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Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

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Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#21

Post by xyzzyz »

abeppu wrote: post #19
xyzzyz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is operated by the US military with an annual budget of roughly $1B -- and we can all use it for free. Non-Americans, yes, but Americans pay taxes to use it. In fact, if you replaced tax-funded model with, say, a markup on each receiver, Americans would pay less than they already do, and only those that use it would pay for it. I find both of these things beneficial. > Had the US not provided for civilian acc…

If competition makes stuff better, and a large company like Google can make one at "a pittance", it's worth asking -- why isn't there a privately created global satellite navigation system yet? GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO were created and are operated by state institutions.

Because there is one already, and it’s free to use. If government hadn’t paid for it, you’d see much more competition in the space. For comparison, ask why no company has built a cheap, fast satellite internet yet? Apparently, some are building them right now.

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#22

Post by macintux »

bsenftner wrote: post #4

The economic advantages of Apple to delay any satellite functionality of their devices until these IoT providers are desperate is the script playing out. It requires no coordination between the larger technology and tech service providers for them to realize the significant value they will realize by being slow to implement satellite related options to their devices and services.

This seems like a particularly cynical take. It seems more likely that Apple is, as they usually are, cautious about introducing an external dependency until they're confident about its reliability, quality, and battery life impact, plus how to make the integration easy for users.

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#23

Post by DaveExeter »

abeppu wrote: post #17
abeppu wrote: post #3

Maybe this is crazy, but should we be thinking of satellite connectivity the same way we think about public utilities? - For a lot of public utilities, the point is that building several parallel sets of infrastructure would be really wasteful. It makes sense to build it once, hopefully well, and let everyone use it. - One might think this only is true of strictly terrestrial infrastructure like phone landlines or wa…

Ok I described this poorly. That's my fault. I think the fixation should be less on the 'free to use' portion of GPS, and more on the fact that for many of us there's basically one satellite-based location system to which we have access, in the same way that there may only be one set of phone landlines in my neighborhood, and one municipal water supply. Phone service and water are not free to use, but we also didn't…

> Would we be better off (i.e. pay less for connectivity from a constellation with more satellites and better coverage) if there was one larger one?

We certainly would not be better off.

Because with a monopoly, you pay the highest price and get the worst service!

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#24

Post by musingsole »

abeppu wrote: post #17
abeppu wrote: post #3

Maybe this is crazy, but should we be thinking of satellite connectivity the same way we think about public utilities? - For a lot of public utilities, the point is that building several parallel sets of infrastructure would be really wasteful. It makes sense to build it once, hopefully well, and let everyone use it. - One might think this only is true of strictly terrestrial infrastructure like phone landlines or wa…

Ok I described this poorly. That's my fault. I think the fixation should be less on the 'free to use' portion of GPS, and more on the fact that for many of us there's basically one satellite-based location system to which we have access, in the same way that there may only be one set of phone landlines in my neighborhood, and one municipal water supply. Phone service and water are not free to use, but we also didn't…

> we also didn't pay to build several competing overlapping systems

I think you're missing the history of utilities but also most public granted monopolies: they did grow out of several competing businesses. In the case of electricity, water, subway systems, most of these institutions will trace back to a history of privatized providers competing to establish a market. These utilities having a monopoly from the jump in any new developments is only because we've inherited that history and know better. It's only in the aftermath of providers clashing to an annoying enough degree that granted monopolies get created.

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#25

Post by delabay »

jinzo wrote: post #12

I checked the Hiber [1] IoT Solutions (mentioned in the article) that are mostly focused on Asset/Vehicle/Machinery tracking. Even tho their message focuses (among other things) on how cheap they are - I have to disagree. Maybe if they find someone that truly needs global connectivity where 2G/NB-IoT/LTE-M can get pricey, but then someone needing that probably has quite a big purchasing power. Also their claims of ea…

Have you read about Helium? its an open Lorawan network. permissionless and $.00001 per 24 byte packet. coverage is great in the US & europe.

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#26

Post by jppittma »

xyzzyz wrote: post #20
orangeoxidation wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why, though? Why would they be worse? Typically, when you have even two competitors, the quality is improved. > Typically, when you have even two competitors, the quality is improved. If those state services weren't available for the public they would exist anyway, they are primarily for military purpose. Imagine the US didn't offer free GPS and civilian competition would arise. Wouldn't it just mean the US users w…

In that world, military would just contract with commercial providers and use commercial GPS, same way they already spend hundreds of billions of dollars on products and services provided by private companies.

I can't imagine how one would think that's better than the current situation. Military contracts with commercial providers are an absolute nightmare. Is this not what even libertarians denounce as "crony capitalism?"

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#27

Post by withinboredom »

Jtsummers wrote: post #16
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why, though? They'd be subscription services.

There is, practically, no model in which GPS subscriptions make sense without enabling bidirectional communications with the satellite. GPS modules (ground side) do not need transmitters, only receivers and, potentially, a decryption module (soft or hardware). A subscription GPS system with bidirectional communication (to authenticate users) would have grossly inefficient devices (transmitting to space is not cheap,…

Little known fact, if you do have the GPS decryption module, you get way better sensitivity and spoofing protection. But you have to be the US military[1].

1: https://militaryembedded.com/comms/encryption/securing-milit...

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#28

Post by colechristensen »

abeppu wrote: post #17
abeppu wrote: post #3

Maybe this is crazy, but should we be thinking of satellite connectivity the same way we think about public utilities? - For a lot of public utilities, the point is that building several parallel sets of infrastructure would be really wasteful. It makes sense to build it once, hopefully well, and let everyone use it. - One might think this only is true of strictly terrestrial infrastructure like phone landlines or wa…

Ok I described this poorly. That's my fault. I think the fixation should be less on the 'free to use' portion of GPS, and more on the fact that for many of us there's basically one satellite-based location system to which we have access, in the same way that there may only be one set of phone landlines in my neighborhood, and one municipal water supply. Phone service and water are not free to use, but we also didn't…

> for many of us there's basically one satellite-based location system to which we have access

This isn’t the case though. Most “GPS” (GNSS is the better acronym) chips these days support several.

American GPS, Russian GlONASS, European Galelio, and Chinese BeiDou all provide the same basic functionality, the first three are quite common in most chipsets (like the one in your phone)

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#29

Post by bigbillheck »

abeppu wrote: post #3

Maybe this is crazy, but should we be thinking of satellite connectivity the same way we think about public utilities? - For a lot of public utilities, the point is that building several parallel sets of infrastructure would be really wasteful. It makes sense to build it once, hopefully well, and let everyone use it. - One might think this only is true of strictly terrestrial infrastructure like phone landlines or wa…

> Had the US not provided

In this hypothetical you'd need to assume that there was also no civilian access to GLONASS, BeiDou, or Galileo.

Re: Satellite IoT dreams are crashing into reality

#30

Post by wumpus »

xyzzyz wrote: post #6
abeppu wrote: post #3

Maybe this is crazy, but should we be thinking of satellite connectivity the same way we think about public utilities? - For a lot of public utilities, the point is that building several parallel sets of infrastructure would be really wasteful. It makes sense to build it once, hopefully well, and let everyone use it. - One might think this only is true of strictly terrestrial infrastructure like phone landlines or wa…

> which is operated by the US military with an annual budget of roughly $1B -- and we can all use it for free. Non-Americans, yes, but Americans pay taxes to use it. In fact, if you replaced tax-funded model with, say, a markup on each receiver, Americans would pay less than they already do, and only those that use it would pay for it. I find both of these things beneficial. > Had the US not provided for civilian acc…

> In fact, if you replaced tax-funded model with, say, a markup on each receiver,

GPS isn't technically designed to do that, the open signal is open. And if you did it, the cost of a receiver would go up because it would have to be more sophisticated.

Galileo tried to do this business model and failed.

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