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SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

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The gateway antennas are completely different than the UTs. The gateway antennas, because of the massive amount of data transfer required over a wide range of elevations, they are 'regular' parabolic dishes...I think 1m diameter (but maybe a little bit less?). Those antennas can only track one satellite at a time as it goes from ~west to ~east (not counting the polar sats), and then the antenna has to fast-slew reset to catch its next satellite as it comes up over the ~western horizon. Somewhat related, there are 2 steerable gateway antennas on each sat, which is mostly so the sat can stay in constant contact with the ground over high value regions like the US (as opposed to send traffic to two different gateways)--one dish is locked on the active gateway antenna and the other dish is positioning for the next gateway antenna before ether current link is broken (in other words, 'make before break').

The UTs are an electronically steered flat array, which is really just a bunch of radiating antenna elements on a circuit board (like, hundreds--maybe close to 1000? I don't recall), with a processor that manipulates gain and other things for each individual element such that there's an aggregate "antenna beam" that at the most basic level is more or less what you might expect from a regular parabolic dish. This allows the UT to form a beam that can track a satellite across the sky without requiring physical steering the antenna (like you need to do with a dish) and it ALSO allows the UT to track multiple satellites across the sky, which is useful for capacity balancing as well as system robustness.

The number of gateway antennas required is an interesting thought experiment. For the 4000 satellite constellation There's probably going to be ~200-300 sites around the world, probably uniformly-ish distributed, each with some or many antennas (maybe 2-8?). While the ISL network theoretically allows global traffic to be equally split amongst all of those links, a more practical distribution will have more antennas in higher density/traffic/value regions, with the bounding case being the US, where the infrastructure will be close to imitating total service, and so there will likely be more gateway antennas on the ground than satellites overhead. Conversely very low traffic regions will have a smaller number of gateway antennas (even with potentially a similar density of gateway sites), pretty much just what's required for redundancy, since the user demand won't push the ground or space infrastructure.
I think we may be over-optimistic on the amount of countries willing to license Starlink without going through or having ground stations within their sovereign territory. I’d like to be optimistic too- but my experience deploying telecoms systems in low income countries makes me skeptical.
 
I think we may be over-optimistic on the amount of countries willing to license Starlink without going through or having ground stations within their sovereign territory. I’d like to be optimistic too- but my experience deploying telecoms systems in low income countries makes me skeptical.

Yes, it'll be the typical:

Country: Please pay the telecom monopoly a $5M shakedown, er, license fee.
Elon: No.
Country: No license for you!
Elon: OK. (on twitter), Citizens of xxx, your government is acting like a douchebag.
Country: (two years later), OK, OK, stop your means tweets, here's your license!
 
I think we may be over-optimistic on the amount of countries willing to license Starlink without going through or having ground stations within their sovereign territory.

It’s a lot of work for sure, but the low elevation of the constellation means a distribution of ground stations would largely supersede any issues with landing rights anyway. It’s really the lawful intercept aspect that’s going to be a sticking point, and it will be interesting to see how spacex handles those demands. (IMHO they’ll just leave ‘problem’ countries as scraps for the OW/TLS/Jai-Nuh constellations to fight over. )

The other major thing for for satellite service will be the coordination/PFD grind within each country. That’s largely not something that can be done at high level blanket levels but rather needs to be done on a per-country basis.
 
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I need Starlink ASAP. Where I moved the house I bought has no wired internet. Presently use an Orbi with a T Mobil SIM card with the 50 gig plan and went over the 50 gigs in 2 weeks, I wouldn’t consider myself a high user. I am going to in plug the modem when not in use, besides it works good with no issues
 
It’s a lot of work for sure, but the low elevation of the constellation means a distribution of ground stations would largely supersede any issues with landing rights anyway. It’s really the lawful intercept aspect that’s going to be a sticking point, and it will be interesting to see how spacex handles those demands. (IMHO they’ll just leave ‘problem’ countries as scraps for the OW/TLS/Jai-Nuh constellations to fight over. )
They already handle lawful intercept.
And most countries are small… and for starters/ beta densities, you could cover a lot of each of Central America, Mekong basin or central west Africa countries with a handful stations (less stations than countries to cover)
 
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We had beta test Starlink. I returned it. The speeds are fantastic, but droppage was very high.

GREAT system if you're rural, and I regularly suggest it, but our standard internet beat it. SO I sent it back with a positive review. But the refund still hasn't shown up. I keep bugging them. Laast time: "go ahead and refund the money, you'll get it back in the way of tesla accessory purchases anyways, as we have a Model Y on order" lol

their response "good luck with your model Y, youll love it, and thanks for your support in the continued mission to send humans to Mars"

:D
 
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Awesome news for Starlink. No other constellation will now able to co-locate in google data centers (radio interference), so now Starlink has a unique marketing advantage of saying they have the fastest access to google cloud.

Anyone know how many data centers google has?
 
Awesome news for Starlink. No other constellation will now able to co-locate in google data centers (radio interference), so now Starlink has a unique marketing advantage of saying they have the fastest access to google cloud.

Anyone know how many data centers google has?
8411267B-DD94-4C89-A624-1579A376D99F.jpeg
 
Awesome news for Starlink. No other constellation will now able to co-locate in google data centers (radio interference), so now Starlink has a unique marketing advantage of saying they have the fastest access to google cloud.

Anyone know how many data centers google has?

23

 
Wiki has a more complete list:

North America:

  1. Berkeley County, South Carolina (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    33°03′50.8″N 80°02′36.1″W) — since 2007, expanded in 2013, 150 employees
  2. Council Bluffs, Iowa (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    41°13′17.7″N 95°51′49.92″W) — announced 2007, first phase completed 2009, expanded 2013 and 2014, 130 employees
  3. Douglas County, Georgia (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    33°44′59.04″N 84°35′5.33″W) — since 2003, 350 employees
  4. Bridgeport, Jackson County, Alabama (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    34°54′48.4″N 85°44′53.1″W)[3][4]
  5. Lenoir, North Carolina (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    35°53′54.78″N 81°32′50.58″W) — announced 2007, completed 2009, over 110 employees
  6. Montgomery County, Tennessee (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    36°37′37.7″N 87°15′27.7″W) — announced 2015
  7. Mayes County, Oklahoma at MidAmerica Industrial Park (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    36°14′28.1″N 95°19′48.22″W) — announced 2007, expanded 2012, over 400 employees[5]
  8. The Dalles, Oregon (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    45°37′57.04″N 121°12′8.16″W) — since 2006, 80 full-time employees
  9. Reno, Nevada — announced in 2018 : 1,210 acres of land bought in 2017 in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center;[6] project approved by the state of Nevada in November 2018[7][8]
  10. Henderson, Nevada — announced in 2019; 64-acres; $1.2B building costs [9][10][11]

    Google data center in Mayes County, Oklahoma at MidAmerica Industrial Park
  11. Loudoun County, Virginia — announced in 2019 [12][13]
  12. Northland, Kansas City — announced in 2019, under construction [14]
  13. Midlothian, Texas — announced in 2019, 375-acres; $600M building costs [15][16]
  14. New Albany, Ohio — announced in 2019; 400-acres; $600M building costs [17][18]
  15. Papillion, Nebraska — announced in 2019; 275-acres; $600M building costs [19][20]
South America:

  1. Quilicura, Chile (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    33°21′30.5″S 70°41′50.4″W) — announced 2012, online since 2015, up to 20 employees expected. A million investment plan to increase capacity at Quilicura was announced in 2018.[21]
  2. Cerrillos, Chile - announced for 2020[22]
  3. Colonia Nicolich, Uruguay - announced 2019[23][24][25]
Europe:

  1. Saint-Ghislain, Belgium (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    50°28′09.6″N 3°51′55.7″E) — announced 2007, completed 2010, 12 employees
  2. Hamina, Finland (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    60°32′11.68″N 27°7′1.21″E) — announced 2009, first phase completed 2011, expanded 2012, 90 employees
  3. Dublin, Ireland (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    53°19′12.39″N 6°26′31.43″W) — announced 2011, completed 2012, 150 employees[26]
  4. Eemshaven, Netherlands (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    53.425659°N 6.8593522°E) — announced 2014, completed 2016, 200 employees, €500 million expansion announced in 2018 [27]
  5. Hollands Kroon (Agriport), Netherlands - announced 2019 [28]
  6. Fredericia, Denmark (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    55°33′29.5″N 9°39′20.8″E)— announced 2018, €600M building costs, completed in 2020 November [29][30]
  7. Zürich, Switzerland - announced in 2018, completed 2019[31]
  8. Warsaw, Poland - announced in 2019, completed in 2021[32]

Asia:

  1. Jurong West, Singapore (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    1°21′04.8″N 103°42′35.2″E) — announced 2011, completed 2013
  2. Changhua County, Taiwan (
    17px-WMA_button2b.png
    24°08′18.6″N 120°25′32.6″E) — announced 2011, completed 2013, 60 employees
  3. Mumbai, India — announced 2017, completed 2019[33]
  4. Tainan City, Taiwan — announced September 2019[34][35][36]
  5. Yunlin County, Taiwan — announced September 2020[37]

 
Awesome news for Starlink. No other constellation will now able to co-locate in google data centers (radio interference), so now Starlink has a unique marketing advantage of saying they have the fastest access to google cloud.

Anyone know how many data centers google has?

Where did you see that Google will only allow Starlink to co-locate? There isn't an issue having multiple satellite links from the same facility.
 
We had beta test Starlink. I returned it. The speeds are fantastic, but droppage was very high.

GREAT system if you're rural, and I regularly suggest it, but our standard internet beat it. SO I sent it back with a positive review. But the refund still hasn't shown up. I keep bugging them. Laast time: "go ahead and refund the money, you'll get it back in the way of tesla accessory purchases anyways, as we have a Model Y on order" lol

their response "good luck with your model Y, youll love it, and thanks for your support in the continued mission to send humans to Mars"

:D

StarLink really still is in Beta, and it is meant for people who have sane options (yet at least).

I just recommended it for one person I know, he is balancing between a very slow CenturyLink DSL connection (1.5Mbit down), and a ViaSat connection. The DSL gives him better latency for gaming of course, and the ViaSat gives him better bandwidth. He will probably first replace the ViaSat with StarLink, and then as StarLink reliability improves, get rid of CenturyLink DSL.

If you have access to Fiber or HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax), or G.FAST or probably even VDSL2, StarLink really is not for you yet.

-Harry
 
Actually I made that up. You're probably right, wasn't thinking too clearly and/or the stupid objections to SpaceX's FCC proposal messed me up.


Ok I thought maybe I missed something in the press release. I don't think Starlink is large enough to force Google into an exclusivity clause with them. Now I could see Google trying to get Starlink to be exclusive to them but I hope they didn't. I wonder how long before the Google data center down the street from me will get the Starlink equipment. I am 5 miles away from a Google datacenter but could only get slow DSL at my house until now.

I just got my Starlink equipment last week. So far it is working fairly well. Occasional dropout for 30 seconds or so as it changes satellites. Speed is better than I am getting with a cable modem. My brother is borrowing it for a few weeks to test it out while I get ready to install it at my house and setup some cameras now that I will have internet service at the house.
 
StarLink really still is in Beta, and it is meant for people who have sane options (yet at least).

I just recommended it for one person I know, he is balancing between a very slow CenturyLink DSL connection (1.5Mbit down), and a ViaSat connection. The DSL gives him better latency for gaming of course, and the ViaSat gives him better bandwidth. He will probably first replace the ViaSat with StarLink, and then as StarLink reliability improves, get rid of CenturyLink DSL.

If you have access to Fiber or HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax), or G.FAST or probably even VDSL2, StarLink really is not for you yet.

-Harry

100%!

we live in a mostly rural area. We have mediacom cable modem. its pretty good MOST of the time. But, we had a month of school closures for weather, winter break etc. Kids gaming and streaming 24-7. got a bill for about double for going over the cap. I was angry. Googled starlink, made snap decision out of that anger just based on the no cap thing lol Interestingly, this exact moment is what steered us to the Tesla. We were already hemming and hawwing over the sticker on a new Toyota we had just test driven, when some tesla YT vids popped into our algorithm after the starlink stuff. And thought, ehhh maybe lets go look at the Tesla... We did, no regret. The wait is a killer though lol

I was happy to fork over the 5 hundy to try it. If you DONT have the option of decent wired internet, I immediately recommend to you to do the same, just be ready for brief outages often. When I sent it back, I included a note in the box and in the return chat saying such. LOL

When that system goes mobile, the game will have changed IMO. There just wont be anything close. (my dad used to do some work for Winegard way back in the day, i cant imagine theyre thrilled about it.....