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FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

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Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#201

Post by mrep »

seatotree wrote: post #101
unepipe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will not affect it in any way. They have released their plans for Starlink and there will be a "blackout" zone over China, so China doesn't shoot down their satellites. In 2007, China shot down FY-1C as a test of a kinetic kill vehicle (leaving tons of high speed space debris). Unless they receive approval from China to broadcast, they won't over China. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satell…

If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States. China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information.

> If China shoots down a SpaceX satellite, that is an act of war against the United States.

These are not government satellites and china owns the airwaves over their nation. I highly doubt the US government would retaliate whatsoever against China if they shot down a satellite that illegally interacted with their airspace.

> China wouldn’t risk it. This is a great opportunity to break the great firewall and finally give the Chinese people access to unfiltered information.

Take this with a grain of salt since this is mostly based on what I have heard hearsay, but they can jam the signals and/or monitor who transmits back and go after the citizens using said signal (and china is not a country where you want to poke the government). I doubt this will have any effect on the great firewall.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#202

Post by tigershark »

olympus wrote: post #169
briffle wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read some RV forums for the hoops they need to jump through to get coverage, and deal with data caps

I'm doing it (mobile internet, not van life). The conversations on RV forums deal with stuff like unlimited data in the middle of Wyoming for less money, or how to get a SIM card and plan from a connected car device that AT&T discontinued because RVers were using for other than it's intended purpose. What the RVers are too cheap to do is pay for the product they want. Go to unlimitedville.com, pay $200 a month, and y…

Seriously? 200$/month and you have unlimited data only in US? It seems like a really crap offer to me. I pay 17£/month and I have unlimited data in a lot of countries in the world, including US. Sadly my awesome plan got discontinued and now it’s not possible to buy it anymore.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#203

Post by positr0n »

lev99 wrote: post #140
greedo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China won't shoot down commercial satellites, they'll just either jam the signal, or block ownership of the ground terminals. Shooting down satellites is very expensive, and would cause an incredible hue and cry internationally. It's one thing to shoot down one of your own defunct satellites, quite another thing to shoot down someone else's.

> Shooting down satellites is very expensive It's less expensive than launching satellites, and the Chinese goverment has enough money to do it if they want.

> It's less expensive than launching satellites

I doubt it, since a single Falcon Heavy launch would carry dozens of Starlink satellites but the existing anti-satellite technology can only hit one at a time. Keep in mind they have said the final constellation will be 12,000 satellites!

edit: and BFR could theoretically carry 300 when it is operational. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/25525/how-many-spa...

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#204

Post by mrep »

ryanlol wrote: post #10
bpd1069 wrote: post #4

This is monumental - I claim every major advance in communication technology immediately precedes a major progress for society. This will make the 'Internet' truly global and ubiquitous. So excited for the developing world.

It's a sad state of affairs if this FCC approval is a major advance in communication technology.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government created by statute (47 U.S.C. § 151 and 47 U.S.C. § 154) to regulate interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the media, public safety and homeland security, and modernizing itself. [0]

Lots of that communication moves through electromagnetic radiation which practically anyone anywhere can use/interfere with. This is a textbook case of a common good which if unmanaged would be effectively destroyed due to the tragedy of the commons [1].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#205

Post by MertsA »

lev99 wrote: post #163
briffle wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are very low orbit satellites, not geosynchronous ones. 200 miles, instead of 36,000. Should be much better latency

I think you have your distances wrong. Geosynchronous orbit is 36,000km not miles. LEO is a range between 300km - 2000km. I suspect the satellites will be on the higher range to reduce atmospheric drag. The IIS has a 400km (250 miles) orbit and it's orbit decays at 2km/month without correction maneuvers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station https:…

That's the crazy part, he didn't have his distances wrong. Part of the constellation is planned for an orbit of 340 km which is ~211 miles so close enough. The satellites are only intended to have an operational lifespan of 5 to 7 years. That's not a typo, that also means that given the massive size of the constellation that SpaceX will need to average one launch a month for StarLink with 105 satellites on it. If one of the lower orbit satellites goes dead, without actively maintaining the orbit it'll decay fast enough that it'll passively deorbit itself without risk of it just becoming a derelict satellite for centuries.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#206

Post by shaklee3 »

lev99 wrote: post #154
shaklee3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing current satellite technology to something that is scheduled to come out in about 3 to 4 years. That's not very fair considering that there are many other geosynchronous high-bandwidth satellites scheduled to come out before SpaceX is ready.

LOE will always provide faster latency than Geosynchronous orbit. I suspect that total bandwidth will go to the person with the most satellites, and LEO has much cheaper launches than GeoSync. Geosynchronous orbit is more than 15 times farther away. That is why the communication will be quicker, and why the launches are cheaper.

I specifically said high bandwidth since the latency is obviously better with leo. I don't know what you are implying by much cheaper launches. They need many, many more launches to hit the same capacity/coverage as a geo satellite. One launch may be cheaper, but SpaceX will need dozens.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#207

Post by hinkley »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #191
hinkley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful. Major advances in communication technology also precede major military upsets. Only the victors labelled those as progress.

A few examples?

Something one of my history teachers used to go on about. I’m not sure I can do him justice now that I’m thinking about it. Big military upsets due to superior intel. Sometimes by new means. I’m wondering now if he was paraphrasing Napoleon (the secret of war lies in the communications).

Roman roads, pigeons, semaphore, radio, all used to project military power in profound and overwhelming ways. Radar, sonar (if you’re willing to stretch the definition a little). CDMA (invented by Hedy Lamarr during WWII for torpedos, but not used until the Cuban missile crisis). Cryptanalysis to defeat the Germans. ARPAnet was built to be literally bomb proof.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#208

Post by taneq »

tigershark wrote: post #202
olympus wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing it (mobile internet, not van life). The conversations on RV forums deal with stuff like unlimited data in the middle of Wyoming for less money, or how to get a SIM card and plan from a connected car device that AT&T discontinued because RVers were using for other than it's intended purpose. What the RVers are too cheap to do is pay for the product they want. Go to unlimitedville.com, pay $200 a month, and y…

Seriously? 200$/month and you have unlimited data only in US? It seems like a really crap offer to me. I pay 17£/month and I have unlimited data in a lot of countries in the world, including US. Sadly my awesome plan got discontinued and now it’s not possible to buy it anymore.

17£/mo is sustainable when your users are just scrolling through Facebook and streaming Spotify. When they're all using it as their primary data connection and watching a few hours of HD Netflix a night, you need to charge more.

Unlimited mobile data went away or got expensive in most places right around the time that smartphones gained the ability to act as wifi access points.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#209

Post by greglindahl »

shaklee3 wrote: post #206
lev99 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOE will always provide faster latency than Geosynchronous orbit. I suspect that total bandwidth will go to the person with the most satellites, and LEO has much cheaper launches than GeoSync. Geosynchronous orbit is more than 15 times farther away. That is why the communication will be quicker, and why the launches are cheaper.

I specifically said high bandwidth since the latency is obviously better with leo. I don't know what you are implying by much cheaper launches. They need many, many more launches to hit the same capacity/coverage as a geo satellite. One launch may be cheaper, but SpaceX will need dozens.

You're correct about coverage -- 3 GEO sats can cover most of the planet -- but not about capacity, which kinda scales with satellite mass, and benefits from being closer (less power needed per bit.)

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#210

Post by Robotbeat »

mozumder wrote: post #199
bpd1069 wrote: post #4

This is monumental - I claim every major advance in communication technology immediately precedes a major progress for society. This will make the 'Internet' truly global and ubiquitous. So excited for the developing world.

The developing world needs fiber instead of satellite. This isn't going to change much over their current LTE speeds. This type of satellite internet is far too expensive far far too limited bandwidth to be useful for them. The energy cost of RF broadband is so much higher than fiber. Really, the audience for this are ships and other remote regions, not anyplace that has a road going to it.

Nah, You’re thinking of different constellations like OneWeb. This constellation is being way overbuilt by SpaceX. They want gigabit speeds and way cheaper data than LTE. They want to compete with fiber (at least in non-super-dense areas). From Spacex’s perspective, they’re happy to build it so large that it only breaks even (even though I think it’ll do better than that) because it gives them something to launch on their huge, fully reusable rocket that they’re building.
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