, which might be well in excess of 100 m (330 ft).[4]

I've never bothered following the citations so I don't know how true this is, but it's pretty insane if it's real. A 100-meter-diameter satellite! I know it's an unfolding-umbrella-style mesh like you said, but still, that's impressive.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#68

Post by cldellow »

quirino wrote: post #61
cpncrunch wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are affordable plans in Canada. It's just that they aren't really advertised. I have unlimited Canadian talk+text + 2GB for $35/month. Without the data (just unlimited domestic text+voice) it's $20/month. This plan isn't public...for some reason my wife got emailed about it and she got signed up. They allowed me to sign up too, even though they hadn't notified me about it. I think these plans are used to entice…

Maybe you're not aware how much cheaper data is in other countries. Here in Brazil, unlimited Whatsapp + Voice + 5Gb costs 8$/month. Surely there are many factors to this but those Canadian prices still sound insane to me. This website ( https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/#pric... ) lists Canada as having 50x more expensive data than Italy for instance.

Man, as a Canadian, I hate being put in the position of defending our wireless monopolies. But here goes.

That website seems... not great?

I think you got a 50x ratio by dividing the average prices of $0.12 (Italy) and $5.94 (Canada).

That appears to be a median...but I'd like to know how they chose the plans they used for the calculation. For example, Canada's maximum price is given as $46.02/GB. Perhaps such a plan is technically available, but I really doubt someone is using it for data, so it seems bizarre to include it in this data set.

For cheapest prices, they cite $0.05/GB for Italy and $1.66/GB for Canada. But off the top of my head, Rogers, which is the #1 telco in Canada, offers $0.74/GB. Seems... odd that it didn't make it into this dataset.

(And hey, I would like to know where I can pay $0.05 to get a GB/data in Italy. Full speed? On a good network?)

I pay $29/mo for unlimited data in Canada. Granted - with caveats! It gets throttled after the first 6 GB. I wonder if this would be counted as $4.83/GB in this survey? Their methodology PDF is unclear.

Re: Existing smartphones will connect with new satellite constellations in 2023

#70

Post by la64710 »

kalupa wrote: post #41
daydream wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, so far they only promised to. Apple’s solution works today. Consumers are using it. This is mentioned in the article.

except the article mentions specifically that Apple is partnered with Globalstar, not Starlink, for their emergency services functionality

And except that it actually saved someone’s life
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