SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

[wnorris]

Sure. The question is will it happen before the next recesssion.

At present there is enough demand for both the Tesla and SpaceX product that I would not think a recession would prevent either Starlink or the creation of additional Tesla services from coming to fruition. Might a recession cause a slower rollout, sure.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

Would those be similar laws to those that prevent Tesla from selling their cars directly to consumers in several states?

I don’t know, but I looked into this for a bit more last night and people more informed than me say it shouldn’t be a problem for SpaceX to give Tesla owners a better deal. In any case, i wouldn’t think other automakers will have the capability.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

At present there is enough demand for both Tesla and SpaceX's products that I would not think a recession would prevent Starlink or the creation of additional Tesla services from coming to fruition. Might a recession caused a slower rollout, sure.

Agreed, the fundamentals of the company should not be affected by a recession... just wondering from a valuation multiple perspective: software as a service expands it while recession would contract it, and the relative timing here matters. Nonetheless, i think this is more of a 2019 question, and if we get highway level 3 by then, great.

 

[ValueAnalyst]

SpaceX has filed for their massive constellation of 4,400 satellites to provide Internet from orbit • r/spacex

Some good discussion here... This won't impact TSLA before 2020's.

 

[DragonWatch]

The scope and power of Spacelink has the opportunity to redefine what “radio free Europe” meant during the “Cold War.”

Communication is power, just sayin’

As the computers crept into our lives our view of things widened. As computers grew into our lives hardware improvements changed from Cat V wire to Cable to WiFi. As computers grew into our lives cell phones became more than bricks.

Fox news, GM, Ford, etc. have a component that relies on someone and something else to get into your lives or improve your lives. Corporation Elon is bringing AI to your home, to your lives. Sun, transportation, communication and I am sure something else that I forgot to mention at 0445.

I can recharge my phone wirelessly, can you?

 

[DurandalAI]

Can’t wait for this thing to go online, purely selfish reasons, AT&T refuses to deploy high speed internet where I am, limiting us to oversaturated 4G and 3G service. I can’t even do web conferences, the service is so slow.

 

[SwTslaGrl]

"To bridge America's digital divide, we'll have to use innovative technologies," Chairman Pai said in a statement.
FCC chairman urges commission to approve Elon Musk's SpaceX application for broadband satellite

 

[wnorris]

"To bridge America's digital divide, we'll have to use innovative technologies," Chairman Pai said in a statement.
FCC chairman urges commission to approve Elon Musk's SpaceX application for broadband satellite

Wow...surprising to see Ajit Pai come out in favor of this. I would have thought he would have been pressured by the existing Telecom players to delay or prevent approval. Good news.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Recent updates put the ground unit dimensions as laptop sized. (Ka band, I believe, Ku for main feed, second constellation with V band). So hood, roof, or trunk deck may be possibilities. Could be externally mounted (hopefully heated) to avoid RF materials issues.

That link provided an interesting spec: about 30 ms latency. Compared to fiber (<10 ms), that's not great, and certainly gamers will find it horrible compared to fiber. The end game is fiber optics. Gigabit bandwidth is considered the holy grail today, but in 20 years, it'll seem slow, but existing fiber will be able to deliver much more at that time. Yeah, it's expensive to install, but its just a matter of time before more and more areas get it. And certainly new subdivisions are getting it installed from the start. So starlink would be used for mobile, and rural. Nice, but not game changing.

 

[Cobbler]

I imagine replacing a solar panel with a look-a-like receiver plate to be connected to the Starlink network. My roof should have a clear line-of-sight with the satellite. Since I don't like having a big sat dish visible.... Communication could be superpositioned on the house electrical network (powerline adapter) and your powerwall 3 could act as a power/comms hub....

Imagine being completely off-grid for power and internet

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

That link provided an interesting spec: about 30 ms latency. Compared to fiber (<10 ms), that's not great, and certainly gamers will find it horrible compared to fiber. The end game is fiber optics. Gigabit bandwidth is considered the holy grail today, but in 20 years, it'll seem slow, but existing fiber will be able to deliver much more at that time. Yeah, it's expensive to install, but its just a matter of time before more and more areas get it. And certainly new subdivisions are getting it installed from the start. So starlink would be used for mobile, and rural. Nice, but not game changing.

As with SpaceX launches, it'll be the price that matters. If the price is good, then it'll be used for mobile, rural or anywhere else the incumbents suck.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

That link provided an interesting spec: about 30 ms latency. Compared to fiber (<10 ms), that's not great, and certainly gamers will find it horrible compared to fiber. The end game is fiber optics. Gigabit bandwidth is considered the holy grail today, but in 20 years, it'll seem slow, but existing fiber will be able to deliver much more at that time. Yeah, it's expensive to install, but its just a matter of time before more and more areas get it. And certainly new subdivisions are getting it installed from the start. So starlink would be used for mobile, and rural. Nice, but not game changing.

30 ms isn't bad compared to other satellite internet provided from geostationary satellites. When I had it in the early 2000s, the latency was something like 1000 to 2000 ms. I don't remember exactly how bad it was but it was so bad that I immediately cancelled my service. It was horrible, even with an employee discount.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

30 ms isn't bad compared to other satellite internet provided from geostationary satellites. When I had it in the early 2000s, the latency was something like 1000 to 2000 ms. I don't remember exactly how bad it was but it was so bad that I immediately cancelled my service. It was horrible, even with an employee discount.

Measuring Fixed Broadband Report - 2016

A bit over 600ms in 12/2016 tests for Hughes and Viasat.

30ms would beat most DSL ISPs, be somewhat worse than cable (except TWC/Spectrum) and substantially worse than better fiber.

Old bundle: Internet, TV, landline, cellphone
New bundle: Internet, car, solar panels, home battery system

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Measuring Fixed Broadband Report - 2016

A bit over 600ms in 12/2016 tests for Hughes and Viasat.

30ms would beat most DSL ISPs, be somewhat worse than cable (except TWC/Spectrum) and substantially worse than better fiber.

I had my account in 2001 and it was a hybrid of dial-up for upload traffic and satellite for download traffic. My dial-up maxed out at 28.4 kbps. It was insanely slow and gaming was nearly impossible with the > 1000 ms latency.

I canceled my HughesNet service right away and the only gaming I could do was online board games. I was able to play chess just fine over 28.4 kbps dial-up.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, at the time, Wild Blue had plans for a LEO network of 400 satellites which would've provided much bettery performance but I guess that never came to be.

 

[mongo]

That link provided an interesting spec: about 30 ms latency. Compared to fiber (<10 ms), that's not great, and certainly gamers will find it horrible compared to fiber. The end game is fiber optics. Gigabit bandwidth is considered the holy grail today, but in 20 years, it'll seem slow, but existing fiber will be able to deliver much more at that time. Yeah, it's expensive to install, but its just a matter of time before more and more areas get it. And certainly new subdivisions are getting it installed from the start. So starlink would be used for mobile, and rural. Nice, but not game changing.

A 10mS round trip is only 930 miles, so that must be a local server. Coast to coast round trip is 29mS at speed of light. It is also less than one frame time on a 100Hz screen. Way faster than my reflexes.
For non-gamers downloading something or streaming, sub 100mS is more than fast enough.

Article called out 25mS
Satellite altitude: 1,325 km
Round trip: 2 * 1,325 km * 1.41 (45 degree angle) =3,737 km
Speed of light: 2.998x10^5 km/sec
Round trip time: 3,737 / 2.998x10^5 = 12.5 mS
So an extra 12.5mS for getting to a remote server and back.
They are also talking about a second constellation closer to the surface.

For developing countries, they are skipping hard wired infrastructure entirely and going straight to cell/ wireless..

 

[BioSehnsucht]

This latency reported at 25-35ms is for the higher, less dense initial constellation in LEO. They plan to add many more satellites later in VLEO which should have latencies even lower. I didn't see a specified latency listed for the VLEO constellation but if we blindly just reduce the average latency by the ratio of their average altitudes, we'd get about 9ms, which puts it solidly in fiber territory.

Plus, if they route your connection to the nearest ground station to the destination (instead of to the nearest ground station to you), the latency for the other hops between you and your destination may be lower than available via fiber - at least with the VLEO constellation operating, I don't know about just the LEO one. The speed of light in vacuum being faster than in glass fiber and all that. The real issue will be how fast they can route packets in one optical link and out the next. (the satellites will be using laser communications between each other, RF only to the ground)

So the worst case scenario in theory is that the starter LEO-only constellation will be generally as good or better than anything that isn't fiber - cable is typically oversubscribed and thus has spikey latencies.Perhaps in some areas cable will be better, but it won't by typical in my experience.

The VLEO constellation will then compete with fiber networks.

Now, the plot twist: From what I understand, SpaceX intends to not just sell to end users but to also make money by being a backhaul provider. So if you want high speed internet in your remote community but no telco wants to spend the money to lay fiber from the nearest major area, you could install a single Starlink base station, then run fiber from there to the rest of the community (though in reality it's probably easier to have everyone get their own base stations, if you wanted a municipally funded publicly funded internet, this might be the way to go - you can always replace the Starlink base station with something else if another provider wants to peer with you).

Starlink will also sell a lot of base stations to mobile network providers for backhauling remote cell towers (easier to install and setup than a microwave link that must be aimed, and no worries about whether you have line of site to another location as long as you have line of site to a good chunk of sky), and they'll also aim to carry a good chunk of the traffic on the internet (just install base stations at every datacenter and at various peering locations).

 

[Cosmacelf]

Does anyone have a link to a reference of satellite to satellite communications being laser?

 

[mongo]

Does anyone have a link to a reference of satellite to satellite communications being laser?

ESA tested it previously Wikipedia.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Does anyone have a link to a reference of satellite to satellite communications being laser?

If you meant Starlink using lasers, it's in their FCC application : https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Legal-Narrative.pdf

The system will employ optical inter-satellite links for seamless network management on-orbit and continuity of service, while also aiding compliance with emission constraints designed to facilitate spectrum sharing with other space-based and terrestrial systems.

...

Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit.

 

[Grendal]

Starlink gets approval from FCC head just in time before the first test satellites launch on the Paz launch.

SpaceX gets U.S. regulator to back satellite internet plan

Elon Musk's SpaceX is about to launch the first of 11,925 internet satellites — more than all spacecraft that orbit Earth today