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Starlink Ground Station Map

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Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#41

Post by KiwiJohnno »

sneak wrote: post #11
ackbar03 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So currently all the internet for Starlink customers are from bouncing off Starlinks low-orbit satellites to these ground stations where they are connected via cable connected (normal internet) and served up, am I interpreting that correctly?

That's how I understand it, yes. If double latency is okay, it may be possible to do M-shaped ones where an isolated ground station (with only power) relays solely between two different satellites to reach further, for example in the middle of oceans (with a ground station on an island or ship). I am not sure if they plan to implement this interim step or not, but it is technically possible. Their eventual goal is to…

The satellites in polar orbits (so far only 10, but they are planning to launch several hundred more this year) do have laser crosslinks. They said all satellites launched next year will have laser crosslinks Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-laser-crosslinks-to-polar-...

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#42

Post by KiwiJohnno »

ackbar03 wrote: post #20
sneak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I understand it, yes. If double latency is okay, it may be possible to do M-shaped ones where an isolated ground station (with only power) relays solely between two different satellites to reach further, for example in the middle of oceans (with a ground station on an island or ship). I am not sure if they plan to implement this interim step or not, but it is technically possible. Their eventual goal is to…

> Their eventual goal is to allow communication directly between the satellites I guess they'll have to though if they want to make it more scale-able? They satellites will always have to be up in space, but with communication between them they won't have to build ground stations everywhere. Plus ground stations themselves have to have good internet connectivity

Another huge potential market for Starlink will be internet links to ships at sea, or aircraft. When far from land there would be no ground station in range of the satellites overhead, and laser crosslink is the only way to make this work.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#43

Post by ulfw »

supernova87a wrote: post #13
neals wrote: post #3

If this is going to work from my boat at some point, I'm never setting foot on land ever, again.

Unfortunately (at present) Starlink does not provide for mobile platform access. They say you have to stay within your access cell and people have reported inability to connect if the antenna is taken somewhere distant from the registered home position. Maybe that will change in the future though?

That's okay. He didn't say he'd actually want to go somewhere. House boats are a thing...

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#45

Post by GekkePrutser »

ac29 wrote: post #32
supernova87a wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, that is a good point, of course. What kind of ground station density does Starlink need in its eventual state?

The ground stations I saw on the map had 2.1GHz of uplink and 1.3GHz of downlink. If we assume 4b/hz (about as efficient as LTE/WiFi), thats 8.2Gbps up and 5.2Gbps down. I'm not too sure to what extent they can use MIMO techniques, but if they can, throughput could be multiplied by the number of MIMO channels.

I don't think you'd have much benefit of MIMO on a connection that's line of sight like this. MIMO is all about making the most of separate connection paths through reflections from walls, buildings etc. But in this case there'll be only one path.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#46

Post by GekkePrutser »

Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #4

Wow. For a service that should have global reach, these are mostly in the US! I'm a lot more excited about LEO broadband compared to 5G. Sounds like a career change worth pursuing, even if you are halfway around the world.

They're starting in the US but expanding to other countries now too. it won't be long before you will see these all over the world. It's already possible to pre-order starlink here in Spain for service around the end of this year.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#47

Post by GekkePrutser »

ec109685 wrote: post #33
sneak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no direct connectivity between the satellites at this point, so starlink can't be expected to have global reach yet - you go up, and you come down within a certain distance of where you are. They will need ground stations all over the earth soon.

They are working on satellite to satellite links: https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-laser-crosslinks-to-polar-...

True but for best latency and speeds a direct link back to ground would be best. I think the laser links would be more for remote areas and oceans where downlinks are impossible.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#48

Post by yosito »

supernova87a wrote: post #21

On a tangent, I wonder what effects Starlink will have in countries where the government wants to control or filter/restrict people's internet access?

I know Cuba strictly controls which antennas can be imported into the country. I think it would be pretty hard to sneak a Starlink device in undetected, even if Starlink supported it.

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#49

Post by _Microft »

londons_explore wrote: post #39
wikibob wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true, but only for capacity planning reasons during the beta. They’re working on demonstrating flight use on a Air Force plane. They’ve filed for FCC approval for mobile tests. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/8/22319761/spacex-starlink-f... Elon’s tweeted about it https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1369051431903268865?s=21

There are two approaches to mobile users. Either you have a beam from the satellite directly track a moving user, or you have many fixed beams from the satellite and the user has to jump from one to the next as they move. The first method was definitely used to begin with, but it doesn't scale - the satellite only has a certain number of beams available, so past a certain number of moving users it becomes necessary t…

Moving users do not make a difference as the relative speed between satellites and users are dominated by the speed of the satellites which is kilometers per second vs. kilometers per hour for a moving user.

The Starlink dishes and satellites are using phased array antennas by the way which can steer the beam extraordinarily fast without having to physically move the antenna at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array

Re: Starlink Ground Station Map

#50

Post by elcomet »

gameshot911 wrote: post #38

The 'legend' is not really a legend, (right?). It lists out base stations, but I still have no idea what the icons mean. (Really cool project, btw. Thanks unidentified Googlers for creating it!)

the legend is in the atlantic ocean near the bermudes (click on the three round dots, + and two eyes)
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