Starlink IPO
- Thread starter KarenRei
- Start date
It is good to know that SpaceX is making the ground stations in the US. I hadn't seen anything saying that was their plan. US Military uses a lot of gear made in China while they prefer US there is just some gear they can't find still made in the US or the cost of the US version is excessive.
I am hoping to get a Starlink system for my house as the cable company doesn't serve my side of the street.
It is more that the cell phone shouldn't trust the cell tower. They have had several cell towers show up and accept phone calls from cell phones but they are not owned by any of the telecom companies.
lascavarian
Member
Interesting to see the approval of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger in the US.
I can't but wonder if the appearance of StarLink as an IPO and adding potential competition to the marketplace was the deciding bit of information that brought this merger into reality.
I can't but wonder if the appearance of StarLink as an IPO and adding potential competition to the marketplace was the deciding bit of information that brought this merger into reality.
I haven't seen any evidence yet that the wider market even realizes that the Starlink freight train is about to bear down upon them.
But specifically about Sprint/T-Mobile, I doubt it was a factor since they are cellular companies and, once again, say it with me, Starlink is FIXED, not mobile, telecom. If anything, Starlink might be a supplier to the cellular market for isolated backhaul, but not as a direct competitor.
bkp_duke
Active Member
Sprint had significant non-cellular assets. They operate an extensive carrier fiber network and sell bandwidth and routing to other players in the sector. T-Mobile, not so much.
Yes, but their wireline revenue was always a small percentage of the rest of the their revenues. Like around 4%.
Sprint Corporation's revenue by segment 2011-2019 | Statista
Exactly right, with one clarification. "Fixed" telecom includes some things that move: airplanes, ships, and RVs (DaveT's use case). Perhaps some time in the long term, perhaps also trucks and cars, with smaller terminals.
I don't understand the industry but I have a question. they say that Sprint/T-Mobile is way behind on 5G. But could someone like Starlink partner with them, put the pizza box sized receiver on all their cell towers to get them caught up? Or is getting high bandwith out to the cell towers not an issue? Something like when you say Starlink could be the provider for the telecom industry?
For 5G cell sites, you need high bandwidth backhaul. Backhaul means getting your data packets to/from centralized cellular switches and the Internet. It’s usually done via fiber optics due to the bandwidth and distances. So think trenching and laying fiber cables to each 5G cell site. But Starlink offers a possible alternative. I say possible because I don’t know if the latency is good enough for 5G backhaul.
bkp_duke
Active Member
These backhauls need 10, 40, or 100Gbit connectivity to accommodate 5G (and even 4G) without severe throttling. Starlink is not fast enough, only fiber will suffice in this instance.
bkp_duke
Active Member
They are deployed depending upon projected traffic per cell site, which is based upon network surveys of the area. So yes, some cell sites have dedicated fiber runs (metro, high traffic - think adjacent to freeways, subways, high foot traffic areas, etc.). Some obviously are not (middle of BFE america and Cellular provider X just wants to say that they have 4G coverage there - so it is microwave linked over distance to other sites, with only a few of those having fiber to the tower).
Here are a few links describing how 5G is going to utilize about 100X more bandwidth than 4G does and why that will necessitate Fiber To The Antenna (FTTA) in many cases, and what FTTA is:
Fiber to The Antenna (FTTA). Testing Tools and Best Practices for FTTA
The FOA Reference For Fiber Optics - Fiber To The Antenna for Wireless
What is Fiber to the Antenna (FTTA) and why does it matter?
Here is an older discussion among some industry professionals where one guy is kind enough to link together some references of years past and % deployment of towers utilizing fiber connections:
https://www.quora.com/Do-most-cell-towers-in-the-US-have-a-fiber-optic-connection
As you can see, there is a lot of variance in reported fiber linking to towers. As I mentioned, you can backhaul over microwave, but long-term that's asking for congestion problems as video streaming and the like are becoming an increasingly larger percentage of network traffic, and in the end you still have to connect that microwave link to fiber to get it anywhere.
And before anyone asks . . . basically fiber is fiber is fiber these days (the cost of digging the trench is the vast majority of the cost). You can run 1G, 10G, 100G on the same fiber (assuming quality deployment). Its all about the optics and transceivers on the ends (exponentially more expensive as you go up, and there are some distance constraints).
BTW, the few people out there that know how to splice long-run fiber together make REALLY good bank. When Joe Schmoe comes in and rips a fiber link apart with his trench digging gear because he didn't check for a fiber run, these people are called out and get paid mega overtime to splice the links back together, no matter the time of day or weather. Probably more than most people wanted to know.
In the future, 100Gbit will be quite doable on Starlink by combining bandwidth to various sats.
bkp_duke
Active Member
Yes, but compare 4000+ satellites to hundreds of thousands of cell phone towers. The aggregate bandwidth of the towers, even when Starlink is fully built out, is orders of magnitude higher.
Besides, Starlink is supposed to service multiple clients (i.e. end users). You would have to dedicated satellites to corporate customers to get that level of bandwidth (at a higher latency and subject to interference in bad weather, mind you). That doesn't make much sense at this time or the foreseeable future.
The math is not daunting. With 12,000+ satellites that have already been approved, and 8,000 of those at very low orbits, it's more a matter of software to make the system bulletproof with sufficient bandwidth. If 12,000+ is not enough, then Starlink has 30,000 more awaiting regulatory approval.
Musk's ambition is to replace a large portion of internet traffic and will size the Starlink system accordingly.
bkp_duke
Active Member
Yeah, the math doesn't work out for using Starlink as a backhaul, only as a client-facing internet provider. Google up how much bandwidth current carriers utilize on their major fiber routes.
Additionally, as someone in this thread already pointed out, Starlink will be prone to problems with weather due to the bands that have been chosen to run on. The fastest bands are more weather prone vs. the slower bands.
Starlink will be awesome, but it's true potential is to bring high speed internet to where it is currently not available, not to replace the major pipes on the internet.
Your opinion. Musk has expressed otherwise.
bkp_duke
Active Member
Proof. Show use where Musk stated Starlink will be used for worldwide BACKHAUL.
A quick google search cannot find anything like this.
EDIT - the only thing found was this:
Jeff Bezos & Elon Musk to Compete for 5G Backhaul Business | Light Reading
Note the key words there: RURAL.
"We think this could be really helpful to telcos by providing connectivity that they need for the most difficult-to-serve customers, as well as providing data backhaul services so that a telco could put down a 5G cell tower somewhere instead of digging a fiber trench over potentially hundreds of miles."
This is for special cases requiring really really really long fiber runs (longer than what microwave can accommodate to connect towers).
This is NOT for utilization to replace current backhaul networks. Again, the math just doesn't work out there.
