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.
Sailors can make calls using the ships Wi-Fi via full sized Starlink dishes, they need coverage on land.
But even ignoring that the contention is low in the middle of the ocean and satellites have hardware either way, driving down the market rate for calls at sea.
I 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
> One space based cell plan for the whole world The baseband on handheld devices do not have that much power to transmit and receive from Starlink directly; and hence the partnership with MNOs. With 5G (after Google & Meta got involved, the designs took on a Cloud/Internet-heavy focus), Starlink very well might have "slices" carved out exclusive for its own use world over. See also: Cloudflare's Zero-Trust SIM (2022)…
> The baseband on handheld devices do not have that much power to transmit and receive from Starlink directly;
That is exactly what this is about, direct from standard handsets to starlink satellites.
Misanthropes [1] look at human civilization as a disease. Look instead at what we've accomplished. Think about the hard steps to life and intelligent life. About how silent the universe appears. Consider then how we're taking leaps towards making the cold and bleak universe self-aware. We are a part of evolution. What would be tragic would be for this earth to simply boil away. Its life giving gasses and materials to…
I think it's fair to be concerned about what we're losing without being labeled as a Misanthrope. I think the progress, in its entirety, is worth it, but I'm still a little sad at the night sky having even more artificial things that take attention away from the stars. Looking at the night sky as a child seemed timeless to me, and that's no longer the case.
I switched to T-Mobile at the last upgrade interval because of this. My family looks forward to no longer relying on Garmin InReach devices when out hiking.
Initially I thought the same re: hiking, skiing etc. The only issue I see is that cellphone battery life is terrible compared to inReach like devices. Not sure I'd want to depend on it for longer than a few hours.
Yea. My inReach device stays charged for months when it is off.
I switched to T-Mobile at the last upgrade interval because of this. My family looks forward to no longer relying on Garmin InReach devices when out hiking.
Why switch carriers for that, you can get the same functionality built-in to iPhones and it's not dependent on carrier.
If you aren't on an iPhone already, switching carriers might be easier.
What 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.
Those countries just don't have the motivation to do such a thing. Those who have the motivation had done it despite embargoes.
How can it be that a LTE smartphone, costing ~$100 and doing all the things a smart phone can do, and being designed to connect to a cell network via a tower a few miles away, can somehow also function as the pizza sized $500 Starlink dish?
It uses a different transceiver on the satellite which is broadcasting a ~standard LTE signal, at a miniscule data rate
I 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…
There are virtually no unconnected places in most of Europe yet wilderness is still dangerous. It is good that rescue services can help you if accident happens (and it can happen even to the adequatly prepared).
Definitely. But when Apple released their Satellite SOS feature, I expected that to remain the cutting edge for a while, and for all devices to eventually gain very limited satellite emergency call capabilities. Instead, it seems like we’re going straight from most devices having zero connectivity in the (US) wilderness to all devices having connectivity everywhere in the world, as soon as next year. That’s a lot of change to come all at once.
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…
> If 40 thousand, say, small cars were distributed across the entire globe including oceans, would you call the result "unsustainable pollution"?
Cars don’t produce light pollution, which I believe is what’s being mentioned here.