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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

#81

Post by forgot-im-old »

modeless wrote: post #61
bonestamp2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> It can supposedly work from a pocket or inside a car.

False

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#82

Post by pkos98 »

fragmede wrote: post #79
pkos98 wrote: post #75

Off topic: How does Starlink deploy updates to satellites? I would think the constraints are very different to standard deployments: * Satellites are pets, not cattle * Increased latency * Firmware upgrades potentially resulting in unresponsiveness etc... I guess first of all there is quite sophisticated testing on local satellites as well as simulators?

With over 5,500 satellites in LEO, I have a hard time seeing Starlink satellites as pets and not cattle.

true if you only look at the amount of satellites, but if you look at the cost: one of them costs several millions if you consider production and "delivery" cost and they're not easy to replace.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#83

Post by lxgr »

modeless wrote: post #61
bonestamp2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Elon has mentioned a speed of about 7 Mbit/s for an entire cell (which in these systems usually means a circle with a radius of a few hundred kilometers). That's within an order of magnitude of current LEO systems.

The innovation here is that it'll supposedly work with unmodified off-the-shelf phones. (Personally I'm assuming that at least messaging software will have to be modified in order to use the available bandwidth efficiently.)

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#84

Post by FredPret »

miki123211 wrote: post #48

I think the advent of Chat GPT makes this announcement that much more significant. Until recently, always-available, extremely-low-bandwidth, text-only communication was interesting, but not that interesting. You could use it in emergency situations or to talk to friends, depending on how low-bandwidth we're talking about, but that's about it. You couldn't use it for internet browsing or to look up information you mi…

Love the idea of telegram-style communication with the extremely chatty ChatGPT.

"ChatGPT, get me instructions for building an emergency igloo."

"Igloos are used to shelter from extreme cold stop Building an igloo is a vital survival skill stop ..."

"Just get to the point!"

"My apologies for the confusion stop Here are the fourteen steps to building an igloo..."

In all honesty, I love ChatGPT, but you'd have to penalize it for each additional word to make it cellphone friendly.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#85

Post by tuatoru »

dave78 wrote: post #78
Blahah wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antarctica and international waters already have sat phone coverage. Don't think it'll save any lives in those places. Remote regions of populous countries with a long tail of sparse rural infrastructure maybe. Brazil, India, China.

There are huge portions of the USA that have no cell coverage. Often the kinds of places that people go to hike and explore - and also places that people sometimes get injured. I'm sure that's true in many other countries as well. I know people who volunteer for search & rescue teams, and they all universally believe that this kind of thing definitely will save lives. The smart thing to do if you were going somewhere…

> The smart thing to do if you were going somewhere remote would be to have a

Personal locator beacon, PLB, on land; or an EPIRB, emergency position indicating radio beacon, on ocean.

Satphones and cell phones are luxuries but these are vital.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#86

Post by lxgr »

BuildTheRobots wrote: post #72
qup wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost any phone will let you make an emergency call without so much as a PIN to unlock it. No active service required.

It should even work if there isn't a SIM card in the phone, though I've only personally tested it on 2G and 3G.

Not everywhere anymore, unfortunately.

Germany recently banned SIM-less phones from making emergency calls, supposedly due to widespread abuse/hoax calls.

Here's a list of countries where it's still possible (according to Apple): https://www.apple.com/watchos/feature-availability/#communic...

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#87

Post by dave78 »

tuatoru wrote: post #85
dave78 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are huge portions of the USA that have no cell coverage. Often the kinds of places that people go to hike and explore - and also places that people sometimes get injured. I'm sure that's true in many other countries as well. I know people who volunteer for search & rescue teams, and they all universally believe that this kind of thing definitely will save lives. The smart thing to do if you were going somewhere…

> The smart thing to do if you were going somewhere remote would be to have a Personal locator beacon, PLB, on land; or an EPIRB, emergency position indicating radio beacon, on ocean. Satphones and cell phones are luxuries but these are vital. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...

Yes, agreed. I was lumping them together in my head. I think my point still stands that people often get into trouble without cell coverage and without access to a locator or sat phone or whatever, but likely have their regular cell phone with them.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#88

Post by Blahah »

dave78 wrote: post #78
Blahah wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antarctica and international waters already have sat phone coverage. Don't think it'll save any lives in those places. Remote regions of populous countries with a long tail of sparse rural infrastructure maybe. Brazil, India, China.

There are huge portions of the USA that have no cell coverage. Often the kinds of places that people go to hike and explore - and also places that people sometimes get injured. I'm sure that's true in many other countries as well. I know people who volunteer for search & rescue teams, and they all universally believe that this kind of thing definitely will save lives. The smart thing to do if you were going somewhere…

I agree it will also be impactful in the US. Just saying not in Antarctica, where all 50 annual visitors already have a sat phone

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#89

Post by lxgr »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

I feel like this will eventually kill dedicated sat phones, which are (a) horribly expensive, both for the gear and subscription plans, and (b) still not very reliable. I feel like if Starlink is able to provide reliable SMS-only service at a reasonable price, it would kill like 95% of dedicated sat phone use cases, which would then make the other 5% economically unviable.

There's still the matter of spectrum: Unlike existing satphone services, Starlink doesn't have any of the precious global L-band or C-band spectrum required to make it available globally.

That's why they're partnering with T-Mobile in the US and others elsewhere: Those operators can just lend Starlink some of their domestic spectrum. That's going to be much harder at sea, and there will always be a long tail of countries where it doesn't yet work. Safety operations that need something that works 100% of the time will probably not switch in a while.

But yes, that probably doesn't matter as much for many current use cases.

Re: Starlink Successfully Tests Space Direct to Cell Mobile Service

#90

Post by Blahah »

fullspectrumdev wrote: post #74
nwatson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your credit card expired and you didn't pay your last month of service and to update your credit card details you need access to your email account to confirm ID you but your phone is a new replacement phone and you don't have your 2FA codes for your email account.

You just described a couple months of my life - my phone and card went missing, a lot of services were tied to a Revolut account on the phone - and my 2FA/Password Manager/Card became totally inaccessible so I lost access entirely to huge chunks of my life (: It’s amazing how fragile stuff is. Now I’m super autistic about paper backups of everything, having ways back in, etc

> Now I’m super autistic about paper backups of everything, having ways back in, etc

I don't think autistic means what you think it means

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