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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

#311

Post by hinkley »

iamdave wrote: post #213
hinkley wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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’…

Your earlier post seems to intimate that technological leaps like this precede the start of wars, but your follow up comment intimates that technological leaps like this help win wars, and now I'm not sure I'm exactly following which one is supposed to be your central point to this. Could you clarify this and help me understand your viewpoint a bit better?

Honestly my first reply was a moment of progress fatigue. Tech fatigue really. Tech is amoral. Tech means change, but change doesn’t mean progress.

I’ve been watching tech for a long time and we tell ourselves a lot of half truths. My good friend showed me a private demo of the first web browser that supported images. I was around people who wanted to change the world and it was all thrilling. But I can still recall conversations about how we were all going to slay Big Brother, but instead we made him stronger than ever. It’s really painful to look at your role in that. I’d bet money that half of them still don’t. And that was why I started my post with “careful”. War is just a conterexample. Especially if you have sympathy for the losing side.

Tech will only be good if you exert yourself toward making it so. Here we are with three threads a day talking about how Facebook used their technology for negligence or evil depending on your point of view.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#312

Post by hinkley »

walrus01 wrote: post #107
hinkley wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very careful not to draw any conclusion besides "closer" because this is not my wheelhouse. Some of the low cost wireless broadband projects have proposed the use of a ground station fairly nearby as the upstream network provider but I haven't the fuzziest what SpaceX has planned. In your opinion what fraction of the overall delays in the network are attributable to the diameter of the orbit (great circle dista…

delays in geostationary orbit based systems are limited by basically two things... one is the distance, assuming dedicated 1:1 capacity. From a consumer internet user perspective the other delays are oversubscription and TDMA timeslice related. Consumer grade VSAT-based internet services (hughnesnet, viasat, etc) that you can buy for a cabin in a far rural part of Idaho are oversubscribed at a 16:1, 32:1 or greater r…

I’m still not sure if you answered my question but thank you for participating. We don’t often get people with real experience in satcom.

I’ve never had to understand satellite physics beyond explaining to a director why he needed terrestrial internet to solve his telecommunications problem. They get the Grace Hopper explanation (aka the speed of light says data can only move this far per nanosecond)

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#313

Post by Oishikatta »

mtanski wrote: post #278
fastball wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sri Lanka is only the 51st "best country in the world" according to US News[1]. That's really not bad and not really 3rd world at this point. [1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/sri-lanka

The term third world is often used incorrectly. It was created during the cold war to refer to countries that we're not in alliance with one of the dominant super powers (USA, USSR). [1] People often use when they want to say "backwards" countries. The correct term is developing world, which just means rapidly improving and doesn't cloudy the convo with connotations about the cold war. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…

The term is not being used incorrectly.

The primary definition is now "underdeveloped countries" - because language changes over time.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/third%20world

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#314

Post by kawfey »

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #171
natethinks wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where I would love my old Samsung's "ultra power saving" mode. Nothing but calls and texting on a black and white screen. Almost a week of battery life.

What phone is that?

The Nokia 3310.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#315

Post by imtringued »

jessaustin wrote: post #300
barkerja wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be a wise decision; what if they one day decide to enter into live programming (sports, news, etc.), where latency does matter?

Latency doesn't really matter for that either. Seeing a football play 5 seconds too late doesn't hurt anyone.

And existing streaming services already have a latency of several seconds. Twitch for example can have a delay from 5 to 20 seconds or more. Unless you're using WebRTC or similar technologies you won't see latencies below a second.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#316

Post by stingraycharles »

slr555 wrote: post #161
madushan1000 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from a third world country(Sri Lanka) and we already have really cheap LTE access, the connection I'm using right now(on my phone) gives me something like 1GB/1.5USD at average 4MBPS. What sucks is the speed and reliability, speed always fluctuate and even though most of the island is now covered by 3G, LTE is not a given. It has been improving a lot though because we have relatively good competition between mobi…

I was visiting a friend in Sri Lanka in 2004 and he was checking cricket scores on his phone in the middle of the jungle. I still can’t get a signal the whole way between KC and Omaha. We Americans sometimes ave a distorted view of the world.

Can confirm. My Cambodian wife’s family lives in the jungle and have 4G and she has perfect skype video calls with them. It costs them $1 a month and they get 5GB for that.

These developing countries are going all-in on mobile and it’s a good thing. They really don’t need these sattelites, but for Americans apparently it’s good for leveling the ISP playing field.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#318

Post by mygo »

jandrese wrote: post #304
agildehaus wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the constellation is built, you can do worldwide routing in orbit, which is actually more efficient latency-wise (at least for international hops) as you're not dealing with political and physical boundaries and light is passing through vacuum not fiber.

While this is possible, it is very challenging to actually achieve. Your latency numbers go to hell in a hurry if you're bouncing around satellites in orbit (eating a queuing delay on every hop). Iridium did this, but at the end of the day their mobile to mobile latency numbers are similar to Geo satellites. SpaceX's plan is almost absurdly ambitious and there is a lot of skepticism in the comm satellite community th…

> especially at an affordable price point.

They don’t necessarily have to be affordable. You can be premium. They just have to be able to provide high speed internet and not be Comcast.

They might even make it realistic for more people to live out in rural areas where there either is no internet or what’s available is inhibitingly slow. That would be an interesting niche. People who choose to live out further than where telecomm companies will support have money to spend too. There’s pent up demand.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#319

Post by NullPrefix »

jessaustin wrote: post #300
barkerja wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be a wise decision; what if they one day decide to enter into live programming (sports, news, etc.), where latency does matter?

Latency doesn't really matter for that either. Seeing a football play 5 seconds too late doesn't hurt anyone.

>Seeing a football play 5 seconds too late doesn't hurt anyone. Only if the audience do not know about it.

Re: FCC Authorizes SpaceX to Provide Broadband Satellite Services

#320

Post by NullPrefix »

grecy wrote: post #211
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.

I've just driven through 21 countries in West Africa. [1] Every single country has 3G, a few have 4G. Often the speeds were faster than what I get in Canada. A pre-paid SIM costs $1, data is anything from $1-$10/GB in a pre-paid bundle. So I think the biggest difference the SpaceX Constellation can make is price. A huge percentage of the population in virtually every dirt street town has a smartphone with facebook an…

This service could be aimed at "Internet third world" countries like US or UK.
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