Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

fastcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 290 posts

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#201

Post by avmich »

nickik wrote: post #198
stcredzero wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why. China can just force SpaceX to turn off over China. How? By shooting down satellites?

Regulation. Do you think SpaceX would operate an illigal network in a foreign company? Do you not think China had the pull to tell the US to keep SpaceX in line? The can ban the sale of terminals. They can scan waves.

This thread applies also to Russia, where complaints about coming constellation were already voiced in the government.

In both cases I assume the issue at stake is the freedom of communications. I'd hope to have both technical means to communicate (and hide those communications) and enough support on USA side not to pressure SpaceX to deny service worldwide.

We'll see how it goes.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#202

Post by calebh »

nugga wrote: post #197
creeble wrote: post #22

Curious how this will pan out. It's a shocking contrast to be in or near a city and have broadband speeds, and then be just a few dozen miles outside one and have... literally nothing. I just loaned my Iridium phone to a friend who was going to the jungle, and although he was able to make the data connection work, even doing email at 2400 baud(!) proved useless. Inmarsat is faster, but vastly more expensive. Outside…

Starlink could be a godsent for online gamers. Anything under 100 ms for fps games is quite playable and you don't need much bandwidth for those udp packets. Just guarantee some minimum bandwidth allotment of say 1 mbps and make sure the satellites are not so oversubscribed as to cause unnecessarily long or unoptimized routing. Games between west coast usa and eu or eu and asia would be playable.

Maybe this will help boost the "game as a service" offerings.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#203

Post by bhelkey »

taf2 wrote: post #7
mtgx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$29 (or less) for 1Gbps would probably give American ISP executives night sweats.

I was hoping for $1 or less that opens the world up to unblocked high speed internet. Imagine the signal that is not blocked by any national firewalls

The satellites alone are expected to cost at least 10 billion USD [1]. Add in the antenna on the ground and it seems exceedingly unlikely that this will go for $1 a month.

[1] - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/05/block-5-spacex-incre...

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#204

Post by shaklee3 »

dr_orpheus wrote: post #182
Rebelgecko wrote: post #129

Is there anyone who knows more about radio stuff that can explain why they want to have both Ku and V band for users? It it just a matter of having more spectrum? Or are some bands more suited to crowded areas, like a city where there might be lots of customers sharing bandwidth? Do you need different hardware for using the different frequencies?

There are a few possible reasons for using multiple bands. With the higher frequency of the V band you can very high data rates down to the ground. However, higher frequency RF will be very attenuated by rainfall [0]. So the Ku band could be used as a backup to the V band. The V band (or optical links) will also likely be used for the inter-satellite communication. You do typically need different hardware for using t…

The higher data rates come from the fact that there is a lot more spectrum available in the v band. From what I remember there is about 4 to 5 gigahertz usable there. Ka-band has about 2-3GHz, and Ku about 1. as you mentioned, attenuation is one of the factors why you wouldn't use v band. Another reason is that it uses quite a bit more power, and the RF electronics are much more expensive and rare.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#205

Post by shaklee3 »

nugga wrote: post #197
creeble wrote: post #22

Curious how this will pan out. It's a shocking contrast to be in or near a city and have broadband speeds, and then be just a few dozen miles outside one and have... literally nothing. I just loaned my Iridium phone to a friend who was going to the jungle, and although he was able to make the data connection work, even doing email at 2400 baud(!) proved useless. Inmarsat is faster, but vastly more expensive. Outside…

Starlink could be a godsent for online gamers. Anything under 100 ms for fps games is quite playable and you don't need much bandwidth for those udp packets. Just guarantee some minimum bandwidth allotment of say 1 mbps and make sure the satellites are not so oversubscribed as to cause unnecessarily long or unoptimized routing. Games between west coast usa and eu or eu and asia would be playable.

is this really true? I haven't played video games in a long time, but I remember when playing counter strike that someone with a 20ms ping was at a significant advantage over someone with an 80ms ping.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#206

Post by mehwoot »

soared wrote: post #93
Rooster61 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no stranger to the vast physical space at play here (amateur astronomer, here). I'm aware there is a LOT of room for this stuff to move around, but there is still a threshold, however high, to where the amount of debris would become dangerously numerous.

And you think that we can only fit <10k objects in an area larger than the surface of the earth?

If they're travelling 7 km a second, maybe??

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#207

Post by shaklee3 »

walrus01 wrote: post #37
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional satellite internet uses satellites in geostationary orbits, or 35,786km high above the equator. This is great because satellites in that orbit are stationary relative to the ground, so you just need a parabolic antenna pointed at a specific point in the sky to get great reception. But it's also terrible for latency because the signal takes 120ms just to get up, and another 120ms to get down. Assuming you…

Not all satellite internet, currently, is dependent on geostationary. Read up on o3b's network and architecture, which has been operational for several years now. The cost, however, is basically "if you have to ask, you can't afford it". O3b is a market option for ISPs and telecoms in very remote or island areas that were previously dependent upon leasing Ku or C band transponder megahertz.

Or cruise ships:

https://www.ses.com/blog/behind-scenes-royal-caribbean-cruis...

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#208

Post by shaklee3 »

zjaffee wrote: post #62
CarVac wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating bandwidth and latency. Not much needs both high bandwidth and low latency. The latency has the potential to be better than the current internet backbone when going intercontinental due to straighter paths, but it'll be higher when going to your local AWS, probably. Bandwidth is anyone's guess.

I was actually just curious about bandwidth, I've only ever used satellite internet through the context of being on an airplane, and was curious if satellite internet was good at supporting things like netflix.

Yes, there is plenty of bandwidth to watch Netflix on satellite.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#209

Post by shaklee3 »

bargl wrote: post #88
phkahler wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Think about switching your router every 10 minutes. Your cell phone switches towers all the time while you're on the road. My cellphone (republic) switches from WiFi to cellular network mid-call if I'm on it when I leave a building. This is not a new problem.

Well dang. That's a really good point. I remember early cell phones that would drop signal when running between towers. The hard part here is that you have to target the beam at the satellite. It's not a wide angle beam that's used it's a focused beam. (This might not be true based on what they implement) But for Geo it's a targeted beam. So this isn't a perfect corollary, and my example was pretty bad lol.

Geo satellites also do beamforming. See epic ng or quantum.

Re: SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites

#210

Post by kbenson »

shaklee3 wrote: post #205
nugga wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink could be a godsent for online gamers. Anything under 100 ms for fps games is quite playable and you don't need much bandwidth for those udp packets. Just guarantee some minimum bandwidth allotment of say 1 mbps and make sure the satellites are not so oversubscribed as to cause unnecessarily long or unoptimized routing. Games between west coast usa and eu or eu and asia would be playable.

is this really true? I haven't played video games in a long time, but I remember when playing counter strike that someone with a 20ms ping was at a significant advantage over someone with an 80ms ping.

I think playable is meant more in a "we can have a fun game" sense and less of a "I can be competitive at a high level" sense. Even the former becomes hard at higher latencies.
Post reply on HN