Can anyone explain how upload would work? How can an unmodified cellphone upload data to a satellite?
Your cell phone uses the nearest base station, the base station will handover to the satellite infra.
Starlink Direct to Cell
51–60 of 831 posts
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#52I feel so, so mixed about this. It’s going to be unambiguously good for wilderness rescue and disaster response. But I like camping and hiking in remote areas in order to remove myself from the world. And I think the lack of connectivity discourages unprepared people from taking on more than they can handle in the wilderness. If the wilderness becomes fully connected, will it spoil that feeling? Will it lead to the l…
Honestly, lack of connectivity completely makes these places you speak of inaccessible for a lot of people.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compared to what? Traditional satellite phone corporations used to charge something like 8 USD/min.
Compared to leveraging the existing cellular networks and using satellites for rare edge cases. ~8$/minute or say 1$/minute averages out to a more reasonable number when less than 5% of calls use it.
Not for somebody whose job is outside the existing networks, such as sailors.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#54What I wonder about the Starlink constellation is, how secure it is physically? There are people burning down 5G towers. How plausible would be for a conspiracy nut to create a rocket to take out the satellites? Maybe starting a cascading effect?
> how plausible would it be for a conspiracy nit to create a rocket to take out the satellites?
not plausible at all. Most /countries/ aren't able to launch a rocket to orbit.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are about 6 thousand Starlink satellites out there and their total count may grow to some 40 thousand in the future. But even if we abstracted the LEO to just one sphere, it would be quite a bit BIGGER than the Earth alone. If 40 thousand, say, small cars were distributed across the entire globe including oceans, would you call the result "unsustainable pollution"? In fact, compared to what we live in today, su…
Just wait until they initiate Kessler syndrome, sending junk upward, polluting the entire orbit, up and down. It's just a matter of time.
Kessler syndrome is a theoretical construction, yet too many people speak of it as a certainty-beyond-any-doubt, like you do.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#56> ENGINEERED BY SPACEX It would be very interesting to see some kind of diagram depicting all of the corporate entities Musk is involved in and how each entity does business with one another. xAI just raised billions to help Tesla build out FSD (or at least that was part of the pitch). His empire is divided into so many corporate entities, but they all cross-pollinate and are clearly under his direct control for the…
Starlink and SpaceX have an even closer relationship than most other Musk companies; Starlink is a wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#57What I wonder about the Starlink constellation is, how secure it is physically? There are people burning down 5G towers. How plausible would be for a conspiracy nut to create a rocket to take out the satellites? Maybe starting a cascading effect?
If you can make a rocket that reaches a Starlink Satellite then there are many other targets the same rocket can hit that would be more damaging. Rockets are a military technology, and are treated as such.
Lot's of conspiracy theorists have become quite wealthy with the raise of Bitcoin, as it was very popular among them early on.
Military tech or not, its just atoms. Very interesting people are quite rich now, they will have access to precision machining advanced materials and chemicals if they have the motivation.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#58I wish I could pay Starlink directly and have global satellite based LTE instead of having to go through a specific carrier and be limited by other carriers’ reciprocity to specific countries and bands One space based cell plan for the whole world
I was curious about this! I wish this was a perk of owning / purchasing a Tesla or a more expensive option of Starlink terminal.
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Globestar have 48 Satellites in orbit [1] Starlink has 6,426 [2] (Though that number is likely out of date by the time you read this) [1] https://www.groundcontrol.com/knowledge/calculators-and-maps... [2] https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html
I think his point is that most Starlink satellites do not have this technology, but he's probably still wrong quantitatively.
To put some numbers to it, it looks like SpaceX started launching direct to cell satellites at the beginning of the year[1], and by July they had over 100 in orbit. Not sure how many are in orbit right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were close to 200.
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1. https://spacenews.com/spacex-deploys-direct-to-smartphone-sa...
2. https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2024/07/03/space...
Re: Starlink Direct to Cell
#60I feel so, so mixed about this. It’s going to be unambiguously good for wilderness rescue and disaster response. But I like camping and hiking in remote areas in order to remove myself from the world. And I think the lack of connectivity discourages unprepared people from taking on more than they can handle in the wilderness. If the wilderness becomes fully connected, will it spoil that feeling? Will it lead to the l…
People have been making TikTok videos in the wilderness this entire time, they just wait until they get service to upload them.