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Starlink Maritime

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Re: Starlink Maritime

#291

Post by O__________O »

Know next to nothing about dynamics and constraints of maritime SatCom, but...

Seen number of comments about the costs, but honestly wondered why the “one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals” could not be replaced with a hand mounted cheaper DIY rig using the existing Starlink terminals. Guessing, though might be wrong, that Starlink already has this happen using the existing coastal coverage.

On the same note, guess most people don’t need 24/7 connections. Why not just charge 0.33 a min, which would still be a 3x over the $5000 month rate and enable Starlink to extend further into the market.

Any thoughts on why this would not make sense aside from whatever Starlink’s biases & business objectives are?

Re: Starlink Maritime

#292

Post by parentheses »

yardie wrote: post #27

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." Definitely aimed at the champagne caviar, St Barts crowd rather than the hard scrabble, cruiser on a fixed income. In other terms, Iridium Go is still the best value around and truly global for the time being.

The first of most things are indeed expensive. I think it makes sense to pay $5000 for _reliable_ communications at sea. This is not that… yet.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#293

Post by [deleted] »

O__________O wrote: post #291

Know next to nothing about dynamics and constraints of maritime SatCom, but... Seen number of comments about the costs, but honestly wondered why the “one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals” could not be replaced with a hand mounted cheaper DIY rig using the existing Starlink terminals. Guessing, though might be wrong, that Starlink already has this happen using the existing coastal cove…

[deleted]

Re: Starlink Maritime

#294

Post by dfadsadsf »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #134
pigtailgirl wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-- coverage is literally perfect for anywhere I take my (imaginary) yacht! - south of france? check! italian riviera? check! miami? Check! LA? Check! $5k a month? In YachtLand $5/mth is pocket change --

And for us actual realistic ones - a lot of anchorages around Europe have pretty decent LTE to work with. You won't be able to work while on passage anyway.

We did a month of boat touring around Italy/ex-Yugoslavia last year and mobile coverage in anchorages is very much hit or miss. Generally ok for browsing but video calls worked ok may be 30% time. Essentially you can't count that you can take work call and have decent experience. Huge inconvenience. I had a few "can't miss" calls and essentially I had to get to city 1-2 hours beforehand and then look for hotel/coffeeshop with decent wifi .

Re: Starlink Maritime

#295

Post by maccam94 »

roflyear wrote: post #264
maccam94 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://wccftech.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-laser-test/

Lasers require a lot of power. I doubt this is going to work.

Power budgeting is basic engineering. They wouldn't install lasers on satellites if they couldn't power them.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#296

Post by oceanplexian »

joewadcan wrote: post #159
sillysaurusx wrote: post #146

Can anyone explain how the ping is so low on starlink? I always assumed satellite internet was always going to be inferior for online gaming, but everything I find online says that starlink is great for it. I guess I don’t have a specific question. It’s just one of those engineering marvels that I never thought I’d see. No wires, but still frag people at <90ms ping.

The Starlink satellites orbit closer to the earth than other comms satellites (iridium, oneweb). Closer distance = faster times, in addition to laser links between sats and other spectrum differences. Downside to lower orbit means they won't last as long (a few years) before they are pulled down into earth's atmo. Which is fine since their rocket company will just send up some more cheaply.

In theory, the laser links may bring Starlink below terrestrial latency for point to point communications beyond a certain distance. Light travels through fiber at 7/10ths of the speed of light, but pretty much the actual speed of light through a vacuum. Once you get past the 340km * 2 round trip on both ends, you're actually moving bits around much faster than is physically possible with fiber. Probably even faster than that considering that fiber optic backbone isn't a straight line between you and your destination.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#297

Post by Stevvo »

lbrindze wrote: post #233
obloid wrote: post #108

I've been looking forward to marine starlink with the thought of being able to work remotely while sailing. Then I saw the pricing! I guess they're aiming for the megayacht crowd not average shmoes on small boats. Interestingly it does look like people are putting starlink on sailboats with ok results: https://www.reddit.com/r/SailboatCruising/comments/vovaxs/st...

I worked remote while sailing. my personal advice.... cruising is relatively cheap once you leave the dock. turn off your computer and go sail a while and plan on taking contracts during extended periods in port. Also having packed a few offshore miles at this point... I have never had much luck being productive doing "work" while actually on passage. The ocean has a funny way of sticking to its own agenda anyway, de…

I'm doing it an a mono-hull right now. I have not tried to work on passage, but I think it would be totally doable on a cat where you could sit relatively stable and keep a watch while working.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#298

Post by Johnythree »

deelowe wrote: post #50
cronix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they added a gimbal or something?

Starlink uses beam forming. It shouldn't need a gimbal.

The beam steering only operates in one dimension. The dish has to physically rotate and tilt so that the beam steering line coincides with the satellites orbit.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#299

Post by walrus01 »

jonah wrote: post #273
walrus01 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

globalstar is a bad joke and not a viable option for maritime services (or over-ocean aviation services) because unlike iridium or inmarsat, its satellite terminal-to-earth-station architecture is a bent pipe. there is zero globalstar mid ocean coverage. there is a reason you will see lots of competing options for people integrating the iridium embedded modems into things designed to go on top of $40 million business…

An Iridium embedded modem is one of the things we came across in the wreckage of a small plane we were recovering the pilot's remains from[0]. It was for his Spidertracks[1] flight tracking system. (Which, with the ADSB track, helped us hone in on the possible location. The wreck ended up being right in line with the last few pings. [0] https://lompocrecord.com/news/local/experienced-solvang-bush... [1] https://www.s…

there's iridium SBD modems for low data rate/non-realtime comms (like position trackers) and full featured iridium voice/data modems integrated into a vast array of products now, in the land mobile, aviation and maritime segments.

one thing iridium has actually done really well is provide the developer documentation to make this fairly straightforward, there's a set of 600 page PDF files with every detail you could possibly need to make a very tiny embedded linux system talk to an iridum modem over a UART.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#300

Post by redtexture »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #176
Someone1234 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iridium Go is 2.4 Kbits/s compared with 350 Mbps here, and data is charged in minutes (i.e. the slower/worse the connection the more it costs). Apples and oranges. Iridium GO is cheap, but that's all you can really say positively about it. It is arguably not even offering "internet" in the normal sense, since loading a website would be incredibly expensive/bad and is therefore restricted to low data rate messaging an…

Any given ship in the shipping industry probably burns that in fuel per day. Or half day. I think the value proposition is in line. I'll admit it seems expensive from the perspective of our dream sail around the world whilst coding and collecting benjamins from various hustles.

A Panamax container ship, not the largest, can burn 10 metric tonnes an hour of bunker oil, more or less.[2]

Very Low Sulfer Fuel Oil (VLSFO) is running, depending on where the ship is loading up, 850 to 1150 USD a tonne.(July 7 2022)[1]

In round numbers, say, USD 1,000 a tonne, USD 10,000 an hour, USD 250,000 a day, and for a 20 day trip, USD 5,000,000.

[1] https://shipandbunker.com/prices

[2] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/how-many-gallons-of-fuel-d...

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