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Starlink Direct to Cell

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Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#601

Post by marcus_holmes »

wnolens wrote: post #342
marcus_holmes wrote: post #281

This is the nomad dream. Have a single phone service and wander anywhere on the planet with it. No more having to swap SIMs out on every border, being unable to use text-based 2FA, forcing friends to contact only via messaging apps, system messages in a foreign language, etc. It's not the coverage; that's mostly good. It's not the price; mostly SIM cards and plans are cheaper when travelling than they are at home. It…

google fi for the past decade has given me exactly this, with top speed data connectivity at $10/GB no matter where.

If you live in the USA, sure. If not, can't get it.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#602

Post by rock_artist »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #598
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…

> there will be no competitors Define the time frame. 1 year? Quite likely. 10 years? nothing is less sure ... But in 50 years, I bet SpaceX doesn't even exist anymore. Companies rises and falls and it's always been like this (and the same applies to Empires, Countries or .. Species). It's always a matter of timeframe

It'll be interesting for sure. similar to requesting Chrome to become separate from Google, there might some law enforcement scenarios where they'll have to split things.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#603

Post by jonplackett »

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…

You think it’s awesome that there’s a monopoly? And it’s owned by a single, politically derelict insane man?

I agree the pace of change is amazing. I marvel at everything spacex does. The starship catch was ridiculous.

But no competition always leads somewhere really bad eventually

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#604

Post by ponector »

WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #598
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…

> there will be no competitors Define the time frame. 1 year? Quite likely. 10 years? nothing is less sure ... But in 50 years, I bet SpaceX doesn't even exist anymore. Companies rises and falls and it's always been like this (and the same applies to Empires, Countries or .. Species). It's always a matter of timeframe

There will be several competitors in 5-10 years. Due to immense military capability of this technology. Same thing happens with GPS.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#605

Post by lutorm »

kumarvvr wrote: post #375
bilsbie wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIRC the current Starlink beams are of order 10 miles on the ground. So much narrower than you guess.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#606

Post by rdm_blackhole »

verzali wrote: post #547
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not going to happen. Remember when the EU wanted to build it's own internet browser? Or it's own search engine? Or it's own sovereign cloud? None of these initiatives panned out. This is just political posturing when they have literally zero plans on how to achieve that.

Or when they built their own GPS system and it ended up being far more accurate than any other system in use? Or when they built their own Earth observation system and it was also better than anyone elses? Or when they built their own weather monitoring constellation and forecast model and it ended up superior to all others? Or when they built the world's most powerful particle collider and discovered the Higgs boson…

> Or when they built their own GPS system and it ended up being far more accurate than any other system in use?

It took 20 years to deploy 30 satellites. You can call that a success I guess.

> The world's largest passenger aircraft

That is an Airbus project which is not an EU project. Airbus is the result of a merger between multiple companies and was not initiated by the EU.

> The weight loss drugs keeping American celebrities thin?

This drug is manufactured in Denmark by a Danish company. It has nothing to do with the EU.

> The first mRNA Covid-19 vaccine?

You mean the Pfizer vaccine? That's a German company, not an initiative from the EU.

> Or when they built the world's most powerful particle collider and discovered the Higgs boson?

They did build the CERN ... in 1954. Which we can agree was a long time ago. Since then the ability of the EU to deliver big projects such as for example Ariane 6 has gone down rather quickly. Also you ll notice that when the CERN was created, the EU as we know it today did not exist.

> Or when they built their own Earth observation system and it was also better than anyone elses? Or when they built their own weather monitoring constellation and forecast model and it ended up superior to all others?

Ok and so what? Does that invalidate my arguments? A few successes amongst a ton of failures. That does not inspire any confidence.

That is why I am skeptical but I am prepared to eat my own words if the EU has a complete up and running constellation of 300 satellites in orbit by 2035.

The EU has some great companies for sure but these companies did not get there because the EU helped them or because the EU decreed that such companies have to exists.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#607

Post by immibis »

cmdli wrote: post #365
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…

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's owned by the second most powerful man on the planet, who has power over all of the would-be regulators. Politics matters.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#608

Post by hhh »

vbezhenar wrote: post #596
starspangled wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You believe the FAA, FCC, OHSA, EPA, FDA, etc., will cease to regulate SpaceX, Tesla, Nuralink operations? That seems pretty outlandish.

Starlink is the most important military weapon in the world right now. Those civilian organizations have no say when state security is at hand. It's like disarming nuclear rockets because some green guys care about birds. Will not happen.

Starshield != Starlink

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#609

Post by perihelions »

sangnoir wrote: post #222
mrandish wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> license LTE spectrum in every country I think this is the biggest reason. All nation's governments will absolutely ensure, overtly or covertly, that their national regulators limit any space-based supra-national system from being able to threaten their national telephony and data carriers. Why? Preventing losing national capabilities, government revenue (taxes, licenses & other domestic carrier fees, lobbying, kick…

> All nation's governments will absolutely ensure, overtly or covertly, that their national regulators limit any space-based supra-national system from being able to threaten their national telephony and data carriers The ITU is pretty overt about how frequency allocation governance works. Absolutely no one wants a free-for-all frequency regime, for a multitude of reasons - not even SpaceX. You may recall that Huawei…

- "...without having broken any laws, due to fears of future abuse..."

Well, how did those predictions of the future perform?

- "The Chinese government espionage campaign that has deeply penetrated more than a dozen U.S. telecommunications companies is the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history — by far,” a senior U.S. senator told The Washington Post in an interview this week."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/11/21/...

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#610

Post by hughesjj »

user3939382 wrote: post #282
cprayingmantis wrote: post #192

If anyone from Starlink or SpaceX is reading these comments here’s what you want to do: Sell your own branded trail cam with solar charging and LTE from orbit. You can charge $25-$40 a month for unlimited pictures sent from the cam. This would open up hunters, nature enthusiasts, and researchers to be able to place their hardware anywhere in the field without worrying about connectivity. Here in SWVA we have deep hol…

Isn’t tree cover a problem for propagation of wavelengths used in satellite comms?

Lte antennas of almost arbitrary length exist
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