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Starlink Direct to Cell

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Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#371

Post by rafram »

jrflowers wrote: post #110
rafram wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and people were making YouTube videos in the wilderness before that, but the accessibility that came with TikTok and Instagram created a phenomenon increased demand tenfold at many parks. That’s why you have to win a lottery to hike Angels Landing in Zion now. Now we get wilderness livestreams! What will that do?

> Now we get wilderness livestreams! What will that do? My guess is there will be some more wilderness livestreams streams, largely made by the people that are already going out to these places to produce content. Are you particularly worried about a group of people that so far had no interest at all in taking pictures or videos in the wilderness but will now show up in droves to make competing bits of strictly-live…

It was an example, and maybe not a very good one.

My point is that this will allow anyone to be an active content creator while they’re in the wilderness, which makes it quicker, easier, and much more appealing to create that type of content.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#372

Post by kumarvvr »

nehal3m wrote: post #284
mmaunder wrote: post #283

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

Are you Elon? Also monopolies are never awesome.

There are dozens of satellite launch systems around the world. Its hardly a monopoly.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#373

Post by asynchronous »

hedora wrote: post #323
shepherdjerred wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on Musk being a nazi, or is that just hyperbole?

Nazi might be a bit much, but he’s pretty clearly guilty of treason. He blocked a US funded military strike that would have sunk Russia’s navy a while back. (The definition of treason in the US is extremely clear, and he obviously crossed the line.)

I don’t remember the Ukraine being the same nation as the United States but maybe I missed some movement on Twitter.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#374

Post by rafram »

reed1234 wrote: post #295
rafram wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and people were making YouTube videos in the wilderness before that, but the accessibility that came with TikTok and Instagram created a phenomenon increased demand tenfold at many parks. That’s why you have to win a lottery to hike Angels Landing in Zion now. Now we get wilderness livestreams! What will that do?

How more demand for national parks a bad thing?

The crowds are completely unmanageable in some parks, and it’s destroying the ecosystems and natural features that the parks were built to exhibit.

Ever heard of Fossil Cycad National Monument? Designated in 1922, and by 1957 all the fossils had been taken. There was nothing left to see. The national monument was abolished.

That’s what’s at risk from overtourism.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#375

Post by kumarvvr »

bilsbie wrote: post #204
emusan wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few factors that make this possible: 1. As others have pointed out, the link budget (how much energy loss a particular radio link can handle before it is broken) for D2C satellites assumes a nearly direct line of sight from your handset to the satellite. This is much easier to achieve with satellites in space than it is with traditional cell towers that might have numerous walls/buildings in the way. 2. T…

So the satellite can point a narrow beam. How does it handle multiple connections. Can it aim 1000s of beams at once?

I guess the narrow beam, covers quite a bit of area on earth.

I guess the "narrow" in the current context is the beam widening to hundreds of miles on earth.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#376

Post by nordsieck »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #361
infobot wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You…wouldn’t be bullish on the most successful businessman in the history of the world? Sometimes I come here for a good laugh

That depends on how you define successful businessman. If we look at valuations, then yeah. If we look at how much money all of his ventures make ? The picture is very different. SpaceX - may or may not be profitable in the last year - it's hard to know. Until recently definitely no profitable Tesla - really profitable since 2021, with great 2022 / 2023. Trending in the wrong direction recently Twitter, xAI, boring,…

> SpaceX - may or may not be profitable in the last year - it's hard to know. Until recently definitely no profitable

SpaceX is very much in the same position as early Amazon.

If they wanted to, they could be profitable today. But they are investing heavily in the future.

IMO, that's a good sign for SpaceX. Many large companies have run out of ideas of what to do with money, so they accumulate it in bank accounts, or do dividends/stock buybacks.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#377

Post by cmdli »

kaliqt wrote: post #367
cmdli wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are right and Starlink will have no competition, then why would it not be regulated? Generally speaking, monopolies are regulated to prevent price gouging, including natural monopolies. And if its not a monopoly, then clearly the game is not over.

Because it is not abusing its position. Monopolies are not an inherent bad, they just tend to start abusing their position, and when they do then they get handled. This is more common with public companies than private companies though. Founders have their own life, honor, ethics, desires, etc. which usually help strongly keep the company on a positive track. e.g. Valve Corporation.

Companies always abuse their position. Its basic capitalism; markets only thrive and are fair when both buyers and sellers have multiple options, and it would be odd to assume this time is the exception.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#378

Post by NoPicklez »

nikkwong wrote: post #308
mmaunder wrote: post #283

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

My family had starlink installed at a remote house we own for internet access. While we could get it up and running, the connection wasn't reliable and we encountered many issues. When we tried to contact Starlink for help, support was non-existent; sent us to multiple dead ends, and often wasted our times with repairs promised weeks into the future, over and over, which never surfaced. After 8 months of pain, we end…

I appreciate you have had a bad experience, but to then think that's the overall experience is myopic. There are many highly remote areas where people can't speak more highly of Starlink.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#379

Post by CtrlAltmanDel »

kortilla wrote: post #90
CtrlAltmanDel wrote: post #42

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 doesn’t. The throughput here is multiple orders of magnitude lower than what you get from Starlink

I keep coming back to the comments waiting to see how many orders of magnitude lower. 1 Mbps would be quite different than 10 kbps. Is this for facetime while camping, or send an SOS if your car breaks down in the backroads?

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#380

Post by elliotec »

growt wrote: post #105
Gare wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

„There are no unconnected places in most of Europe“ Then you haven’t traveled with the German railway yet!

Or, like, any space outside of a dense city :D
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