Blog Public Beta for Starlink Internet Service Coming Soon

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company plans to roll out a public beta of its Starlink broadband service soon.

Musk said on Twitter that a “fairly wide” beta version of the service will be ready for action as soon as the latest satellites “reach their target position.”Musk said the service will provide internet to the northern United States and “hopefully” southern Canada.

SpaceX is building a constellation of satellites to beam internet service around the world. Musk has said Starlink will require about 12,000 satellites to reach that scale. SpaceX tweeted earlier this month that initial tests of Starlink show speeds capable of streaming “multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare.”

SpaceX has grown the Starlink constellation to around 800 satellites to date, including 60 that were delivered Tuesday in the 13th Starlink mission to date.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1313462965778157569

A tweet last week from Washington state’s Military Department and Emergency Management Division revealed the first known application of the service. Starlink was employed to provide service to emergency responders battling wildfires in Washington state. SpaceX Chief Executive Musk replied, saying the company is “prioritizing emergency responders & locations with no Internet connectivity at all.”

Photo: SpaceX

 

[doghousePVD]

I was thinking about StarLink today in the context of being a pretty satisfied cable customer. StarLink has a killer technical advantage in having much higher upload rates. If SpaceX can bring the subscription cost down to within perhaps $10 a month of cable and have equal reliability then the legacy companies are in deep doodoo.

No way Starlink can support the subscriber density where there is already cable, except in very limited (and probably very expensive) situations. Starlink is NOT a cable killer.

Capacity at present is limited to single digits of subscribers per square mile. Cable is almost never strung at that low a density.

 

[SageBrush]

Capacity at present

I get the impression that SpaceX plans more.

Actually, IIRC either Elon or SpaceX has talked about carrying some 20% of the world's internet when fully deployed.

 

[doghousePVD]

I get the impression that SpaceX plans more.

Actually, IIRC either Elon or SpaceX has talked about carrying some 20% of the world's internet when fully deployed.

Estimates of Starlink capacity with all 47,000 satellites is still in the three digit subscribers per square mile range. Suburbs with 1/4 acre lots is over 2500 residences per square mile.

 

[jeremymc7]

W


hy would you have an email tied to an ISP? That’s so 1990. Convert to an independent email provider, such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

EXACTLY !

When GTE went away they shut down my ability to sent email overnight! So I could not email people to provide forwarding. Likewise it was sever based and not local stored on my PC (which was preferred at the time) so I had NO WAY to download those emails just view them. Then they shut down view access.

Needless to say there are people who I only had contact to in email and their details were only in that email server. So I ended up loosing touch with some people that no longer had a way to reach me and who I no longer had access to my contacts.

Needless to say I learned my lesson that day.

Of couple of Gmail was ever shutdown I’m sure they would at least port cloud stored history to someone else. But still you loose ability for people to contact you that you haven’t advised your moving.

Having your own domain (and email address) that you can move anywhere seems like the best option but kind of a hassle. Google will likely be here long after me.

 

[bxr140]

Starlink won’t work in deep canyons. It needs clear access to the sky about 25° in all directions. If the sky is only at 45° it won’t work very well.

Do we know for sure service needs a 25° look angle all around? I could see that being necessary for the beta but I can't imagine that's the case for the production level satellite density. If so that's actually pretty bad news for the primary potential customer base for Starlink (the ~9M existing satellite internet customers in the US), because its one thing to find a hole for a static dish to see a GEO, its another to have a clear, full conical field of view.

 

[bxr140]

If SpaceX can bring the subscription cost down to within perhaps $10 a month of cable and have equal reliability then the legacy companies are in deep doodoo.

While Starlink may put some small resellers out of business, there's not way the large legacy terrestrial services will roll over and let SpaceX take anything more than the lest profitable customers--e.g., the low density users on crappy/old terrestrial infrastructure which the legacy companies can't justify upgrading.

Expect a lot of action and announcements from the terrestrial giants after the C-band auction in December.

 

[SageBrush]

Estimates of Starlink capacity with all 47,000 satellites

Some envelope arithmetic from the web --
300 sats per Tbps data
500 Tbps world wide internet capacity

Each 1% of worldwide (ww) capacity is 5 Tbps, or 300 sats
45,000 sats then represent 150% of current ww capacity.
10% requires 3000 sats
20% requires 6000 sats
... ... ...
And to top it off, I very much doubt that we have seen the best sat that Tesla will ever make, or anything close.

 

[bxr140]

Some envelope arithmetic from the web --
300 sats per Tbps data
500 Tbps world wide internet capacity

Each 1% of worldwide (ww) capacity is 5 Tbps, or 300 sats
45,000 sats then represent 150% of current ww capacity.
10% requires 3000 sats
20% requires 6000 sats

Before going into dissertation mode, I think it would be useful for you to explain your current understanding of the concepts of “population density” and “Starlink user density”. It’s clear those aren’t fully baked; getting a better idea where you stand will help us bring you up to speed.

Im any case, in the vein of abstract data analysis:
—If Starlink actually puts up 45k sats (they won’) were looking at near as makes no difference 10+ years to get there.
—At 25% YOY growth rate for global capacity, reasonable based on the linked article, will grow the 466T from last year to 5400Tbps in 10 years
—Given that Starlink capacity is more or less evenly distributed across the globe (by latitude) vs the terrestrial capacity being explicitly where ifs needed and not over vast swaths of unpopulated oceans, capacity comparisons are not apples to apples; a fair approximation is 1/2 of total constellation capacity is useable at any one time.
—Each Starlink sat can move ~20Gbps
—100 sats = 1 useable Tbps
—45k sats = 450Tbps
—450Tbps / 5400Tbps = 8.3%
—Satellite improvements won’t help much as there’s always going to be the user density problem.

Don’t get me wrong, Starlink will be a great solution for infrastructurally underserved folks that can actually afford to pay for internet. It WILL NOT be a practical solution for those who live in the ‘burbs let alone a city, and if DOES NOT have a path to global dominance. Terrestrial and MNO giants in the business of making money will not idly stand by, nor will deep pocket competitors in space (like Kuiper).

 

[SageBrush]

Error corrected

Some envelope arithmetic from the web --
60 sats per Tbps data
500 Tbps world wide internet capacity

Each 1% of worldwide (ww) capacity is 5 Tbps, or 300 sats
45,000 sats then represent 150% of current ww capacity.
10% requires 3000 sats
20% requires 6000 sats
... ... ...
And to top it off, I very much doubt that we have seen the best sat that Tesla will ever make, or anything close.

 

[SageBrush]

Before going into dissertation mode, I think it would be useful for you to explain your current understanding of the concepts of “population density” and “Starlink user density”.

I'm happy to read a lecture for dummies but I should say upfront that I have been presuming that an homogenous distribution of sats is neither desirable or technically required. So while I get the notion that 45k sats spread evenly over the earth surface results in about a 100 x 100 km cell area and it has a ~ 16 Gbps bandwidth, I accept that sat coverage overlap can change the bandwidth areal density drastically.

 

[doghousePVD]

I'm happy to read a lecture for dummies but I should say upfront that I have been presuming that an homogenous distribution of sats is neither desirable or technically required. So while I get the notion that 45k sats spread evenly over the earth surface results in about a 100 x 100 km cell area and it has a ~ 16 Gbps bandwidth, I accept that sat coverage overlap can change the bandwidth areal density drastically.

Seventy percent of earth is ocean. The satellites are not steerable to stay "parked" mostly over land; that's impossible. It will be many years before 47k birds are in service, if ever. The satellites will be mostly in 52˚ degree orbits, so their coverage is from 52 North to 52 South latitude. The later satellites will be in polar orbits, which will bring coverage to Antarctica and the far north of Alaska and Canada.

The sats have to be fairly evenly distributed, or else there would be interrupted service. One can't bunch them together only where one wants them.

Any individual satellite will be within your horizon for only a few minutes, zooming by at 18,000 mph,, and there always has to be a second one visible for the handoff.

 

[SageBrush]

The satellites will be mostly in 52˚ degree orbits, so their coverage is from 52 North to 52 South latitude.

Can you explain why the first ~ 600 or sats provided coverage to Northern USA and Southern Canada ? How wide a west-east swath did it include ?

 

[Electroman]

Can you explain why the first ~ 600 or sats provided coverage to Northern USA and Southern Canada ? How wide a west-east swath did it include ?

Good question.

The satellites will be mostly in 52˚ degree orbits, so their coverage is from 52 North to 52 South latitude. The later satellites will be in polar orbits, which will bring coverage to Antarctica and the far north of Alaska and Canada.

Rather if the first set of satellites cover '52 degree and under' latitudes, then why the coverage only for higher latitudes at this time? I am guessing half the satellites are inclined one way and other half the other way (declined?) , which gives the concentration on specific latitudes. As you can see I am a dummy in this..

 

[SageBrush]

Wikipedia writes in the starlink entry

a 2015 proposal from Samsung outlined a 4,600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 km (870 mi) that could provide a zettabyte per month capacity worldwide, an equivalent of 200 gigabytes per month for 5 billion users of Internet data,

I don't pretend to understand the differences from a higher orbit other than the latency but that small constellation sure does not sound bandwidth constrained, even if we discount it to 0.3x to account for 'waste' over the oceans.

 

[dhanson865]

Can you explain why the first ~ 600 or sats provided coverage to Northern USA and Southern Canada ? How wide a west-east swath did it include ?

Ground stations are the limiting factor for that early coverage.

East west wise the sats cover the entire planet.


Look at Starlink Coverage - percent of day and Starlink US gateways

to see the difference between satellite coverage and ground station coverage.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Large density regions are already well served by the current providers. Imagine, that at least in the near future, Tesla will focus mostly on the underserved areas of the World.

As time goes by, the better economics of Starlink will allow more and more people to use their service just due to it's lower costs.

Similar to how their EVs are slowly taking over ICE cars. At first by snatching customers that simply prefer electric drive for edge reasons, but ultimately transforming most all vehicles to electric drive.

 

[doghousePVD]

Good question.



Rather if the first set of satellites cover '52 degree and under' latitudes, then why the coverage only for higher latitudes at this time? I am guessing half the satellites are inclined one way and other half the other way (declined?) , which gives the concentration on specific latitudes. As you can see I am a dummy in this..

52˚ is London and north of 90% of the population of Canada.The US/Canada border in the west is 49˚. Not many people (percent) live north of 52˚. 52˚ south includes all of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and all but the very extreme end of Chile and Argentina. The first batch of satellites covers the vast majority of the world's population.

The orbits are closer together at the extremes N and S, so fewer sats give better coverage. The orbits are much farther apart when they cross the equator. The "high latitudes" are 44˚ to 49˚ (the Canadian border) only in the US.

"Declined" doesn't make any sense for satellites. I don't know what you are trying to say.

 

[doghousePVD]

Can you explain why the first ~ 600 or sats provided coverage to Northern USA and Southern Canada ? How wide a west-east swath did it include ?

East-west goes around the globe equally. Same thing in the south, but no beta there.

 

[SageBrush]

East-west goes around the globe equally. Same thing in the south, but no beta there.

I'm not understanding why a ring of reception at ~ 50 degrees lat developed from an orbit inclination of 52 degrees relative to the equator

I also do not understand the calculation of how much surface area on earth is covered by a single sat (ignoring the fact for a moment that the sat is navigating the globe, just imaging it standing still for a moment.)

 

[dhanson865]

an orbit inclination of 52 degrees relative to the equator

Just to correct that, it isn't 52 degrees.

phase 1 shells will be

• 53
• 53.8
• 70
• 74
• 80

all the existing sats in orbit are 53 degrees we haven't gotten to the second shell yet. (both of the first two shells are to have 1440 sats)

As to why .8 degrees difference that might be to keep them from having the same clumping all the time?

A 53°and a 53.8°satellite that start close together in the sky will slowly drift apart. To provide spatial diversity for the RF beams, it makes most sense to stagger their orbital planes so that the 53.8°orbital planes are equidistant between the53°orbital planes at the equator.

Additional shells will add capacity where they overlap.

Additional shells will add coverage where the new shell covers an area that isn't covered by other shells.

So if you live between the equator and 53 degrees north or south then every new shell adds capacity for you.

If you live further north or south than 53 degrees they may add coverage for you.