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Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

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Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#61

Post by modeless »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #42
modeless wrote: post #5

I don't know if this has been announced before: "Operators in our network have access to reciprocal global access that allows their users to access the service when they travel to one of our partner countries." [1] It sounds like once SpaceX has partnered with at least one carrier in most countries then you'll be able to travel to almost any point on the surface of the Earth and still have baseline emergency cell tex…

> I don't know if this has been announced before... When they announced the original deal with T-Mobile, they said that T-Mobile would handle the (spectrum) license for the US and they're looking for a partner in other countries with the appropriate spectrum licensing. US T-Mobile customers would have access to this SpaceX service in any country where there is a partner with the spectrum license. https://www.t-mobile…

I disagree that Apple's capability is similar. The feature only allows texting emergency services, requires holding the phone in a specific orientation to send or receive, is separate from your carrier service (only two years are free with purchase), and is exceedingly slow.

SpaceX's service will allow texting and receiving texts from anyone using your carrier number, plans to support third party messaging apps such as WhatsApp, is much faster, and does not require holding the phone in any particular orientation to receive messages. It can supposedly work from a pocket or inside a car.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#62

Post by freedomben »

miki123211 wrote: post #40
gambiting wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the whole dream of "free internet will bring freedom and democracy to the whole world" died a decade ago if not earlier. All of those states had completely free and unrestricted access to the internet not that far back and it didn't really lead to anything groundbreaking - introducing satellite telephony to the common market is not going to do it. And you can bet that if the service is offered in China/Ru…

> it will be forced to go through local servers to operate legally. Not having to operate legally is the whole point here. The hope is that Russia / China will have no way of preventing Starling from existing (maybe except shooting down satellites and causing a major international diplomatic incident). There's still the question of how to make this profitable, if Starling is illegal in Russia / China, it will be diff…

But with tight controls of the financial system, none of that matters. Revolutions in the past were possible because government lacked the power/abilities to enforce the laws and nip dissent in the bud. Once a country goes fully cashless, you won't even be able to feed yourself if those in power decide not to allow it. And it's not even strictly more authoritarian countries that will exercise this power. It happened in Canada, a progressive western democracy, by a liberal government during the trucker protests. Now add it the ability to fully track/monitor all citizens in real time with cameras and AI/ML, and the power differential is orders of magnitude more between a person and their government than it ever has been previously.

So as much as it hurts me to say it, I don't think this or anything else will make a difference. Once freedom is lost somewhere, it may not even be possible to get it back.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#63

Post by michaelt »

miki123211 wrote: post #40
gambiting wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the whole dream of "free internet will bring freedom and democracy to the whole world" died a decade ago if not earlier. All of those states had completely free and unrestricted access to the internet not that far back and it didn't really lead to anything groundbreaking - introducing satellite telephony to the common market is not going to do it. And you can bet that if the service is offered in China/Ru…

> it will be forced to go through local servers to operate legally. Not having to operate legally is the whole point here. The hope is that Russia / China will have no way of preventing Starling from existing (maybe except shooting down satellites and causing a major international diplomatic incident). There's still the question of how to make this profitable, if Starling is illegal in Russia / China, it will be diff…

> The hope is that Russia / China will have no way of preventing Starling from existing (maybe except shooting down satellites and causing a major international diplomatic incident).

They've got a much easier way of preventing it from operating: Ban sales of Teslas until Musk relents.

Nice factory producing 250k cars per year for the Chinese market you've got there. It'd be a real shame if some sort of party of workers were to seize the means of production.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#65

Post by freedomben »

bdcravens wrote: post #51
heywoods wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a country like China that wants to prevent this from being possible how would they go about it? Can these satellites provide communication between phones without a terrestrial cell network sitting in the middle?

Unless Elon offers it for free, they'd start at the bank level, blocking payments. Then they would put pressure on Elon, putting Tesla's ability to sell there at risk. That's before they do anything from a technology standpoint.

Yep, and that's only step 1 on a 100 step ladder. With monitoring tech that they probably already have in place, unless there's a widespread coordinated effort to obscure it (which itself would be extremely difficult), it wouldn't be hard to find the people accessing Starlink and punish them. There are a dozen different angles the government can take to make this impossible without great personal to the participants. I doubt it ever gets that far as the financial restrictions alone will be sufficient

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#66

Post by concordDance »

MrEd wrote: post #45
concordDance wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language really matters, it's a great homogenizing force. Unfortunately, the Chinese and Russians mostly don't speak English and thus can't/don't interact with pro-democracy people.

As if you would know what the percentage of English-language proficiency is . Ever had friends in RU and CN? Btw, not everyone on Earth seems Western faux democracy as a suitable / wanted direction to move to.

I have indeed made online acquaintance with people from China and Russia. They are a pretty small percentage of the population. 1% and 10% respectively IIRC.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#67

Post by freedomben »

oskarkk wrote: post #49
kgwxd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if Musk has anything to say about it.

Starlink works in Iran and is crucial to the Ukrainian army, but as other commenter pointed out, Musk has business in China, so China would be off the table.

I will say, if there's one person that might give China the bird and do it anyway despite a heavy economic penalty, it's Elon. His reactions against companies like Disney have been shocking and remarkably principled.

That said, I agree it's pretty unlikely. No individual person has enough resources to win a fight againt a world-power nation state like China, even if they wanted to badly enough to risk it all.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#69

Post by Beijinger »

berserk1010 wrote: post #11

I wonder if this service will facilitate collapse of censorship in dictatorship countries like China and Russia. Especially if those countries are currently suffering from economic depression like China and Russia, and its citizens are waking up to its harsh realities and are keen to get unfiltered information

"Especially if those countries are currently suffering from economic depression like China and Russia"

Dude, I don't know. "Despite the challenges posed by external pressure and earlier negative forecasts, Russia's GDP growth in 2023 is expected to be 3.5%,"

Most EU countries would be happy about such a growth. Russia has 100 times less debt than the US and an unemployment rate about 2.5% if I remember correctly.

I give you two more links, one by a US nobel Prize winner, another by a French guy who predicted the collapse of the UdSSR when he was a PhD student:

https://www.gulf-insider.com/robert-shiller-warns-of-catacly...

https://unherd.com/thepost/emmanuel-todd-world-war-iii-has-a...

I am not a Putin puppet. This guy may be a dog, but he has the luck of the devil. Russia may rise out of this mess as a power to be reckoned with.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#70

Post by joshspankit »

extheat wrote: post #6
modeless wrote: post #5

I don't know if this has been announced before: "Operators in our network have access to reciprocal global access that allows their users to access the service when they travel to one of our partner countries." [1] It sounds like once SpaceX has partnered with at least one carrier in most countries then you'll be able to travel to almost any point on the surface of the Earth and still have baseline emergency cell tex…

I assume this works like traditional cellular roaming, no? So this would mean you have to be a customer of one of the service providers to get reciprocated roaming capabilities abroad.

If the tech is still what was announced, the satellite does the heavy lifting and the cell sees it as a bog-standard cell tower.

That means the real answer to your question doesn’t have a single answer since it’s in the legal and contractual parts of the equation.

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