SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas(wsj.com)
wsj.com
SpaceX, T-Mobile to connect satellites to cellphones in remote areas
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-and-t-mobile-to-connect-starlink-satellites-to-cellphones-in-remote-parts-of-u-s-11661473520
490 comments
https://archive.ph/Y4Jya
More detail here: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/spacex-and-t-mobile-team-up-...
"T-Mobile users will be able to use messaging, MMS and certain messaging apps, from remote points across the lower 48 states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and even some remote points in the water.
Eventually, the service will work with voice, Sievert said. T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did not disclose specific pricing.
Musk said the service will work with Starlink’s second generation satellites, which have very large antennae and will be able to transmit directly to a cell or mobile phone.
The service won’t require mobile users to get a new phone. Musk said in or after a natural disaster, even if all the cell towers are taken out, the planned service should work."
"T-Mobile users will be able to use messaging, MMS and certain messaging apps, from remote points across the lower 48 states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii and even some remote points in the water.
Eventually, the service will work with voice, Sievert said. T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did not disclose specific pricing.
Musk said the service will work with Starlink’s second generation satellites, which have very large antennae and will be able to transmit directly to a cell or mobile phone.
The service won’t require mobile users to get a new phone. Musk said in or after a natural disaster, even if all the cell towers are taken out, the planned service should work."
Interesting. Is there no distance limit? I don't know how 5G works, but in 2G there was a limit of about 30km, since that's as much as the timing advance would allow for (sending the signal early so that it arrives in its timeslot despite the speed-of-light delay).
I'm also pretty out of date, but I believe in LTE (4G) the max distance was closer to 100km, with the timing advance controlled in the radio protocol. As I understand it, the 5G radio protocol should be fairly similar to 4G, it wasn't completely reinvented for once.
Based on my read of the summary of a couple Mbps per cell and focusing more on low bandwidth services like texting makes me suspect they're right at the limits of what the tech will allow. Since they're advertising compatibility with existing hardware, makes me suspect there is an extension somewhere in the standards that allows the timing window to be increased, or maybe there's some clever hackery going on, like only scheduling every other timing window and cutting bandwidth in half.
Which might work on the uplink, but on the downlink I think it's more complicated to support something like paging, where the UE is mostly idle, and only wakes up occasionally, that things don't get out of sync with the moving satellite.
Based on my read of the summary of a couple Mbps per cell and focusing more on low bandwidth services like texting makes me suspect they're right at the limits of what the tech will allow. Since they're advertising compatibility with existing hardware, makes me suspect there is an extension somewhere in the standards that allows the timing window to be increased, or maybe there's some clever hackery going on, like only scheduling every other timing window and cutting bandwidth in half.
Which might work on the uplink, but on the downlink I think it's more complicated to support something like paging, where the UE is mostly idle, and only wakes up occasionally, that things don't get out of sync with the moving satellite.
Yes indeed, LTE max cell size is 100 km.
There's a system using LTE to backhaul Internet traffic from planes (WiFi in cabin, with a LTE to the ground), working with larger cells of up to ~900 km from memory, but it doesn't use standard LTE for example. It uses a modified variant made to support the possibly larger propagation delay coming with larger cells.
For 5G (NR), the max cell size has been increased and depends on the OFDM subcarrier spacing. For a 15 kHz SC, same as LTE, the max cell size is 300 km. This value is halved each time the SC doubles.
There's work on-going to extend NR to non-terrestrial networks. I don't know where it stands right now, but it'll likely add larger cells support. But it's not there yet for sure.
There's a system using LTE to backhaul Internet traffic from planes (WiFi in cabin, with a LTE to the ground), working with larger cells of up to ~900 km from memory, but it doesn't use standard LTE for example. It uses a modified variant made to support the possibly larger propagation delay coming with larger cells.
For 5G (NR), the max cell size has been increased and depends on the OFDM subcarrier spacing. For a 15 kHz SC, same as LTE, the max cell size is 300 km. This value is halved each time the SC doubles.
There's work on-going to extend NR to non-terrestrial networks. I don't know where it stands right now, but it'll likely add larger cells support. But it's not there yet for sure.
I'd think that the distance limit for _terrestrial_ mobile networks comes from the guard interval of the OFDM modulation [1]. I.e. on longer distances the time-offset between different different reception paths (due to reflections) of the signal becomes so long that you cannot compensate those with just a complex gain-factor of the OFDM vectors.
AFAIR LTE (4G) even uses different guard intervals depending on rural vs. city setting because that time-offset is larger in rural areas (less base station density).
I would not expect those problems to be relevant for satellite communication as ground<->satellite does not suffer much of the multi-path signal propagation of terrestrial systems. (IIRC DVB-c sat-TV broadcasts did not even use OFDM, at least not for the older "v1" DVB-c standard).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_...
AFAIR LTE (4G) even uses different guard intervals depending on rural vs. city setting because that time-offset is larger in rural areas (less base station density).
I would not expect those problems to be relevant for satellite communication as ground<->satellite does not suffer much of the multi-path signal propagation of terrestrial systems. (IIRC DVB-c sat-TV broadcasts did not even use OFDM, at least not for the older "v1" DVB-c standard).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_...
Nitpick: You probably mean DVB-S (and S2, S2X..) rather than DVB-C, and you're correct that they don't employ OFDM (they're just a straightforward single wideband channel mostly employing variations on phase-shift keying), and aren't particularly concerned with multipath interference.
In 2G GSM there was this limit, because GSM used very strictly managed timeslots for each call. If a phone was too far away, its signal would arrive out of bounds of the timeslot and this was the reason. The protocol didn't have any compensation built in.
However 3G and onwards were based on CDMA tech (which was the competing 2G tech to GSM), which is very different. CDMA doesn't have strictly managed cells, but rather the basestation picks the signals out of a cacaphony (very simplified). So the same issue doesn't apply.
2G was much more static than CDMA, it had a strict capacity of a number of calls per cell. But the range (up to this 30km) was pretty good because when a phone transmitted the air was clear. CDMA cells used to 'breathe': Have much lower reach during busy times (because weak signals could no longer be identified) so gaps could drop in the network. ON the other hand, 2G got busy with a fixed capacity.
2G did have prioritisation though when the network was full. If you called 112 (the international emergency number) it would kick someone else off to make space for you.
However 3G and onwards were based on CDMA tech (which was the competing 2G tech to GSM), which is very different. CDMA doesn't have strictly managed cells, but rather the basestation picks the signals out of a cacaphony (very simplified). So the same issue doesn't apply.
2G was much more static than CDMA, it had a strict capacity of a number of calls per cell. But the range (up to this 30km) was pretty good because when a phone transmitted the air was clear. CDMA cells used to 'breathe': Have much lower reach during busy times (because weak signals could no longer be identified) so gaps could drop in the network. ON the other hand, 2G got busy with a fixed capacity.
2G did have prioritisation though when the network was full. If you called 112 (the international emergency number) it would kick someone else off to make space for you.
Certain messaging apps...
All bets are on centralized and/or proprietary ones that can afford to pay for the privilege. I have been saying from day one that Starlink is well poised to end net neutrality.
All bets are on centralized and/or proprietary ones that can afford to pay for the privilege. I have been saying from day one that Starlink is well poised to end net neutrality.
Net neutrality is not a good thing in and of itself. It is one value among many.
If you're a firefighter trying to call for assistance from base camp, you don't care about net neutrality. You want your emergency phone call to have priority over everything else. You want the net to be extremely non-neutral.
On the general internet, where bandwidth is plentiful, net neutrality can keep certain pathological things from being a thing. On a specialized network where bandwidth is very scarce, it can be the cause of pathology.
If you're a firefighter trying to call for assistance from base camp, you don't care about net neutrality. You want your emergency phone call to have priority over everything else. You want the net to be extremely non-neutral.
On the general internet, where bandwidth is plentiful, net neutrality can keep certain pathological things from being a thing. On a specialized network where bandwidth is very scarce, it can be the cause of pathology.
> All bets are on centralized and/or proprietary ones that can afford to pay for the privilege
Or not.
App like Silence (https://silence.im/) have been able to do secure e2e messaging using SMS as transport layer for almost one decade now.
Or not.
App like Silence (https://silence.im/) have been able to do secure e2e messaging using SMS as transport layer for almost one decade now.
SMS makes it very hard to be anonymous. Not a good option IMO.
> SMS makes it very hard to be anonymous. Not a good option IMO.
How is that even related ?
Silence is the equivalent of Signal over SMS instead of the usual Mobile Data: There is nothing by design in Signal to stay anonymous.
E2E encryption are mainly there to prevent eyes dropping, not to provide anonymity.
How is that even related ?
Silence is the equivalent of Signal over SMS instead of the usual Mobile Data: There is nothing by design in Signal to stay anonymous.
E2E encryption are mainly there to prevent eyes dropping, not to provide anonymity.
I was simply pointing out Starlink supporting SMS is not good enough, even with layers like Silence on top.
Good enough for what? If you have SMS where you didn't before you're still equally free to not use it. Personally I like the idea of always having a simple channel for emergencies.
Not good enough to be the only standard form of communication permitted other than a handful of centralized proprietary apps.
A journalist or a dissident may wish to get critical communications out from a remote area without exposing their identity or location.
A journalist or a dissident may wish to get critical communications out from a remote area without exposing their identity or location.
Then this isn't the solution for them. You keep assuming this is an internet service when it's not. Internet protocols are massively inefficient and have latency constraints that would choke narrow channels while offering almost no utility. This will be a modified SMS service, not a not an IRC service. Don't like it? Go buy an actual satphone with a data plan.
Whose goal is to solve this? Not T-Mobile or SpaceX
When you are the only source of a critical service in an area, you become a utility and should shoulder the responsibilities that come with that.
They don't have a responsibility to help you stay anonymous if they don't promise it. Follow your logic and we wouldn't have remote schooling or medical services over HF radio either. It extends the capabilities of normal phones to provide a feature we didn't have before, so you can't expect the capabilities of full fat, dedicated hardware. It's better than nothing, so why complain? You want net neutrality for a non-Internet service?
A major use case is in emergency situations or catastrophes when no classical cell service is available. If you are hoping to message someone to rescue you, I don't think anonymity is your concern.
Unless you are a journalist or a dissident and need to relay information that will save human lives, but cannot risk exposing your identity, location, or the message content to anyone but the recipients.
Not all emergencies are the same.
Not all emergencies are the same.
At the event they addressed this, and said they would work with anyone, and that the real issue is making sure that the data is correctly identified as messages and not generic data. This apparently would require back-end work between T-Mobile and the messaging app to identify the data in some way.
This is a net neutrality killer any way you look at it as whitelisting apps in any way will by design mean blocking legitimate privacy focused messaging solutions that do not have fixed IP addresses or identifiable traffic patterns.
I somehow doubt for instance they would have a way to allow a federated and often self-hosted messaging protocol like Matrix over an anonymization networking layer like Tor, which is the only chat solution I use.
Breaking net neutrality even a little bit has consequences like creating network effects further favoring centralized solutions forcing vulnerable people like journalists, dissidents, female healthcare seekers, etc, to take on a lot more risk.
If SpaceX has bandwidth limitations they should cap everyone to dialup speeds and keep it neutral.
If they insist on breaking net neutrality, people like me will be forced to do stupid nonsense like piping arbitrary TCP/IP as base64 blobs via chatbots over some whitelisted app like Whatsapp. Or masquerade traffic as port 53 DNS queries like dnstunnel.
Protocol/app whitelisting will most discriminate against those with low technical ability.
We have been down this road.
I somehow doubt for instance they would have a way to allow a federated and often self-hosted messaging protocol like Matrix over an anonymization networking layer like Tor, which is the only chat solution I use.
Breaking net neutrality even a little bit has consequences like creating network effects further favoring centralized solutions forcing vulnerable people like journalists, dissidents, female healthcare seekers, etc, to take on a lot more risk.
If SpaceX has bandwidth limitations they should cap everyone to dialup speeds and keep it neutral.
If they insist on breaking net neutrality, people like me will be forced to do stupid nonsense like piping arbitrary TCP/IP as base64 blobs via chatbots over some whitelisted app like Whatsapp. Or masquerade traffic as port 53 DNS queries like dnstunnel.
Protocol/app whitelisting will most discriminate against those with low technical ability.
We have been down this road.
How? Net neutrality applies to the internet. You could run a private mobile network and allow or disallow anything you want on it. The reason it's bandwidth limited is probably because they're using dedicated SMS/MMS channels, as was field tested and proven earlier. T-mobile will likely write or allow modified chat apps that use these channels. So there's nothing to indicate this would be a limited Internet service. And if you didn't want it your options would be no worse than they are now.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/lynk-sends-the-first-text-...
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/18/lynk-sends-the-first-text-...
I mean, sort of?
I believe they have some sort of similar solution in place for free messaging on in-flight wifi. Having a look at how they've done that might give a better idea for what this will look like than speculation.
Still, it's a hard problem. They want to prioritise connectivity on an extremely low bit-rate channel that covers an extremely large geographic region. Messaging apps needs to be a part of that connectivity solution, but you can't have one user making the entire cell unusable by everybody else. I don't know if there is a 'net neutral' way to do that, but would love to hear your ideas.
I believe they have some sort of similar solution in place for free messaging on in-flight wifi. Having a look at how they've done that might give a better idea for what this will look like than speculation.
Still, it's a hard problem. They want to prioritise connectivity on an extremely low bit-rate channel that covers an extremely large geographic region. Messaging apps needs to be a part of that connectivity solution, but you can't have one user making the entire cell unusable by everybody else. I don't know if there is a 'net neutral' way to do that, but would love to hear your ideas.
I think it is quite simple. Just apply net neutrality rules to this like any other internet connection.
If they can afford to support whitelisted messengers at a very limited data rate of 1k/s then they can afford to simply give people 1k/s of neutral internet access to use to communicate whatever data they feel is high value enough to fit over those constraints using any protocol they wish.
We already have internet access over HAM radio via net44. Highly bandwidth restrictive because of physics, but you can get a permanent IP assigned to your callsign and use whatever software you want with your tiny bandwidth pipe even in the middle of the ocean.
If they can afford to support whitelisted messengers at a very limited data rate of 1k/s then they can afford to simply give people 1k/s of neutral internet access to use to communicate whatever data they feel is high value enough to fit over those constraints using any protocol they wish.
We already have internet access over HAM radio via net44. Highly bandwidth restrictive because of physics, but you can get a permanent IP assigned to your callsign and use whatever software you want with your tiny bandwidth pipe even in the middle of the ocean.
I don't think the speed of text messaging allows for many other meaningful data types. Someone encoding video into the GSM-7 format used by SMS will still consume more data than the typical person typing and sending text messages (which is what, 140 bytes each way per minute on average?).
There is also the difference between free and paid. Sure, if you're paying, you should be able to do whatever you want at the advertised speed and data limits. But for a free feature, I think it's alright to limit to SMS and other texting apps (already done on inflight wifi and it works just fine).
Why not just limit to SMS? Because travelers' home carriers might levy roaming charges on SMS, and WhatsApp / Telegram / iMessage is already de facto in most of the world.
There is also the difference between free and paid. Sure, if you're paying, you should be able to do whatever you want at the advertised speed and data limits. But for a free feature, I think it's alright to limit to SMS and other texting apps (already done on inflight wifi and it works just fine).
Why not just limit to SMS? Because travelers' home carriers might levy roaming charges on SMS, and WhatsApp / Telegram / iMessage is already de facto in most of the world.
This is exactly why net neutrality rules were a bad idea, because of insane proposals like this that would kill legitimate innovation. If you are lost in the woods without a cell signal, you don't want someone downloading a podcast episode at 1k/s sucking up all the bandwidth.
Maybe they are downloading a low res video demonstrating an emergency field medicine procedure to save a life far from hospitals. Maybe they are a journalist or a whistleblower uploading a picture that may change the outcome of a war.
A central party trying to decide what data is most important is going to be wrong when it counts most.
If a single user is monopolizing all bandwidth and a new user joins, throttle the existing user in half to make room.
There might also need to be a way to signal a need for emergency bandwidth, 911 style, that can give you priority access for a short time window, with the option for a carrier to cut off your device IMEI entirely if it is used too frequently.
A central party trying to decide what data is most important is going to be wrong when it counts most.
If a single user is monopolizing all bandwidth and a new user joins, throttle the existing user in half to make room.
There might also need to be a way to signal a need for emergency bandwidth, 911 style, that can give you priority access for a short time window, with the option for a carrier to cut off your device IMEI entirely if it is used too frequently.
In practice though they want to offer bursty throughput. For example, if you want to allow sending photos in messages, but not videos, you don't want to send a photo at 1k/s. It's not a trivial problem.
This is probably just a temporary solution to give everyone SMS capability after the fact - why would you assume this is permanent? Obviously the goal is to get everyone global internet. What happens at that point will determine net neutrality but that is far off into the future.
> T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did not disclose specific pricing.
No, he said that it would "most likely" be included with the most popular mobile plans for free.
No, he said that it would "most likely" be included with the most popular mobile plans for free.
"I would expect our pricing for this service to be the un-carrier's favorite price: we expect, on our most popular plans, for this service to be included for free"
https://youtu.be/Qzli-Ww26Qs?t=851
https://youtu.be/Qzli-Ww26Qs?t=851
Yes, that's what I said.
Edit: Downvotes are happening for some reason. "most likely" and "I would expect" mean basically the same thing unless we're playing grammar police.
The entire point of my above post was to deny the fact that they "did not disclose specific pricing". That was the part that was incorrect that I was correcting, as shown in the long form direct quote.
Edit: Downvotes are happening for some reason. "most likely" and "I would expect" mean basically the same thing unless we're playing grammar police.
The entire point of my above post was to deny the fact that they "did not disclose specific pricing". That was the part that was incorrect that I was correcting, as shown in the long form direct quote.
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> "most likely" and "I would expect" mean basically the same thing
And so does just saying the claim with no qualifiers. Of course when you’re making a claim you’re expressing that you expect it to be the case with high likelihood. That’s what making a claim is.
And so does just saying the claim with no qualifiers. Of course when you’re making a claim you’re expressing that you expect it to be the case with high likelihood. That’s what making a claim is.
I have no idea what you're saying. My ONLY point was that it wasn't unknown pricing data, it was stated to be free.
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The direct quote is more descriptive as it claims "we expect" instead of "most likely". The quote implies that it's based on preliminary cost data and could change, while "most likely" almost sounds like it's based on a dice roll and is vague about exactly what is contributing to the uncertainty of the statement. He chose his words carefully.
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> to transmit directly to a cell or mobile phone.
If it could talk directly with mobile phones it's a game changer.
But I don't understand how it could be physically possible without phased array and satellite tracking for a phone to transmit anything back to satellite. If achieved, even a few bytes per minute would already be big.
If it could talk directly with mobile phones it's a game changer.
But I don't understand how it could be physically possible without phased array and satellite tracking for a phone to transmit anything back to satellite. If achieved, even a few bytes per minute would already be big.
You could also just have the recipient in the first part of the message block so that the devices that aren't the recipient either just ignore the message or can't decode it.
My biggest question is how do you send a signal to a satellite with your mobile phone. And they're even saying without additional hardware which makes it even more difficult.
Or are they just hoping that there would be no obstructions from your device and the satellite, no roof and a good sunny weather?
Although my knowledge is lacking, my understanding is that 2G has good range at the expense of low data rate. But I have a feeling that many modern phones no longer support 2G, since (at least here in Slovenia, Europe) many providers have over the years lowered or totally removed the number of 2G towers.
My biggest question is how do you send a signal to a satellite with your mobile phone. And they're even saying without additional hardware which makes it even more difficult.
Or are they just hoping that there would be no obstructions from your device and the satellite, no roof and a good sunny weather?
Although my knowledge is lacking, my understanding is that 2G has good range at the expense of low data rate. But I have a feeling that many modern phones no longer support 2G, since (at least here in Slovenia, Europe) many providers have over the years lowered or totally removed the number of 2G towers.
It's supposedly already been demonstrated by a different company: https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/29/lynk-demos-global-satellit...
> Musk said the service will work with Starlink’s second generation satellites, which have very large antennae and will be able to transmit directly to a cell or mobile phone.
This has far greater implications than dead zones, yacht's (or) Oil rigs; 'Telecommunication during natural disasters'!
With increasing number of extreme weather events, Our conventional telecommunication systems(especially base stations) cannot stand a chance against natural(man made?) disasters. Yet, Apart from few nerd group projects like disaster.radio I see no real work in building disaster resilient telecommunication network.
P.S. If you live in India, Especially in south-western India and are interested in https://disaster.radio project for your region then give me a ping. I've been trying to get it started for ages.
This has far greater implications than dead zones, yacht's (or) Oil rigs; 'Telecommunication during natural disasters'!
With increasing number of extreme weather events, Our conventional telecommunication systems(especially base stations) cannot stand a chance against natural(man made?) disasters. Yet, Apart from few nerd group projects like disaster.radio I see no real work in building disaster resilient telecommunication network.
P.S. If you live in India, Especially in south-western India and are interested in https://disaster.radio project for your region then give me a ping. I've been trying to get it started for ages.
>T-Mobile plans to include the service in its most popular mobile plans but did not disclose specific pricing.
Hopefully this includes $20 Kickstart!
Hopefully this includes $20 Kickstart!
I believe this is SpaceX trying to stay one step ahead of Apple.
Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago?
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le...
Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead.
Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage. So of course Musk comes out first, with the “we are doing it too, but it will work with any phone.”
Interesting times.
Anyone else remember this strange rumor about iPhones including satellite capability a year ago?
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/29/iphone-13-to-feature-le...
Now you have Apple’s event in a couple weeks themed “Far Out” with space pictures.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Apple announced something similar, possibly with Globalstar instead.
Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage. So of course Musk comes out first, with the “we are doing it too, but it will work with any phone.”
Interesting times.
> Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage.
If I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to send an urgent message I wouldn’t want to be worrying about whether the recipient had an Android phone.
If I’m in the middle of nowhere and need to send an urgent message I wouldn’t want to be worrying about whether the recipient had an Android phone.
This conversation is a frequent annoyance for me. I’m tired of asking folks if they have Apple or Signal available just to send a photo. MMS is unreliable and opaque to most folks it seems since pictures never seem to get through if they’re on android.
Same is true for android to android - it does a much higher quality non MMS. Unfortunately neither Google nor Apple will open up their damn protocol to the other.
https://www.android.com/get-the-message/
This page, from Google, makes it quite clear their protocol is an open standard, and Apple are the only closed one.
This page, from Google, makes it quite clear their protocol is an open standard, and Apple are the only closed one.
There are no android clients that can do it besides google messages. Google also has their own version of RCS that only works messages to messages. Carriers also have a version of RCS but its not quite the same.
Apple could and should totally adopt the carrier version of RCS though. And it would be great if Google would let apps like Textra in too
Apple could and should totally adopt the carrier version of RCS though. And it would be great if Google would let apps like Textra in too
If recipient does not have iMessage he will get it as SMS.
iMessages aren't converted to SMS on Apple's servers side. It's a fallback on the phone's side. When you're on a WiFi but with no cell coverage, you can send an iMessage but can't send an SMS.
But, for such a satellite phone service, Apple totally could make a SMS to iMessage gateway, or even just a web interface where non-apple users could log in and see that someone had sent them an iMessage.
Obviously Apple will make the process as painful as possible to encourage buying iPhone.
Obviously Apple will make the process as painful as possible to encourage buying iPhone.
This isn’t entirely true. If you have WiFi calling enabled, you can also send SMS over WiFi if the carrier supports it. I use this extensively when traveling internationally.
it's not really an android phone or an apple phone though - good satellite reception (as opposed to initial middling reception) is going to mean phones with radios meant for satellites and antenna that are designed to look up (and track) and not just sideways.
5 years from now you'll be choosing a particular android or apple phone because its good for satellite, just like you choose a particular one today because it's small, or fast, or has a good camera
5 years from now you'll be choosing a particular android or apple phone because its good for satellite, just like you choose a particular one today because it's small, or fast, or has a good camera
Well, if you’re a fruit company user you’d think about such petty things? So better start pestering everybody to get an iPhone.
Because clearly nobody has ever been able to send a text message from an iPhone to an Android device.
Today's announcement says my existing T-Mobile phone already had satellite capability!!
They just need to get the satellites up.
They just need to get the satellites up.
And your existing Tesla can do FSD with its current sensor package. Any day now.
My current Tesla started doing FSD almost a year ago.
Let me clarify. Musk claimed 6 years ago [1] that shipping Teslas would be capable of Level 5 autonomy. While Tesla’s markets their feature as “full self driving” it’s a far cry from even level 3 afaik.
It’s kind of sad people fall for this. It also has lethal consequences as people assume it can do things it very well can’t (cruise control+ is really what the feature is). It’s a very obvious grift and SEC and FTC regulators have apparently been asleep at the wheel to enforce it. Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a shareholder lawsuit at some point. Certainly if the stock collapses once someone beats Tesla to level 5.
[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/new-tesla-models-will-featur...
It’s kind of sad people fall for this. It also has lethal consequences as people assume it can do things it very well can’t (cruise control+ is really what the feature is). It’s a very obvious grift and SEC and FTC regulators have apparently been asleep at the wheel to enforce it. Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a shareholder lawsuit at some point. Certainly if the stock collapses once someone beats Tesla to level 5.
[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/new-tesla-models-will-featur...
Yep, if there's one thing that the AI "community" has done, it's over promise and under deliver. Tesla was a lot more fortunate than some others, being an automotive company first, and an AI company at best 4th (after battery, charging network).
Musk already admitted that he was very wrong about FSD and that it's not that easy.
Sure his talk was dumb and a lot of people fell for it, but that's just how marketing works.
Sure his talk was dumb and a lot of people fell for it, but that's just how marketing works.
That's how fraud works, not marketing.
It’s not fraud when you’re just over-optimistic, you believe what you’re saying, and you end up being wrong.
It might suck, but it’s not fraud.
It might suck, but it’s not fraud.
> It’s not fraud when you’re just over-optimistic, you believe what you’re saying, and you end up being wrong.
"It's not a lie if you believe it."
-- G. Costanza
"It's not a lie if you believe it."
-- G. Costanza
Exactly. Doesn't mean it's great, but let's try and use the right words!
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I mean, he still took a bunch of people's money for the feature, then didn't give it back after admitting L5 wasn't coming any time soon.
That is not how marketing works. Show me a reputable book about marketing that says: promise something that doesn't exist.
Alternatively… Explain to me how making predictions about the future that don’t pan out is surprising or alienating to anyone reasonable.
Anyone who thinks predictions about the future hold the same weight as statements about things that currently exist ought to know better.
Anyone who thinks predictions about the future hold the same weight as statements about things that currently exist ought to know better.
He's been saying repeatedly that "it's going to be fully self driving next year" for the past 6 years now. At what point for you does that change from "overly optimistic prediction that didn't pan out" to "he's likely lying through his teeth"?
The unsettling duality that Tesla fans will accept is that somehow Musk is both an unrivaled genius AND he's consistently betting incorrectly on Tesla's timeline for L5. When other self-driving experts in the field indicate full L5 for the industry is probably a decade or so away (optimistically), I'm not keen to believe that Musk is just blinded by pure optimism for 6 years running.
The unsettling duality that Tesla fans will accept is that somehow Musk is both an unrivaled genius AND he's consistently betting incorrectly on Tesla's timeline for L5. When other self-driving experts in the field indicate full L5 for the industry is probably a decade or so away (optimistically), I'm not keen to believe that Musk is just blinded by pure optimism for 6 years running.
If the marketing book said that it would be poorly marketing itself. There’s plenty of “bend the truth” culture in marketing.
By 'how marketing works' do you mean 'how every software sales VP I have ever worked with works'?
My 2009 kia rio has FSD too, and like the tesla, it won't stop for children in FSD mode
(note the FSD mode here is basically a brick on the accelerator)
(note the FSD mode here is basically a brick on the accelerator)
If you think about the recent test conducted by a Tesla AI competitor, it wasn’t FSD mode. See https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/tesla-self-driving-smear-camp...
fair enough, thank you for sharing this.
Not L5 like Musk claimed. It's a stretch to even call it L3 right now.
It's not "a stretch". It's just wrong.
FSD requires constant human supervision. It has nothing to do with level 3 or above.
FSD requires constant human supervision. It has nothing to do with level 3 or above.
"FSD".... lol
It's not the first time I hear about this tech. AST SpaceMobile[0] wants to do exactly the same with existing 4G/5G phones.
Of course, they are launching with SpaceX. They might get sherlocked before even finishing their product.
[0] https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/
Of course, they are launching with SpaceX. They might get sherlocked before even finishing their product.
[0] https://ast-science.com/spacemobile/
They're ready to launch their test satellite in the next few weeks and are already building the capabilities for the next satellites in the constellation. I'm watching them carefully as it looks like they're going to be able to do it.
From the rumours I've heard, OneWeb is involved with that. OneWeb sats are basically LTE basestations.
The current once are not, they are a technology level behind what even Starlink v1 is. Maybe some future OneWeb will be able to do it, but not for a long time.
If you are right, T-Mobile's effort to get Apple onboard with making the necessary changes to separate iMessage payload from regular cell data on these special low-bandwidth space-cells could be a challenge.
Not really. Apple gives T-Mobile the hostnames/IP addresses they use for iMessage, and T-Mobile configures their APN to only allow connections to those addresses. There's a lot that happens on the backend for cell data to work that consumers don't see.
They need to know more about the payload, so that they don't try to upload a video through starling, for instance.
Already solved on in-flight wifi.
They figured it out for the free inflight wifi that allows messaging.
That isn't anything special. Every smartphone can send SMS over wifi. You need to connect to the in-flight wifi to use the service. The router on the plane has a hole in the firewall that allows unpaid users to access the specific HTTP server to send and receive SMS messages. Absolutely nothing special about it.
Eventually this would be no different: Starlink can provide (firewalled) data service to iPhones to support messaging apps.
Speculation is that initially there would be a small number of satellites periodically passing overhead, leading to the 30 minute send/receive times, and likely not supporting non-SMS messaging apps well.
Speculation is that initially there would be a small number of satellites periodically passing overhead, leading to the 30 minute send/receive times, and likely not supporting non-SMS messaging apps well.
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> Of course, Apple’s solution will likely only work with iMessage.
What makes you think that? (Messages doesn’t need to be on your carrier’s network to send/receive MMS/SMS messages.)
What makes you think that? (Messages doesn’t need to be on your carrier’s network to send/receive MMS/SMS messages.)
I wasn’t looking at this from a technical perspective, more of a business/finance/operations perspective.
This is Apple we are talking about. They wouldn’t make this play without some form of vendor lock-in. They will probably choose to lock in based on hardware (“must have iPhone 14 for this capability!”) — but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them lock in on the software side as well.
If I were Tim Cook, I might play both sides. “Bandwidth is limited, so for now, this will only work with iMessage.” This gives them room to open it up later for more good PR, and allows them to test the reaction of having it only work with their proprietary software.
I have no insider knowledge here. I follow this space closely due to co-owning an independent repair business that primarily works on Apple products.
This is Apple we are talking about. They wouldn’t make this play without some form of vendor lock-in. They will probably choose to lock in based on hardware (“must have iPhone 14 for this capability!”) — but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them lock in on the software side as well.
If I were Tim Cook, I might play both sides. “Bandwidth is limited, so for now, this will only work with iMessage.” This gives them room to open it up later for more good PR, and allows them to test the reaction of having it only work with their proprietary software.
I have no insider knowledge here. I follow this space closely due to co-owning an independent repair business that primarily works on Apple products.
I doubt it.
The value-add now is that you keep and iPhone so you have iMessage. You stay blue bubble etc.
The value add of satellite is that you have service on a mountain (or a plane?). The value is that most androids won’t have that (a musk-maybe-one-day project aside).
It’s way more likely they’ll make it exclusively available on high end phones. Thats a way more obvious play for apple.
The value-add now is that you keep and iPhone so you have iMessage. You stay blue bubble etc.
The value add of satellite is that you have service on a mountain (or a plane?). The value is that most androids won’t have that (a musk-maybe-one-day project aside).
It’s way more likely they’ll make it exclusively available on high end phones. Thats a way more obvious play for apple.
iMessage seems like an odd choice to single out for lock in though. This is a whole network, I doubt it will be integrated directly with services. There’s not any precedent for anyone else doing that (besides maybe Facebook with their phones). Despite the fears about net neutrality.
Apple's a corporation like any other, and they're not above a little bit of vendor lock-in. Plus, given the low data rates this will support, this can only support a limited subset of Internet access.
> I wasn’t looking at this from a technical perspective, more of a business/finance/operations perspective.
I understand, but an iMessages¹-only Messages² is a non-starter at Apple because it causes complexity and customer confusion, two things that Apple is stellar³ at minimizing.
¹protocol ²app ³overall, always exceptions
I understand, but an iMessages¹-only Messages² is a non-starter at Apple because it causes complexity and customer confusion, two things that Apple is stellar³ at minimizing.
¹protocol ²app ³overall, always exceptions
Oh, right. I agree with you on that front. I see it working this way:
If you are standing on top of a mountain, right now you can’t send anything.
With Apple’s upcoming announcement, you’ll be able to send an iMessage.
If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today.
I hope Apple allows it for all messages, personally. But I could definitely see them restricting it, especially at the beginning.
If you are standing on top of a mountain, right now you can’t send anything.
With Apple’s upcoming announcement, you’ll be able to send an iMessage.
If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today.
I hope Apple allows it for all messages, personally. But I could definitely see them restricting it, especially at the beginning.
> If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today.
I may be confused about the scenario then, because this does work for me. Specifically, when I turn off my cellular radio (I'm a T-Mobile customer) I can still send and receive messages to people not using iDevices.
I may be confused about the scenario then, because this does work for me. Specifically, when I turn off my cellular radio (I'm a T-Mobile customer) I can still send and receive messages to people not using iDevices.
Most carriers have wifi-calling (and wifi SMS) that you can enable.
Even without Wi-Fi? Because that’s the scenario they’re talking about, where nothing sends because you have no signal whatsoever.
> Because that’s the scenario they’re talking about, where nothing sends because you have no signal whatsoever.
Right, but the point of an iPhone that can talk to satellites that I'll generally always have at least a low-bitrate IP connection? Because with that, I can text iDevice and Android users alike.
Right, but the point of an iPhone that can talk to satellites that I'll generally always have at least a low-bitrate IP connection? Because with that, I can text iDevice and Android users alike.
Weird, I’m on Verizon and if cellular is off all sms is broken but iMessage still works if I’m on WiFi.
I find this completely false, messaging anyone on a non-iPhone (from my iPhone) is a complete disaster. Pictures / texts randomly fail to send, videos turn to 12 pixel noise, it’s so bad that an entire generation of people have friend groups that apple / android only because communication between the two phones is so bad.
> I find this completely false, messaging anyone on a non-iPhone (from my iPhone) is a complete disaster.
You should complain to your carrier. I'm on at least 5 different active text chains at any given time (family, friend groups, school parents) with a mix of devices, and it all works fine.
> …videos turn to 12 pixel noise…
That's an MMS limitation. If you regularly send videos, you'll want to use WhatsApp or some other non-standards-based messaging app.
You should complain to your carrier. I'm on at least 5 different active text chains at any given time (family, friend groups, school parents) with a mix of devices, and it all works fine.
> …videos turn to 12 pixel noise…
That's an MMS limitation. If you regularly send videos, you'll want to use WhatsApp or some other non-standards-based messaging app.
iPhones are stuck with MMS limitations because Apple won't support RCS.
Hopefully they never will. Nothing I’ve read about RCS in the last two months has convinced me it is anything other than a security and spam hole waiting to happen. If there’s to be an inter-operable standard between Apple and Android, I think it has to be Apple and Google-driven rather than something that makes the carriers happy. Anything at all to reduce their role to dumb IP-carrying pipes is aces in my books.
There isn't really an incentive for them to support anything beyond iMessage for now.
End game will be their own private networks but that's still a while away
End game will be their own private networks but that's still a while away
Because Apple loves to keep a walled garden
Apple phones are a lot less ubiquitous than general cell phones. Anything with an antenna and a (e)SIM card can get access to the T-mobile network, so what Apple is providing might be nice but I can't see how they compete at the level SpaceX can. And the global regulatory approvals needed will be a problem for everyone.
47% of smartphones in the USA are Apple. Seems pretty ubiquitous.
T-mobile has 110 million subscribers and the population of USA is 329 million people.
T-mobile has 110 million subscribers and the population of USA is 329 million people.
They don’t even have a majority, much less ubiquity.
Ubiquity is not a step above majority. It's a separate concept.
This is wrong.
Ubiquity means “everywhere”
So not only do you have a less than 50/50 chance of seeing an iPhone, it certainly isn’t everywhere.
Ubiquity means “everywhere”
So not only do you have a less than 50/50 chance of seeing an iPhone, it certainly isn’t everywhere.
Spend some time in an affluent neighborhood in a large metro area and I think you'll realize that isn't true. I sure don't know any Tribeca or Pacific Heights residents with Androids.
[deleted]
iPhones are the plurality. If you have a few random people together in the US there’s a good chance one of them in an iPhone. Pretty sure that’s what they meant.
[deleted]
They could put-compete if they can create an iPhone with extra powerful antennas or other hardware. Like they always do- own the full stack to allow it to work better.
you can't create "extra powerful antennas" in a cell phone. it's physics, and antenna gain is driven by size.
It was somewhat off the cuff and meant to encapsulate the idea that you can improve the ability of the phone to connect with the satellite. That isn’t possible if you don’t design the phone.
You could potentially control the situation enough where a user can enable “satellite mode” which uses extra power for sending messages. It’d affect battery life, and need to be manually enabled, but it’d enable better connections in emergencies.
You could try to improve directional antennas and some sort of aiming system with the screen.
Lots of things that maybe could happen when you control the client side instead of just the satellite side.
You could potentially control the situation enough where a user can enable “satellite mode” which uses extra power for sending messages. It’d affect battery life, and need to be manually enabled, but it’d enable better connections in emergencies.
You could try to improve directional antennas and some sort of aiming system with the screen.
Lots of things that maybe could happen when you control the client side instead of just the satellite side.
And then you need to design it in a way that it’s not blocked by somebody’s hand when they hold the phone.
Or just add a telescopic antenna and present it as "innovation never seen before".
What?! You mean, have an antenna show outside a phone, like in the pre-2010s? In today's world, form is more important than function.
Especially for fashion statements like iphones. (Doubt this? Upthread people are discussing how certain affluent neighbourhoods only have iphones).
Especially for fashion statements like iphones. (Doubt this? Upthread people are discussing how certain affluent neighbourhoods only have iphones).
Apple could partner with SpaceX and T-Mobile, like they did with AT&T and the original iPhone launch instead of trying to compete with them.
They could, but they’ve supposedly been working on hardware support for Globalstar satellites in the next iPhone for 2 years.
They want this as a differentiator from Android. Starlink will work on Android too.
So maybe it would actually make sense for Google to partner with them somehow (I believe they’re also a SpaceX investor) but I’m not sure how.
They want this as a differentiator from Android. Starlink will work on Android too.
So maybe it would actually make sense for Google to partner with them somehow (I believe they’re also a SpaceX investor) but I’m not sure how.
Of course, despite Musk's largesse, no one is really going to give af about it.
The Apple Event will put it front and centre.
Musk coukd have announced it a year ago, it wouldn't have mattered.
The Apple Event will put it front and centre.
Musk coukd have announced it a year ago, it wouldn't have mattered.
Apple, as far as I know, does not own spectrum. Therefore I doubt it is an Apple thing. More likely an AT&T or Verizon thing. And the service works on the iPhone.
Apple can talk about what they like, between Starlink and Kupter there is little available heavy lift for a long time to come.
Key notes:
* Everywhere in the US and US territories including ocean waters you will get T-Mobile service through Starlink satellites, no additional hardware needed (for the person owning the cell phone anyway)
* Beta service starting end of 2023
* Included for free with most T-Mobile plans other than the cheapest plans
* More limited features may be added earlier, i.e. texting or emergency calling
* Total available bandwidth will be 2-4 megabits per cell zone so this is not intended to be a replacement for conventional cell service but a way to provide service to completely or almost completely unpopulated areas of the US
* T-Mobile wants to encourage other carriers in other countries to give up similar mid-band bandwidth (what T-Mobile is giving to SpaceX) and to any carriers who do, T-Mobile will offer reciprocal roaming where anyone from those countries visiting the US will also be able to use this service and T-Mobile will do the same for T-Mobile customers visiting in those other countries.
One unclear point: It supposedly depends on gen2/v2 satellites which depend on launching Starship, but there was a comment that they may launch a "v2 mini" on Falcon 9 and it was unclear if those will also support the hardware for T-Mobile service.
* Everywhere in the US and US territories including ocean waters you will get T-Mobile service through Starlink satellites, no additional hardware needed (for the person owning the cell phone anyway)
* Beta service starting end of 2023
* Included for free with most T-Mobile plans other than the cheapest plans
* More limited features may be added earlier, i.e. texting or emergency calling
* Total available bandwidth will be 2-4 megabits per cell zone so this is not intended to be a replacement for conventional cell service but a way to provide service to completely or almost completely unpopulated areas of the US
* T-Mobile wants to encourage other carriers in other countries to give up similar mid-band bandwidth (what T-Mobile is giving to SpaceX) and to any carriers who do, T-Mobile will offer reciprocal roaming where anyone from those countries visiting the US will also be able to use this service and T-Mobile will do the same for T-Mobile customers visiting in those other countries.
One unclear point: It supposedly depends on gen2/v2 satellites which depend on launching Starship, but there was a comment that they may launch a "v2 mini" on Falcon 9 and it was unclear if those will also support the hardware for T-Mobile service.
> Included for free with most T-Mobile plans other than the cheapest plans
This is big. Only concerning part seems to be the large antenna required on the satellites, which would probably incur some extra scrutiny by regulators, but IMO the benefits of something like this far exceed the downsides.
This is big. Only concerning part seems to be the large antenna required on the satellites, which would probably incur some extra scrutiny by regulators, but IMO the benefits of something like this far exceed the downsides.
Why would large antennas require scrutiny by regulators?
A combination of orbital debris and astronomy issues. A big antenna means it's more likely to be hit by other satellites, and it'll be brighter.
There's a good chance this might mean these are limited to the ~350 KM shells, which will deorbit faster (limiting debris risk), and will go into sunset sooner.
There's a good chance this might mean these are limited to the ~350 KM shells, which will deorbit faster (limiting debris risk), and will go into sunset sooner.
Is that an actual concern? Honestly sounds kinda nonsensical to me but I don't know enough about antenna size in orbit regulation.
It is indeed nonsensical, but it was covered by every news outlet a couple of years ago.
Astronomy issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare#Mega-constella...
Orbital debris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Potential_tri...
Nobody bothered to look at the details.
Astronomy issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare#Mega-constella...
Orbital debris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Potential_tri...
Nobody bothered to look at the details.
> Nobody bothered to look at the details.
This is a solid contender for humanity's epitaph.
This is a solid contender for humanity's epitaph.
I read the links, but I'm not seeing where the concerns are nonsensical.
The links are just background info.
The concerns are difficult to dispute because they’re “not even wrong”. There are no specific claims that can be disputed.
Serious astronomers don’t just look at a photo with bright dots and get confused because some of them are satellites. A few predictable bright pixels are the least of their concerns.
As far as space debris, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_produci...
The concerns are difficult to dispute because they’re “not even wrong”. There are no specific claims that can be disputed.
Serious astronomers don’t just look at a photo with bright dots and get confused because some of them are satellites. A few predictable bright pixels are the least of their concerns.
As far as space debris, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_debris_produci...
What the... is that what's possible with 5G? Amazing, and even days ago I was thinking of satellite smartphone internet as something scifi because of (clearly incorrect!) complicated antenna requirements.
Radio's got some crazy physics.
So baseline, a modern cell phone can connect to a tower about 45 miles away. Stsrlink satellites orbir about 10 times out from that. They are solving this problem by some very clever phased array technology to be deployed on the satellites themselves, because when it comes to radio, you can often solve the problem of signal reception by boosting either the transmitter or the receiver side of the story.
This is how we've kept in touch with the Voyagers all this time. The Voyager radio technology is getting no better, but the technology we can throw at it from a ground station has been out-stripping the loss due to distance and degradation (or at least approximately keeping pace).
So baseline, a modern cell phone can connect to a tower about 45 miles away. Stsrlink satellites orbir about 10 times out from that. They are solving this problem by some very clever phased array technology to be deployed on the satellites themselves, because when it comes to radio, you can often solve the problem of signal reception by boosting either the transmitter or the receiver side of the story.
This is how we've kept in touch with the Voyagers all this time. The Voyager radio technology is getting no better, but the technology we can throw at it from a ground station has been out-stripping the loss due to distance and degradation (or at least approximately keeping pace).
Also 10x may not be representative since the 45 miles to a cell tower is all through atmosphere but Starlink is 400 miles up, so there's only 5-10 miles of atmosphere at any noticeable density.
The atmosphere is transparent at typical cell phone frequencies (and the part that can be a problem are clouds and the ionosphere).
> So baseline, a modern cell phone can connect to a tower about 45 miles away.
Isn't that primarily because of the Earth's curvature and obstructions/hills?
Isn't that primarily because of the Earth's curvature and obstructions/hills?
Good question. I've had a bear of a time sourcing good info on this and would welcome a solid analysis.
Radio horizon is somewhat complex, but 45 miles is not entirely unreasonable from an elevated position.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation#Radi...
There could also be timing related constraints that limit max range: radio waves propagate at the speed of light which is fast, but not instant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-of-sight_propagation#Radi...
There could also be timing related constraints that limit max range: radio waves propagate at the speed of light which is fast, but not instant.
microwaves go about 10% further than the horizon, barring any tropospheric ducting - which cell towers shouldn't, in general.
The issue you have with long distances is multipath, which can throw off the complex timing required to have multiple users in realtime on a single radio.
The issue you have with long distances is multipath, which can throw off the complex timing required to have multiple users in realtime on a single radio.
I've heard that US spy satellites used to eavesdrop on soviet telephone calls transmitted between line-of-sight ground-based microwave relay towers. The relay towers used directional microwave antenna aimed at each other, but satellites in space could pick up those signals.
I can't find a direct reference to it on wikipedia, but I suspect this is what the Vortex satellites were doing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_(satellite)
I can't find a direct reference to it on wikipedia, but I suspect this is what the Vortex satellites were doing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_(satellite)
This [1] may help but I'm wholely unfamiliar with the field. A guy at Defcon did a talk about how HAM radio in Florida allocates their bandwidth and goes into the nitty details of propegation.
[1] https://youtu.be/fH-yyTZffAk
[1] https://youtu.be/fH-yyTZffAk
Line of sight (1/r^2) often has lower attenuation than urban propagation (1/r^3 to 1/r^4), so it’s often easier to hit a LEO satellite than a terrestrial tower.
4G/LTE was commonly quoted as 3km range for rural installations (using the 2GHz bands). 5G added 700MHz and 800MHz bands that are quoted as 10-20km achievable range. For typical cell tower heights 20km is about the range where they would sink behind the horizon, so that might be the practical limit here.
Starlink satellites are about 330km up, so one order of magnitude further. But they also have basically unobstructed line of sight (if you are under blue sky). Compared to the normal conditions a cell phone has to deal with that might get you a substantial improvement. I think it's plausible that at least some existing phones can do it, with the tiny bandwidth you would expect from a poor signal.
Starlink satellites are about 330km up, so one order of magnitude further. But they also have basically unobstructed line of sight (if you are under blue sky). Compared to the normal conditions a cell phone has to deal with that might get you a substantial improvement. I think it's plausible that at least some existing phones can do it, with the tiny bandwidth you would expect from a poor signal.
330km is only when the satellite is directly overhead. Starlink's coverage is typically given on the assumption that the satellites may be as low as 25 degrees above the horizon, and at that elevation, the straight-line distance is more like 700km if my math is right.
None are currently at 330km, and the first shells of v2 will be at 540-570km.
GPS is a thing, so I can imagine that a phone would be able to receive satellite signals pretty easily. But for transmission, I can't imagine this working without having your phone put a ton of power into sending a powerful enough signal, perhaps more so than how much power you need to passively receive GPS signals in the absence of traditional cell towers?
It sounds like the data rate is incredibly low. That allows for a lot of signal margin. GPS receivers are sensitive to something like -165dBm.
It's probably harder for the satellite to hear from the phone. Especially at a lower frequency like 700Mhz, a phone's tiny antenna is going to be a rather inefficient transmitter. Maybe 5g technology helps by allowing the phone to do some rudimentary beam forming using multiple antennas?
It's probably harder for the satellite to hear from the phone. Especially at a lower frequency like 700Mhz, a phone's tiny antenna is going to be a rather inefficient transmitter. Maybe 5g technology helps by allowing the phone to do some rudimentary beam forming using multiple antennas?
(How) Does beamforming work in a moving device?
I'm not an expert, but I believe a receiving radio can make note of the relative phase of the incoming signal across all antennas, and then simply transmit its signal with the same phase offsets. This can happen incredibly quickly on the time scale of milliseconds, and so the typical device really isn't moving that quickly to matter.
I believe modern wifi has periodic "sounding packets" specifically designed for devices to robustly measure that sort of information for beam forming and multiple spatial streams.
I believe modern wifi has periodic "sounding packets" specifically designed for devices to robustly measure that sort of information for beam forming and multiple spatial streams.
This is all roughly right except that when you say "incredibly quickly on the time scale of milliseconds" it's often actually microseconds.
This sort of work is done either in custom hardware or FPGAs - that's the only way you can precisely control the phase offset of signals (and measure it). They can respond very quickly.
This sort of work is done either in custom hardware or FPGAs - that's the only way you can precisely control the phase offset of signals (and measure it). They can respond very quickly.
There are cell phone sized thingies that can send text messages to iridium's constellation, which is (as I understand it) way further away than starlink. I use one while backpacking.
I'd be super excited to get the same capability in a standard cell phone.
I'd be super excited to get the same capability in a standard cell phone.
The Iridium orbit heights are not much higher (781 km vs. 550 km). You can always trade bandwidth for increased sensitivity. The most extreme example is GPS. Your phone can receive it from 20000 km away with a tiny antenna, but the data rate is only 50 bits per second.
Within the limits of a 5G receiver, there are probably limits to how much sensitivity you can give up for bandwidth.
It works because the satellites will have a HUGE antenna, 5m by 5m. And to enable the launching of this many big satellites, SpaceX will launch (most of them) on Starship.
FWIW, 5G isn’t really to “thank” for increased range. LTE was widely deployed on the 700Mhz band in the early 2010s and line of sight range could easily exceed 10 miles for useable data.
Not to forget that satellite antennas are directional and can focus all their power in a narrower beam
I think the "complicated antenna requirements" still exist - they've just put the complicated antenna on the satellite, instead of on the phone.
Yeah that's not how it works. You can't just "put the complicated antenna on the satellite, instead of on the phone" and declare this problem solved. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
I'm declaring shenanigans right now on Elon's pitch but what else is new. It makes me sad that this thread is full of (probably) SWEs in a complete froth who took this at face value with little understanding of how antennas work. No, your existing phone will not be able to work on this service, full stop.
The issue is not getting signal from the satellite to your phone. That's the easy part - after all, your phone receives GPS signals. Satellites have powerful transmitters and high-gain antennas. Even GPS which is considered extremely low-power has a TX power of around 20-25 watts and EIRP is probably an order of magnitude higher after the antenna (probably enough to turn your eyeballs into Easter eggs if you were standing in front of it). The issue is going the other way. For messaging to work, your phone needs a two-way connection. Your current iPhone/Android handset is simply not designed for satellite communication.
"But muh Garmin inReach" ..... have you stared at one and wondered "why can't my iPhone do this"? First, the antenna is the size of a thumb, it looks like a helical antenna to me, which would make sense given that most satellite communications uses something called "circular polarization" to combat things like the Faraday effect. This requires an antenna specifically designed for it. Your iPhone doesn't have one, which means more signal loss. Iridium phones look similar - very Michael Douglas in Wall Street industrial design. Satellite phones and communicators are designed to direct most of the energy upwards towards the sky. Your existing phone does not so you are losing most of the energy in an omnidirectional pattern. Even things like 406 MHz emergency beacons send extremely short message bursts - just a few bytes - the link budget needed to sustain an IP connection (uplink) with an existing handset just isn't there.
So I'm expecting Elon to deliver on the magical complicated-super-antenna that works with your existing mobile handset right around the same time he gives us his FSD Cybertruck. Which is to say, never.
I'm declaring shenanigans right now on Elon's pitch but what else is new. It makes me sad that this thread is full of (probably) SWEs in a complete froth who took this at face value with little understanding of how antennas work. No, your existing phone will not be able to work on this service, full stop.
The issue is not getting signal from the satellite to your phone. That's the easy part - after all, your phone receives GPS signals. Satellites have powerful transmitters and high-gain antennas. Even GPS which is considered extremely low-power has a TX power of around 20-25 watts and EIRP is probably an order of magnitude higher after the antenna (probably enough to turn your eyeballs into Easter eggs if you were standing in front of it). The issue is going the other way. For messaging to work, your phone needs a two-way connection. Your current iPhone/Android handset is simply not designed for satellite communication.
"But muh Garmin inReach" ..... have you stared at one and wondered "why can't my iPhone do this"? First, the antenna is the size of a thumb, it looks like a helical antenna to me, which would make sense given that most satellite communications uses something called "circular polarization" to combat things like the Faraday effect. This requires an antenna specifically designed for it. Your iPhone doesn't have one, which means more signal loss. Iridium phones look similar - very Michael Douglas in Wall Street industrial design. Satellite phones and communicators are designed to direct most of the energy upwards towards the sky. Your existing phone does not so you are losing most of the energy in an omnidirectional pattern. Even things like 406 MHz emergency beacons send extremely short message bursts - just a few bytes - the link budget needed to sustain an IP connection (uplink) with an existing handset just isn't there.
So I'm expecting Elon to deliver on the magical complicated-super-antenna that works with your existing mobile handset right around the same time he gives us his FSD Cybertruck. Which is to say, never.
This isn't a Starlink/SpaceX scheme. Non-terrestrial networks are being worked into the 3GPP specifications and highlight the same handset difficulties that need to be addressed. It's not the phone currently in your pocket that does this but might be fine on the phone you get in the next few years.
https://www.3gpp.org/news-events/partners-news/2254-ntn_rel1...
The BlueWalker 3 test satellite from AST should launch in the next couple of months. Looks like a pretty complicated phased array antenna:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50349.msg2...
https://www.3gpp.org/news-events/partners-news/2254-ntn_rel1...
The BlueWalker 3 test satellite from AST should launch in the next couple of months. Looks like a pretty complicated phased array antenna:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50349.msg2...
> It's not the phone currently in your pocket that does this but might be fine on the phone you get in the next few years.
I don't think anyone's questioning this - yet there's people here rage-posting the ludicrous assertion that the very handset in your pocket right now will work with Starlink unmodified. This is what I have an issue with. More FSD-style overpromising and underdelivering all over again.
I don't think anyone's questioning this - yet there's people here rage-posting the ludicrous assertion that the very handset in your pocket right now will work with Starlink unmodified. This is what I have an issue with. More FSD-style overpromising and underdelivering all over again.
They did go a bit hard on the existing phone's bit, tmobile guy at least used the word "aspiration" when mentioning it. I somehow doubt it, but maybe phone radio implementations are very forward looking on the standards?
In any case, late '23 never means '23. So maybe actual useful service in '25-'26 when the network, phones and sats are all ready.
In any case, late '23 never means '23. So maybe actual useful service in '25-'26 when the network, phones and sats are all ready.
>"circular polarization" to combat things like the Faraday effect
Another factor is that the antenna on a satellite can be in a pretty arbitrary rotation compared to the receiver on the ground. Circular polarization doesn't care about orientation. Further discussion here: https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/12414/antenna-polari...
>Satellite phones and communicators are designed to direct most of the energy upwards towards the sky. Your existing phone does not
Recent iphones run 2x2 MIMO on mmWave and 4x4 MIMO on LTE. They should be able to do a fair bit of beamforming.
Another factor is that the antenna on a satellite can be in a pretty arbitrary rotation compared to the receiver on the ground. Circular polarization doesn't care about orientation. Further discussion here: https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/12414/antenna-polari...
>Satellite phones and communicators are designed to direct most of the energy upwards towards the sky. Your existing phone does not
Recent iphones run 2x2 MIMO on mmWave and 4x4 MIMO on LTE. They should be able to do a fair bit of beamforming.
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Can you show your calculations for this? From the sound of it the Starlink antenna is going to be a 25 m^2 phased array antenna, which I believe would have impressive gain.
If this worked why is a Starlink receiver a cat-warming dish and not a cellphone antenna?
Because (existing) Starlink is for home internet where people want good bandwidth? e.g. 100Mbps per household vs the stated plans for this which is 2-4Mbps per cell region.
And because existing Starlink satellites don't have giant phased array antennas on them.
And because existing Starlink satellites don't have giant phased array antennas on them.
I would assume v2 only receivers/transmitters could be much smaller.
Phased arrays are pretty cool, if I had no idea how they worked I'd be incredulous as well.
Satellite phone Internet previously existed, it's just crazy expensive.
It’s $10 per month for my Garmin InReach which gives you emergency comms and let’s you upgrade to unlimited SMS and some other stuff for $60. I use it a lot and it’s very reasonable. Runs on Iridium.
I have a Garmin InReach too, but to say it’s “satellite phone internet” is a stretch. You can send little blips of data. There’s no phone service. Nor is there any internet service.
If you read the T-Mobile announcement, that’s exactly what you’ll get. Not saying it’s not great but I think people
have the misconception that they’ll have usable satellite internet which is really not happening due to physics.
Satellite smartphone internet is still sci fi.
This is extremely low bandwidth and intended for sending extremely high latency text chats. Elon said in the presentation that it could be as much as 30 mins between hitting send and the message going through.
This competes with existing stuff from existing satellite providers.
It’s really really cool, and doesn’t need to be full on smartphone satellite internet to fulfill that coolness!
This is extremely low bandwidth and intended for sending extremely high latency text chats. Elon said in the presentation that it could be as much as 30 mins between hitting send and the message going through.
This competes with existing stuff from existing satellite providers.
It’s really really cool, and doesn’t need to be full on smartphone satellite internet to fulfill that coolness!
His 30 minute example was when there are only a few satellites in space. Once many are active, it would allegedly become near-realtime.
As others have pointed out, SpaceX recently ammended the licensing request to launch v2 sats on Falcon 9.
Anecdotally, 5G is significantly better at line of sight at significant distances than previous technology. While sailing 40+ miles offshore this summer, I've gotten 5G on deck, with decent upload performance using my iPhone, when in years previous I didn't get coverage much beyond 12 miles anywhere around where I sail, despite there being tall buildings with cell towers on them with a 30+ mile horizon for at least 2 decades. I use ATT, but super excited for this cell service anywhere future, will be switching to T-Mobile SIM for my dev phone.
I’m booking a cruise on which they’re asking $200 for five days of data. This would be helpful if we were too far off shore to get reception to avoid such high fees. Starlink itself currently offers service to ships at a cost of $5000/mo. plus $10,000 for the hardware. This could save a lot of money where a simple mobile data plan would suffice.
I took a cruise last week where they wanted 25$ a day per device for internet. I took a little battery powered 4G dongle to leave on the balcony to give our room wifi which worked quite well even when land was barely in sight. Of course the land had to be on our side of the ship.
Do you work from a sailboat?
Nope; just like getting higher resolution weather and being able to update friends/family with ongoings.
I watched the announcement. Knowing Musk, I'll believe it when I see it, but it sounds promising. Apparently the G2 Starlink satellites will be equipped with large antennas to support cellular users on the existing spectrum.
Video was live-streamed, and still available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs
Video was live-streamed, and still available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs
Self-driving cars have proven harder than expected, but given the rest of Musk's tale, I wouldn't bet against him. SpaceX is already launching satellites, and Starlink is already providing service. T-mobile owns the frequencies for it, it's "just" a matter of building the satellites and putting them into space. If the claim were more outlandish, it would be harder to buy, but the technology is eminently doable.
Self driving is one of the hardest, if not the hardest software problems ever to be solved. I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is. Must says a lot of stupid stuff but in reality he has delivered on the vast majority of it, though as he says it's not always in the time frame he expects.
>I think people underestimate just how challenging the problem is
Is this the shifting of the narrative?
"People" aren't underestimating the problem. It's widely known to be an extremely difficult problem.
Musk said he'd have it done by now, and actually sold the technology. People have been skeptical of it for the better part of a decade.
Is this the shifting of the narrative?
"People" aren't underestimating the problem. It's widely known to be an extremely difficult problem.
Musk said he'd have it done by now, and actually sold the technology. People have been skeptical of it for the better part of a decade.
I remain skeptical Tesla is anywhere near let-the-driver-sleep self driving (except perhaps in tunnels), but I’m very glad they’re trying to do it, and do it at scale for consumer cars, not just company-owned hyper-sensored vehicles that cost as much as a house.
Literally every company working on the problem a decade ago was over-optimistic, but many pursued a strategy that would keep the technology only for company-owned vehicles, which I find less satisfactory. The whole point of personal cars is independence. We already have buses and transit vans if we want mass transit. If you want self-driving to actually save all the lives it supposedly could, it has to be scalable to everyone.
Musk is terminally optimistic on AI generally, including paranoia about AGI. I don’t expect let-the-driver-sleep self driving for a good 10 years, but it’ll be never if no one tries. The technology does not advance by itself.
Literally every company working on the problem a decade ago was over-optimistic, but many pursued a strategy that would keep the technology only for company-owned vehicles, which I find less satisfactory. The whole point of personal cars is independence. We already have buses and transit vans if we want mass transit. If you want self-driving to actually save all the lives it supposedly could, it has to be scalable to everyone.
Musk is terminally optimistic on AI generally, including paranoia about AGI. I don’t expect let-the-driver-sleep self driving for a good 10 years, but it’ll be never if no one tries. The technology does not advance by itself.
People are already sleeping while the Tesla drives, albeit illegally. Highway driving it seems to do really well, around town though sleeping seems way off.
People underestimate it all the time, just because you don't doesn't mean other don't. If you read any forum they talk about how it should have been solved by now.
Wouldn't something like Westworld road system easier? Basically, almost all the cars are self-driven, and it's more like a public transit than anything. Essentially, a closed system. (Easier in the technical sense, not the implementation (politics, ...)).
Even if that were easier, there’s basically no way to get there without full self driving capable of working around human drivers. The reason why cars are convenient is due to the existing road network, and any deployment of self driving cars is going to have to function on existing road. If you tried to segregate the system, you would have to close some of the existing roads but this would mess with regular people and result in a very small network of pure self driving roads.
Just a couple days ago they announced that they will also be using Falcon 9 to launch the new Gen2 Starlink satellites, instead of the original plan to launch all of them using the still-in-development Starship. So it seems like Musk is pretty committed to doing this in a reasonable timeline, with smaller technology risk.
Starship's orbital test may happen somewhere in the next 6 months, so until they succeed with that Falcon 9 is all they have (it's plenty though).
It could be earlier than that, but they won’t deploy Starlink satellites to a permanent orbit until later flights, so I agree.
And Falcon 9, with droneship landing and fairing recovery now routine, is really a workhorse. Remarkable how much they fly it.
And Falcon 9, with droneship landing and fairing recovery now routine, is really a workhorse. Remarkable how much they fly it.
F9 is the backup plan, but they're still planning to launch within a few months on Starship.
You'll know Starship is about ready to launch after they've completed static fires for both stages.
You'll know Starship is about ready to launch after they've completed static fires for both stages.
Building and launching them is the easy part.
SpaceX will need to get FCC/ITU approval for the G2 satellites. T-Mobile is seeking agreements with international carriers. I think those are probably required for the proposed system to be viable. Spectrum management bureaucracies in other countries, and opposition from competitors will slow things down. It will require a lot of money to get worldwide operating agreements in place, and some of the money will be bribes to the right people.
SpaceX will need to get FCC/ITU approval for the G2 satellites. T-Mobile is seeking agreements with international carriers. I think those are probably required for the proposed system to be viable. Spectrum management bureaucracies in other countries, and opposition from competitors will slow things down. It will require a lot of money to get worldwide operating agreements in place, and some of the money will be bribes to the right people.
Yes, I expect this to be one of many announcements going forward, with Amazon Kuiper and OneWeb coming into the party -- eventually. However, SpaceX has the advantage of vertical integration (they launch their own rockets) which substantially helps with costs.
Also the benefit of time. Kuiper hasn't launched anything yet, and all their launchers are still in development - BOs own rocket New Glenn, Arianne 6, and ULA Vulcan. Vulcan probably isn't too far off, 2023, but they will need time to ramp up production. It'll also be a lot more expensive than for SpaceX.
Amazon will probably have to heavily subsidize Kuiper.
I reckon they hope the market is big enough for multiple providers.
Amazon will probably have to heavily subsidize Kuiper.
I reckon they hope the market is big enough for multiple providers.
Musk has had some failures (FSD, battery replacement, solar roof, satellite laser communication), but also notable successes (supercharger network, landing a rocket).
While this particular idea seems theoretically possible, as far as I know there haven't really been proper tests of it yet. So I could imagine it theoretically working, but being really bad (which may honestly be enough).
There's probably a reason Apple seems to be doing hardware adjustments for their satellite communication.
While this particular idea seems theoretically possible, as far as I know there haven't really been proper tests of it yet. So I could imagine it theoretically working, but being really bad (which may honestly be enough).
There's probably a reason Apple seems to be doing hardware adjustments for their satellite communication.
Satellite laser links have been deployed haven't they? And all new satellites going up have the laser links on them, I thought.
Not sure how battery replacement is a failure? They got some money to do it, decided it was not worth doing, so they didn't. I mean that's not really a technological failure, but simple a good business choice.
Laser links exist.
Laser links exist.
>Musk has had some failures (FSD, battery replacement, solar roof, satellite laser communication), but also notable successes (supercharger network, landing a rocket).
Yeah, of all the projects of Musk's to be skeptical of, this one seems the most plausible and mundane.
Yeah, of all the projects of Musk's to be skeptical of, this one seems the most plausible and mundane.
No, self driving cars are as hard as expected.
Even in its current state with FSD beta my car drives itself 95% of the time.
I'm not sure what software was present on this random Lyft I took a couple months ago, but I was seated in the front, watching Tesla's infotainment screen the entire ride, which on one side was displaying a sort of wireframe (not the right word, but they weren't realistic drawings) of objects in front of and around the car as we were driving.
I was alarmed to see how often pedestrians, and even cars passing while waiting at a traffic light, would just randomly wink out of existence while still in the car's path, or nearby. Sometimes it would show cars parked at the curb to the sides, and other times nothing, even with our car being the same distance away. And yet somehow at one point it consistently displayed a traffic cone that was on the sidewalk against a building. Didn't really give me much confidence in Tesla's self-driving software if the object detection bits can't even get that right. But again, I don't know what software was running on that car, may not have been the latest-and-greatest.
I don't think I'd trust even the FSD beta to drive my car 95% of the time. Or 1%, even.
I was alarmed to see how often pedestrians, and even cars passing while waiting at a traffic light, would just randomly wink out of existence while still in the car's path, or nearby. Sometimes it would show cars parked at the curb to the sides, and other times nothing, even with our car being the same distance away. And yet somehow at one point it consistently displayed a traffic cone that was on the sidewalk against a building. Didn't really give me much confidence in Tesla's self-driving software if the object detection bits can't even get that right. But again, I don't know what software was running on that car, may not have been the latest-and-greatest.
I don't think I'd trust even the FSD beta to drive my car 95% of the time. Or 1%, even.
The display is not a great indicator of what the car "sees". Ideally the display would reassure the passenger, but you could totally solve self driving without solving this UX problem.
It's a beta so you shouldn't trust it. I'm just saying, I've driven thousands of miles and 95% of the time no issues. The other 5% I almost always know where it will have issues and manually take over before it even gets into a bad situation. A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes that will be resolved with future updates. I agree the object recognition is a bit jumpy, but it hasn't really affected the driving afaik, and I'm sure over time that will stabilize. It is really cool Tesla shows you exactly what the car sees. In other self-driving systems the user usually has no idea what the car is seeing. Tesla could do that as well, but this way it is much more honest. I'm looking forward to getting the latest release which is able to recognize the 3d model of unknown objects and avoid them.
>I've driven thousands of miles and 95% of the time no issues. The other 5% I almost always know where it will have issues and manually take over before it even gets into a bad situation.
This is not Full Self Driving, or remotely close to it. Having to take over for any tricky situation is antithetical to FSD's purpose. Besides the fact that "thousands of miles" is a microscopic scale of driving. That's a vacation for some people.
>A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes
Ah yes, easy fixes. Just have to catalog all the "bad" situations!
This is not Full Self Driving, or remotely close to it. Having to take over for any tricky situation is antithetical to FSD's purpose. Besides the fact that "thousands of miles" is a microscopic scale of driving. That's a vacation for some people.
>A lot of these bad situations I think are easy fixes
Ah yes, easy fixes. Just have to catalog all the "bad" situations!
Really? I'd say it's 95% there if the car is fully self driving 95% of the time.
Taking over for tricky situations alerts Tesla to those situations and allows them to rank and fix the issue.
1,000's of miles might be nothing, but then multiply it by the tens of thousands of drivers using it everyday and yes Tesla basically is aware of all the tricky situations and is working to resolve them.
I really don't understand people like you who criticize companies trying to push things forward. At least they're trying, why be so unsupportive?
Taking over for tricky situations alerts Tesla to those situations and allows them to rank and fix the issue.
1,000's of miles might be nothing, but then multiply it by the tens of thousands of drivers using it everyday and yes Tesla basically is aware of all the tricky situations and is working to resolve them.
I really don't understand people like you who criticize companies trying to push things forward. At least they're trying, why be so unsupportive?
Are you a developer? Everyone knows the last 10% takes 90% of the time.
Though in this case I would say the remaining problems in FSD become exponentially more difficult the closer to 100%.
Why am I critical? Because Elon Musk reminds me of bad bosses and product managers in my career. They act like PT Barnum to the public and throw tantrums internally.
I also strongly dislike Musk's rejection of Kanban and Toyota Production System principles.
After all, Musk was fired as CEO by the PayPal board after Engineering mutinied against his ill-advised plan to migrate to .net and Windows.
Though in this case I would say the remaining problems in FSD become exponentially more difficult the closer to 100%.
Why am I critical? Because Elon Musk reminds me of bad bosses and product managers in my career. They act like PT Barnum to the public and throw tantrums internally.
I also strongly dislike Musk's rejection of Kanban and Toyota Production System principles.
After all, Musk was fired as CEO by the PayPal board after Engineering mutinied against his ill-advised plan to migrate to .net and Windows.
Err the best engineers in the world work for him and want to work for him. Engineers run his companies. They’re given crazy ambitious goals and the resources to go do it. Engineers love challenges and making the impossible possible. Robots, fast cars, and rockets.
You keep saying things like that, but from your comment history you seem to be a huge Musk fan, so color me dubious. So what data do you have on 1) the best engineers and 2) their preference for Musk as boss?
Yet more tantrum like behavior with Twitter and Tesla return-to-office has definitely soured many of my colleagues recently.
Yet more tantrum like behavior with Twitter and Tesla return-to-office has definitely soured many of my colleagues recently.
Glassdoor reviews give Elon a high rating and many of the reviews mention how the people are the smartest they’ve ever worked with.
That sounds like it was probably the standard Tesla display, rather than the FSD Beta display? My understanding is that it's a very different system. But yeah, the standard display has pretty laughable object persistence.
I was interested in FSD but autopilot is so shitty and unreliable it has convinced me to not buy the upgrade. If they want to sell an expensive upgrade from autopilot to FSD they need to make the autopilot flawless at its job.
Self driving cars are indeed still not there. But the right question to ask about those is who has the highest chance of getting those working first? There are a few companies working on this problem. Tesla is by far the biggest of those companies and they are throwing some serious money at the problem. It's not a safe bet to make but the odds are still pretty decent that they might get there before anyone else does. Their strategy for this seems pretty sound. But obviously it's taking longer than they hoped. A much less safe bet to make would be betting it will never happen.
As for SpaceX, their reputation for getting things done is rock solid right now. If they manage to get starship going, that will be a major leap in launching capabilities. But even just getting the star link network operational, or delivering people to the space station have been enormous accomplishments already.
The only thing that's remarkable about this announcement is how unremarkable it is relative to Elon Musk's other accomplishments. It's a radio on a satellite that connects to a phone. Doesn't sound like rocket science. I'm sure the antennas etc. are amazing but that is essentially commodity technology that he's simply launching to orbit. Doing that cheap enough that stuff like this makes sense to even consider doing is the true accomplishment.
As for SpaceX, their reputation for getting things done is rock solid right now. If they manage to get starship going, that will be a major leap in launching capabilities. But even just getting the star link network operational, or delivering people to the space station have been enormous accomplishments already.
The only thing that's remarkable about this announcement is how unremarkable it is relative to Elon Musk's other accomplishments. It's a radio on a satellite that connects to a phone. Doesn't sound like rocket science. I'm sure the antennas etc. are amazing but that is essentially commodity technology that he's simply launching to orbit. Doing that cheap enough that stuff like this makes sense to even consider doing is the true accomplishment.
> proven harder than expected
Expected by whom? People who didn't understand the problem presumably.
Expected by whom? People who didn't understand the problem presumably.
After hyperloop and tesla semi, I don't trust Elon that much.
Curious that the Apple event next month is themed "Far Out" with space imagery. I imagine this is the modems that were widely reported last year as being part of the 13/14 SOCs
I think this is very interesting and a smart move for Starlink to improve profitability options in the long term.
I think this is very interesting and a smart move for Starlink to improve profitability options in the long term.
The rule of thumb for Apple Event invitation themes is to just assume they mean nothing—or that they’re just screwing around with people who like to read them like tea leaves.
The technology has already been demonstrated in a similar form by Lynk. The large gen2 satellites have already been built, and you can see the deployed fitted into the Starship prototype in Texas, which is planning an orbital flight test shortly (low single digit months is the desired plan, but don’t get too excited until the static fire tests have been completed on both the booster and the upperstage). They have several other Starships being built as we speak, you can watch them on livestreams on YouTube right now, and these will be the ones that start deploying the new satellites (the first Starship will not enter a permanent orbit as they want to ensure that if there’s a problem with Starship it doesn’t stay in orbit as debris… like Shuttle External Tanks, it’ll splash down in another ocean).
Garmin inReach but works on any phone and a bit more bandwidth so not restricted to emergency messages. Also free with most T-Mobile plans (inReach is currently expensive, but may drop in response if that isn't a capacity only issue).
> Garmin inReach but works on any phone
That's because it's an app that connects to an Iridium phone via BT.
That's because it's an app that connects to an Iridium phone via BT.
No he's asserting that this is like Garmin inReach, but is higher bandwidth, magically works with any existing phone, and is free.
Which we all know isn't going to happen. 80% of the commenters here have fallen for the banana in the tailpipe. Again.
Which we all know isn't going to happen. 80% of the commenters here have fallen for the banana in the tailpipe. Again.
> Also free with most T-Mobile plans
I can't find anything suggesting a bundling or partnership between garmin inreach (iridium) and T-mobile. inReach has a separate subscription.
I can't find anything suggesting a bundling or partnership between garmin inreach (iridium) and T-mobile. inReach has a separate subscription.
Doesn't this require specific hardware?
They claimed it will work on most existing phones, but they did caveat with "aspirationally" all over the place.
No, it's will be using standard cell phones with no additional hardware on the cell phone.
Seems like it requires Starship to launch unless I heard it wrong? Its too big for Falcon 9. Starship is still not space ready so it seems like it really depends on that program moving forward before we see these satellites in space. Given Musk's track record, I expect probably a year extra delay before it finally is opened to users. He did mention that they will probably produce a mini version of the satellite if Starship is delayed too much. Would they need to develop this mini satellite?
I would bet money there will be some availability of the service by 2023, when they said it'd be available.
I know the meme is that Musk's track record is to delay, but Starlink has been regularly underestimated and has kept pace pretty successfully. Much more than industry insiders expected.
I know the meme is that Musk's track record is to delay, but Starlink has been regularly underestimated and has kept pace pretty successfully. Much more than industry insiders expected.
At the event, Musk said if Starship isn't ready they'll try to launch a slightly smaller version of the Gen2 sats on Falcon 9.
This isn't just SpaceX, this is T-Mobile as well.
"This isn't just Theranos, this is Walgreens as well."
Why do people keep comparing to Theranos when Starlink is already being used by hundreds of thousands of people? Starlink exists. In fact, SpaceX/Starlink now operates more satellites in Low Earth Orbit than every other country and business in the world, combined. Theranos had no proven track record.
Like, what's enough to satisfy you?
Like, what's enough to satisfy you?
Minor pedantic observation
Starlink will be able to claim that achievement of having more than everyone else combined soon but isn’t there yet.
There are around 4000ish non starlink satellites in orbit today , starlink has 3k today .
Starlink will be able to claim that achievement of having more than everyone else combined soon but isn’t there yet.
There are around 4000ish non starlink satellites in orbit today , starlink has 3k today .
I don't know where you're getting "4000ish non starlink satellites". This seems to be the current number at the start of the year inclusive of starlink. It's growing fast!
Many sources on the web seem to quote the Union of Concerned Scientists and here is their database: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database
It's currently at 2219 starlinks and 5465 total, but Starlink has launched more since then.
Many sources on the web seem to quote the Union of Concerned Scientists and here is their database: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/satellite-database
It's currently at 2219 starlinks and 5465 total, but Starlink has launched more since then.
I explicitly said low earth orbit (below 2000 km), not all satellites in orbit.
mplewis(5)
This is an egregious comparison, not even remotely close.
Touche
While I see the great potential in this technology, the collateral damage is the loss of places where one can truly disconnect.
I just got back from 4 days camping at a remote mountain lake with zero phone coverage, and it’s one of the most incredible ways to fully recharge and step away from the day to day treadmill of the modern world. When we loose the possibility to completely disconnect, I at least, will feel a loss of the true wilderness.
I’m not debating the usefulness of this or saying it shouldn’t happen. Having cell service everywhere will undoubtedly save lives, but it’s not without a price in loosing true wildernesses
I just got back from 4 days camping at a remote mountain lake with zero phone coverage, and it’s one of the most incredible ways to fully recharge and step away from the day to day treadmill of the modern world. When we loose the possibility to completely disconnect, I at least, will feel a loss of the true wilderness.
I’m not debating the usefulness of this or saying it shouldn’t happen. Having cell service everywhere will undoubtedly save lives, but it’s not without a price in loosing true wildernesses
Not to be snarky, phones do have an “off” button. There is no reason we can’t have a little disconnectedness anywhere we choose. Ie: the problem isn’t the connection, it’s the expectation that just because there is a connection there is also a need to respond.
You could already bring a satellite phone wherever you were, could probably have tuned an AM radio into something if you had wanted, etc
Disconnecting is a choice you make, not a place you go.
Disconnecting is a choice you make, not a place you go.
I've been backpacking since I was in kindergarten and this comment has made me more angry than just about anything on this website.
Your phone has a power button. Use it.
You have not lost access to nature, and stop inventing a totally BS self aggrandizing narrative out of nowhere. Nature is fine. Humans are fine. We have not fallen from Eden. You can turn the phone off and I promise reality still works the same as far as strolling through the forest.
Your phone has a power button. Use it.
You have not lost access to nature, and stop inventing a totally BS self aggrandizing narrative out of nowhere. Nature is fine. Humans are fine. We have not fallen from Eden. You can turn the phone off and I promise reality still works the same as far as strolling through the forest.
To everyone saying “just don’t bring your phone”
1) Camera: iPhones are about the best lightweight camera I’m willing to purchase 2) Navigation: Offline maps with details like slope angle are critical when traveling in the backcountry in winter. Yes I use paper maps too, but some things are much easier digital. 3) I don’t want to leave it in the car to get stolen.
And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choice”, but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off.
1) Camera: iPhones are about the best lightweight camera I’m willing to purchase 2) Navigation: Offline maps with details like slope angle are critical when traveling in the backcountry in winter. Yes I use paper maps too, but some things are much easier digital. 3) I don’t want to leave it in the car to get stolen.
And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choice”, but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off.
So in other words, you're annoyed at this new development because you have no self control?
Does anyone have good self control? Or do they just tell themselves that they actually DO want to mindlessly scroll for hours?
Whenever I travel I tel myself I’m free to not reply to people on time. Especially anyone who doesn’t know the itinerary.
“Sorry I was on a plane then”. “You texted me right as I was checking into hotel- got distracted while replying and forgot to send”. “Couldn’t answer the phone - was at a restaurant and answering the phone is rude”.
Didn’t take long before the lies became true and I would forget to reply when I see the message.
You have the power to make it your reality. If the issue is replying to people, give yourself small permissions to not be punctual. If someone dies, you’ll still know immediately… but that work memo may have arrived why you were on a plane ;). If your issue is that you can’t stop scrolling through twitter or HN then i don’t know. Take more exciting vacations? Rarely when I travel would I rather be scrolling endlessly (except maybe while in line places).
“Sorry I was on a plane then”. “You texted me right as I was checking into hotel- got distracted while replying and forgot to send”. “Couldn’t answer the phone - was at a restaurant and answering the phone is rude”.
Didn’t take long before the lies became true and I would forget to reply when I see the message.
You have the power to make it your reality. If the issue is replying to people, give yourself small permissions to not be punctual. If someone dies, you’ll still know immediately… but that work memo may have arrived why you were on a plane ;). If your issue is that you can’t stop scrolling through twitter or HN then i don’t know. Take more exciting vacations? Rarely when I travel would I rather be scrolling endlessly (except maybe while in line places).
> And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choice”, but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off.
Leave your SIM card home
Leave your SIM card home
> And about airplane mode. Yes “disconnecting is a choice”, but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off.
So we should all be denied a new potentially life-saving technology, because of your own self control issues?
Also, take the SIM out (assuming you don't use an ESIM), give it to your spouse or put it at the bottom of your backpack as others suggested, or leave it at home/in your car. Emergency calls will still work.
So we should all be denied a new potentially life-saving technology, because of your own self control issues?
Also, take the SIM out (assuming you don't use an ESIM), give it to your spouse or put it at the bottom of your backpack as others suggested, or leave it at home/in your car. Emergency calls will still work.
It's not just him, it's over 90% of humans. Us monkeys have poor self control and need help.
> but if the internet is just the flip of a button away, I’ve found I’m not able to keep that button off.
That's a human problem with a human - not technical - solution. You need to find a way to resist temptation. I promise you'll be better for it in more areas than you realize.
That's a human problem with a human - not technical - solution. You need to find a way to resist temptation. I promise you'll be better for it in more areas than you realize.
In my experience for backpacking photography a used DSLR is definitely the best choice. You can go an entire week on a single battery if you don't use the LCD too much.
I hear you on offline maps though. Back in the day I paid the Tom Tom tax when going to Europe because $100 for offline maps was ultimately better than trying to figure out a roaming plan or local sim.
I hear you on offline maps though. Back in the day I paid the Tom Tom tax when going to Europe because $100 for offline maps was ultimately better than trying to figure out a roaming plan or local sim.
There are apps which can disable/nerf specific apps or the internet wholesale for N mintues, and lock you out until the timer lapses.
I agree with you. For me, at least, there’s something to be said about the expectation of being reachable: if you happen to be somewhere remote without any service at all, there’s simply no way for someone to reach you. If you go somewhere everyone knows has service and just turn off your phone, you are perceived to be actively ignoring people.
Others on this thread are discussing the safety aspects, and I don’t disagree that there’s some value there–I like to go out solo in the backcountry, and lead trips with groups of inexperienced people, so I own a satellite phone for that purpose. That said, only a few people have the number for it, everyone else knows that when I’m out there, I’m offline. Even if others had the number, it only sends texts, and very slowly, so it’s not a true connection to the real world, just a lifeline.
I used to feel the same way about getting on a plane. Flaky as airplane wifi can be, it’s no longer the disconnect it once was.
Others on this thread are discussing the safety aspects, and I don’t disagree that there’s some value there–I like to go out solo in the backcountry, and lead trips with groups of inexperienced people, so I own a satellite phone for that purpose. That said, only a few people have the number for it, everyone else knows that when I’m out there, I’m offline. Even if others had the number, it only sends texts, and very slowly, so it’s not a true connection to the real world, just a lifeline.
I used to feel the same way about getting on a plane. Flaky as airplane wifi can be, it’s no longer the disconnect it once was.
if you want to not have cell service while you are camping then you can just leave your phone at home. i'm sure that the benefits brought to people who are saved from being bitten by a poisonous snakes or fall down the side of a mountain will outweigh your moderate discomfort brought about by your lack of self control.
This may not actually be true. The number of people currently dying from those things due to lack of coverage is tiny, while a vastly greater number get substantial QoL improvements from the disconnect.
By that logic, why stop at not connecting the back country to the internet? We should be actively disconnecting the cities. So many more people to be saved!
Seriously, this is a social problem brought about by new technologies – and these are rarely solved by shunning technology.
Seriously, this is a social problem brought about by new technologies – and these are rarely solved by shunning technology.
Until the eye-Phone gets installed, you can always leave your phone somewhere else.
[deleted]
“True wilderness” has not existed for a long time. Even your “remote mountain lake” area is not “true wilderness”. You probably drove or flew to the area to camp. Human influence is everywhere. Our footprint has changed the various landscapes whether for better or worse.
You could just not bring your phone. I would still feel disconnected without any civilization around.
> the collateral damage is the loss of places where one can truly disconnect.
The real bummer is for the astrophotographers and observers who can’t do anything now without massive streaks of light flying everywhere.
The real bummer is for the astrophotographers and observers who can’t do anything now without massive streaks of light flying everywhere.
If this goes ahead that means Starship is a thing, so the professional astronomers will have lots of orbital telescopes.
It's the amateurs who are screwed.
It's the amateurs who are screwed.
Then does this mean you don’t get recharged after any vacation near a cell tower?
> loosing true wildernesses
I’m seriously wondering how people living in the wilderness will feel about this point?
> loosing true wildernesses
I’m seriously wondering how people living in the wilderness will feel about this point?
Until you get lost, injure yourself, or plain just need help.
why not just not bring your phone? or keep it in airplane mode?
This will shake up a lot of things in the sattelite market.
It will take a lot of marketshare from satellite trackers like inreach.
Also living in a remote area, and being familiar with the existing tracking solutions for transport this could be a lot cheaper per asset. Also remote sensor locations. Anything low bitrate.
Iridium in shambles.
I would still trust iridium more for a life or death situation than T-Mobile...
The bigger thing would be availability. I have an inreach and use it probably bi-weekly, however most people cannot justify the 400$ device and subscription, this would be included
[deleted]
It's going to be quite a while before Starlink and the other new solutions will be certified for safety of life, government/military use etc.
For example, Iridium only got GMDSS/SOLAS certified in 2020 – before that, Inmarsat was the only approved maritime (two-way) satellite safety provider for several decades.
For example, Iridium only got GMDSS/SOLAS certified in 2020 – before that, Inmarsat was the only approved maritime (two-way) satellite safety provider for several decades.
I'm curious what ideas are going around the boardroom table right now.
FUCK yes. Can't wait for the Inreach to drop from $400 to $100.
That’s probably so low they won’t be able to launch anything to replace the live sats once they hit end of life
Iridium is already subsidized by the US govt, isn't it? The original company failed as a profitable venture.
Yeah but the US gov is VERY interested in Starlink now after seeing how effective it has been in Ukraine (and how quick to deploy). Pretty likely they're going to shift to the winning horse.
The US govt will have its fingers in all internet constellations
Good
Somebody seemed to have the info a little early:
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/156296104641942732...
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/156296104641942732...
AST SpaceMobile will be launching a cellular base station satellite on a SpaceX rocket later this year.
https://ast-science.com/
https://ast-science.com/
Getting regulatory approval for the spectrum is one of the hardest problems, the hardest non-technical one. T-Mobile agreeing to allocate some of their spectrum to SpaceX is something that will probably happen with other carriers later down the line. AT&T and Verizon in the US are probably going to explore similar moves if the T-Mobile plan works well (IIRC, Verizon has plans for something with Amazon Kuiper). Wouldn't be surprised to see AST SpaceMobile as a target of M&A if they have something that works.
AST SpaceMobile is already partnering with telecoms to use existing spectrum. Seems like they have EU, Japan and Africa agreements.
AST is already partnered with AT&T
Yes if the SpaceX service succeeds it's kind of a death knell for the likes of AST SpaceMobile and Iridium.
Most telcos like to have two or more vendors and almost all large terrestrial networks are built with equipment from at least two vendors.
If space based cellular service is viable with good adoption. History says operators will want at least two providers because having only one vendor is risky.
If space based cellular service is viable with good adoption. History says operators will want at least two providers because having only one vendor is risky.
This assumes that other vendors can be cost competitive, which, at least to me, seems quite unlikely.
Right, this is like trying to compete in building cell towers against the only company that knows how to build tall things at all.
Cell carriers aren’t going to learn to build rockets, and no one can launch at SpaceX costs (and in the US, no one else can launch period)
Cell carriers aren’t going to learn to build rockets, and no one can launch at SpaceX costs (and in the US, no one else can launch period)
I wish others aren't US based for that reason.
The market seems to be big enough for multiple providers. AST will definitely be providing services to Rakuten in Japan and thus many more clients through their Symphony offerings
AST seems to be heading into a cost of capital war with Elon Musk - not a great position to be in. They have been telling investors for years that direct to cell was some secret sauce of theirs and that appears to be BS.
Accommodating the doppler effect is non-trivial, Lynk has demonstrated it with its own satellite but doesn't exactly have the orbital presence of Starlink:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/29/lynk-demos-global-satellit...
This will definitely be a common thing from multiple providers in a few years though.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/29/lynk-demos-global-satellit...
This will definitely be a common thing from multiple providers in a few years though.
AST SpaceMobile will be launching its first cellular base station satellite on a Falcon rocket later this year.
https://ast-science.com/
https://ast-science.com/
How exactly does that work? Cell phones have such small antennas and put out a relatively weak (and omnidirectional) signal. I think the phone would have trouble receiving the satellite's transmissions and vice versa.
Big antennas (25 square meters?) which are highly directional go along way to improve the link budget. The main lobe is focused on a pet small area of land. My guess is they will also use the lowest bitrate modulation/coding for additional improvement to the link budget. I think LTE goes down to QPSK 1/12, which supports demodulation down to about -7 SNR? Something around there.
Massive phased array that could potentially support multiple spot coverage. You still need a bunch of satellites to ensure continuous coverage unlike GEO birds that can cover a whole continent so it will be awhile until you can get worldwide (or nearly worldwide) coverage. With a really fancy DSP box and enough bandwidth, you can account for Doppler. The speeds won't be great but it will certainly be good enough for voice and SMS.
Adding things like mesh networks, you could drop a small server rack and generator at any where in the world and create a robust cell network to cover disaster zones.
Adding things like mesh networks, you could drop a small server rack and generator at any where in the world and create a robust cell network to cover disaster zones.
This is actually fascinating. T-Mobile doesn’t need a fiber or even cable buildout to a remote location, just power and the local clearances for a tower, they plop a Starlink antenna on the top and bam. Congestion will be a challenge but it will be way better than the current status quo.
This needs no new towers, direct cell / sat comms with current phones
Won't that require a bunch of phone hardware for sat comms?
I don't think congestion will be too bad. If you have too much congestion for starlink, you probably have enough traffic to make a tower make sense.
No I think you're misunderstanding the service. No towers involved, this is beaming direct from space to cell phones.
That isn't what this is, but they did mention maybe partnering for backhaul in the future (likely with similar tech and frequencies to the home internet, not the frequencies in this announcement).
>Congestion will be a challenge but it will be way better than the current status quo.
If they QoS common messaging apps and SMS, it'll be a massive win for a lot of people.
If they QoS common messaging apps and SMS, it'll be a massive win for a lot of people.
As others have pointed out, this isn't that. But you bring up an interesting possibility for the progression of this partnership.
Once they discover the "bird to handset" thing doesn't actually work.
No, this needs no new towers or hardware
This will be interesting, one advantage Verizon has had is more area coverage in many states. In Northern California I switched from Tmobile -> Verizon just for this reason. It has been much better. This is for stuff like on a random beach, at a camping spot or just driving around in hills in the North Bay. I've never noticed any difference in SF.
I thought competitors would never catch up, because tower buildout is so difficult. This has the potential to leapfrog over that. To me a reliable 2/3G experience everywhere would be superior to higher speeds in suburbs (if that's Verizon's benefit).
Also I miss the Tmobile travel experience, you just land and it works for free in many countries. I'd happily switch back.
I thought competitors would never catch up, because tower buildout is so difficult. This has the potential to leapfrog over that. To me a reliable 2/3G experience everywhere would be superior to higher speeds in suburbs (if that's Verizon's benefit).
Also I miss the Tmobile travel experience, you just land and it works for free in many countries. I'd happily switch back.
> Also I miss the Tmobile travel experience, you just land and it works for free in many countries.
I wish T-mobile made this work both ways.
T-mobile USA customers get to chill on the network in any country, but if you’re a T-mobile NL or Germany or whatever customer, you don’t get free roaming anywhere outside of Europe.
I wish T-mobile made this work both ways.
T-mobile USA customers get to chill on the network in any country, but if you’re a T-mobile NL or Germany or whatever customer, you don’t get free roaming anywhere outside of Europe.
Side note:
https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/15629673112...
"SpaceX announced a big partnership with T-Mobile, $TMUS.
But $TMUS gets 0 options activity.
Before the 12:24 pre-news yesterday, someone swept 112k into $TMUS $150 calls for 6/16/2023 at 11:50am!
The 30k volume sustained next day, a 1000% increase.
Unusual."
https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/15629673112...
"SpaceX announced a big partnership with T-Mobile, $TMUS.
But $TMUS gets 0 options activity.
Before the 12:24 pre-news yesterday, someone swept 112k into $TMUS $150 calls for 6/16/2023 at 11:50am!
The 30k volume sustained next day, a 1000% increase.
Unusual."
The Justice Department blocking the AT&T/T-Mobile merger has had huge benefits for consumers.
Even though I am on another cell carrier, the competition has pushed them to increase their level of service and lower prices.
Even though I am on another cell carrier, the competition has pushed them to increase their level of service and lower prices.
Absolutely particularly as AT&Ts strategy here is spend billions of federal dollars building out firstnet!
I'm not sure how to title this exactly.
There's an article here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-and-t-mobile-to-connect-...
There's an article here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/spacex-and-t-mobile-to-connect-...
How will this play with the national radio silence zone?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio...
Starlink's coverage map currently displays that area as unavailable. Presumably they're able to aim the beam around the quiet zone.
How does the radio link budget work from the cell phone to the satellite? (I understand downlink can work with powerful tx at the satellite end but most cell phones transmitters are much lower power)
this is why he said it could take 30 min to get a text out. it's essentially noise/a very low bit rate on uplink.
Ever since hearing about Starlink I wondered if SpaceX would eat the lunch of iridium and every other geosync satellite player. Seems like maybe it will happen.
I'm still baffled that I get better service in the middle of a lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness than on the shore. I tried T-Mobile for service, I tried Verizon, and I tried AT&T, and for whatever reason, I could run a decent speed test in the middle of many lakes, but not anywhere else.
Fresnel zones are weird. Radio waves don't always behave like line-of-sight would suggest. So out on the water, you might be farther from the tower as the crow flies, but there may be less interference, obstruction, multipath error, etc.
Also, water specifically has good propagation characteristics. (Salt water is best, iirc.) At least, I think that's true for the longer wavelengths more typically used with HAM radio. I don't know if it holds for microwave-ish frequencies like cell phones would use.
Back in the day when we had a VHF/UHF TV antenna on the side of the house I noticed the quality varied with the tide. Our house were 15 meters or so above sea level and the TV tower were on the other side of the fjord. Some channels we could only watch during high tide.
Interestingly the ARRL distance records have several "rain scatter" propagation entries at higher frequencies...
https://www.arrl.org/distance-records
https://www.arrl.org/distance-records
The network techs at my telco tell me that Cell towers hate trees and that is why I have no service at my home except intermittently on the second floor since I live along a well-treed river at the edge of a coverage area.
It makes some sense to me, just as antenna folks jokingly call humans bags of water trees are ... bags of water with infinity tiny appendages that are constantly in motion in the slightest breeze.
It makes some sense to me, just as antenna folks jokingly call humans bags of water trees are ... bags of water with infinity tiny appendages that are constantly in motion in the slightest breeze.
Less network congestion probably? Maybe something in the area is causing interference on the mobile frequencies.
I hope virtual providers on t-mobile network will also benefit. I use google fi, and it would be an enormous perk.
There goes another plot device for movie. Now they’ll have to rely on the battery being dead.
Can they do that with existing T-Mobile's issued radio licenses?
If not, I assume there will be a ~1 year delay while the whole lot goes through FCC approvals and every competing company puts in complaints and lawsuits about how it's unfair...
If not, I assume there will be a ~1 year delay while the whole lot goes through FCC approvals and every competing company puts in complaints and lawsuits about how it's unfair...
[deleted](2)
So what I am learning out of this is: nation states (like the US) probably can already track cell phones from LEO as the tech is there - all you need is enough sats and a very large antenna.
What am I missing here?
What am I missing here?
There's some evidence[0] that Tesla will enable messaging in their cars using Starlink. This would be a bonus for me simply because I often times lose signal in my car near my house, and I'm near my house quite a bit.
[0] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-premium-connectivity-starlin...
[0] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-premium-connectivity-starlin...
We changed the URL from https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1562954090996346880 whilst merging this thread and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32601899.
This service requires Starlink v2 satellites, which require Starship to fly to orbit (regularly). An orbital test of Starship should take place this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s pushed for next year. And there’s a long way from an orbital test to frequently launching Starships with Starlink v2 satellites.
Since terrestrial LTE/5G can penetrate aluminum aircraft hulls, does this mean cell service in the air?
How will this work in terms of spectrum usage across countries? Will every country have to allocate the same frequencies as the carriers involved in the US? Will every phone have to support particular bands used in the US? A bit confused about how they anticipate tackling the hurdles here.
I imagine that the satellites can switch frequencies within a small margin as they commonly need to do that when faced with interference. They can already shut off when traveling over countries where they don't have broadcast permission. But yes, it seems like ~2GHz is what SpaceX/T-Mobile is using here, so they'd need approval around those frequencies or more antennas on the satellites for higher frequencies which doesn't make alot of economic sense. Also the penetration will get worse the higher in frequency they go.
[deleted]
The only thing I am thinking of is constant tracking anywhere in the world even outside cell range. My guess is the capability will be always on even in a powered off state. Some sort of faraday cage will be needed to stop it.
Sure: https://slnt.com/collections/faraday-sleeves/products/farada...
They probably don’t make a car sized one yet which is a problem since every new car ships with a 4g chip these days that can’t be easily switched off.
They probably don’t make a car sized one yet which is a problem since every new car ships with a 4g chip these days that can’t be easily switched off.
How many of you are not convinced that StarLink will launch a smart phone soon? Tesla has all the related tech and StarLink has the connectivity. I guess at this point, it's just a matter of time.
Now give me a crypto over this and route it only through satellites (put a crypto sat up there). Remove money controls from the hands of governments. That would be a crazy revolution.
I was momentarily puzzled at the title as I thought "Increasing Connectivity from Space" meant astronauts using T-Mobile.
space based global coverage scares the shit out of me, especially when its 100% commercial interests.
Thought you could be untrackable off grid? Think again.
Think you can be in an RF free zone, anywhere on planet? Nope.
There is no "off-grid" when your grid is literally LAT+LONG
100% data access sounds awesome until you realize that its no longer "surveillance state" and its "surveillance planet"
Thought you could be untrackable off grid? Think again.
Think you can be in an RF free zone, anywhere on planet? Nope.
There is no "off-grid" when your grid is literally LAT+LONG
100% data access sounds awesome until you realize that its no longer "surveillance state" and its "surveillance planet"
> Thought you could be untrackable off grid? Think again.
If you want to be untrackable and off grid why are you bringing your cell phone with you?
If you want to be untrackable and off grid why are you bringing your cell phone with you?
The idea is that airplane mode is a farce, and even if you put yourself into airplane, there is still a back-trickle...
can anyone disclaim this? What are the anechoics of an airplane mode phone?
can anyone disclaim this? What are the anechoics of an airplane mode phone?
They should be identical to the typical spurious emissions standard. Airplane mode is a common way to quickly test spurious emissions before spending tens of thousands on an external lab to certify your device. I'm sure there's some sort of RF magic you could use to get range with 25uW radiated, but it sounds difficult and unnecessary when no one actually uses airplane mode in regular life.
The fn lame thing is that "airplane" refers to specifically baseband cell... wifi AND bluetooth do not apply to airplane mode....
Guess what the biggest RTLS radio thing-a-majigger BLUETOOTH - and BT pings, triangulation etc...
Ever wonder why an iphone will tell you they "temporarily disabled bluetooth when you hit that switch for just 24 hours??
So they can re-enable (it was never disabled, you still have wifi on yes?) more accurate surveillance in 24 hours...
Guess what the biggest RTLS radio thing-a-majigger BLUETOOTH - and BT pings, triangulation etc...
Ever wonder why an iphone will tell you they "temporarily disabled bluetooth when you hit that switch for just 24 hours??
So they can re-enable (it was never disabled, you still have wifi on yes?) more accurate surveillance in 24 hours...
If you don't want to be tracked, don't carry a cellphone.
If you want to live in an RF free zone, well that will be tricky. Avoid lightning storms and the sun.
If you want to live in an RF free zone, well that will be tricky. Avoid lightning storms and the sun.
Also satellite TV went up a couple decades ago.
Oh man, wait till you hear about GPS.
GPS satellites broadcast data, and the GPS receivers (e.g. your phone) only receive. That means that they are completely invisible to the satellites.
You are tracked on your phone because it is connected to the Internet somehow, so it can send your location. But with only a GPS receiver (my Garmin running watch for instance), you are completely invisible.
You are tracked on your phone because it is connected to the Internet somehow, so it can send your location. But with only a GPS receiver (my Garmin running watch for instance), you are completely invisible.
I'm aware of this. I was commenting on the
> Think you can be in an RF free zone, anywhere on planet? Nope.
It seems OP wants to be 'signal free'. Which, since GPS is already not happening anywhere on the planet.
> Think you can be in an RF free zone, anywhere on planet? Nope.
It seems OP wants to be 'signal free'. Which, since GPS is already not happening anywhere on the planet.
Everybody seems to focus on the RF free comment...
I was talking about towers and such.
But I really appreciate the comments.
If you have ever been in remote areas, and intrinsically 'felt' a disconnect from the tech world (meaning not near any major RF transducers) let me know...
because I have been super remote (arctic circle) etc a bunch and also remote jungle, and I feel a difference.
Perhaps placebo mental conditioning, but just curious if anyone else felt the same effect??
I was talking about towers and such.
But I really appreciate the comments.
If you have ever been in remote areas, and intrinsically 'felt' a disconnect from the tech world (meaning not near any major RF transducers) let me know...
because I have been super remote (arctic circle) etc a bunch and also remote jungle, and I feel a difference.
Perhaps placebo mental conditioning, but just curious if anyone else felt the same effect??
GPS is unidirectional.
I assume they were referring to the "RF free zone" claim. Which is nonsense, since RF noise existed long before humans figured out how to generate it, from storms, or even the sun itself.
Wait until you hear the difference between UPD and TCP.
I think you might have a point w.r.t. tracking, but you brought up "RF free". There's next to nowhere on earth you can go to escape radio transmissions completely, except a faraday cage or maybe a deep mine. Besides GPS, there's been shortwave radio broadcasts bouncing all over the place for a century.
[deleted]
If you want to be really disconnected you need to take responsibility and at least enable airplane mode or use a faraday pouch.
I noticed that Starlink does obey the RF-free area in West Virginia.
I noticed that Starlink does obey the RF-free area in West Virginia.
100% off grid sounds awesome until you have a medical emergency.
Unless youre this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Rogozov
I bet that Musk's next company will be a mobile carrier. It will disrupt the industry, like he did with cars.
You can't just magically become a mobile carrier. You need spectrum. The only practical way to do it is to buy an existing one.
Can someone smarter than me explain what’s in it for Starlink?
T-Mobile is paying for this. They might be paying quite a bit since it requires adding a large antenna to every Starlink satellite.
Spectrum. T-Mobile owns the spectrum they are using.
I think it's a long bet that eventually cell phones will replace the dish (user terminal).
The thing I would really like to read is: SpaceX IPO
This announcement is rather early.
No capable satellites have been launched yet. The license necessary hasn't been granted (and you can be sure a lot of other companies will object to every detail).
No capable satellites have been launched yet. The license necessary hasn't been granted (and you can be sure a lot of other companies will object to every detail).
more and more statellites are around the earth, they must be interfered with each other, how do they solve the problem?
This is using cell towers to relay to the satellites right? There were some companies trying to do direct cell to satellite and I didn't think it was feasible.
No, it's the latter of what you mentioned-- direct cell to SpaceX satellites
I thought existing Starlink needed a phased array antenna to get decent signal strength. How the hell is a cell phone radio going to reach a satellite?
This is definitely what I am interested in-- how existing cell HW can be picked up by their satellites. Even at low data rates for emergency SMS, etc. (caveat, I'm not a HW or radio engineer), this seems like an incredible feat if they can get it to work.
GPS is an 'incredible feat', that's advanced magic. This is many orders of magnitude more signal strength, even without beam steering. That said, it will still require a pretty sensitive receiver, but nothing on the order of what your cell phone already contains for GPS.
GPS receivers do not transmit information back to the satellites. Presumably these cell phone users will want two-way communication.
It's straight up, line of sight. The biggest issue will be water in the atmosphere. Compared to your average urban canyon it probably isn't all that bad.
Consider that HAMs routinely work insane distances with extremely little power LOS is relatively easy, especially if one side is a satellite with a beefy antenna for both transmission and reception. I'm more interested in the power budget than whether or not they can close the distance and what the effect is on the cell phone's battery life.
GPS receivers in a cell phone work at or under the noise floor, which to me is advanced magic. This will be way above that.
Consider that HAMs routinely work insane distances with extremely little power LOS is relatively easy, especially if one side is a satellite with a beefy antenna for both transmission and reception. I'm more interested in the power budget than whether or not they can close the distance and what the effect is on the cell phone's battery life.
GPS receivers in a cell phone work at or under the noise floor, which to me is advanced magic. This will be way above that.
Line of sight will be needed for upload transmit, definitely. However, with sufficient power on the satelites it should be able to transmit loud enough at lower frequencies (better penetration) so it should be receivable inside of a phone pocket or underneath something shallow.
It will be interesting to see how well it performs inside structures. Is there any info on what kind of power those satellites can output or is that classified?
They said that the new satellites will included a roughly 25 square meter antenna dedicated for cell phones.
If they're just going to be using this for sending texts for now, the signal to noise ratio can be really bad and still work. I suppose they could also fall back on buffering until a satellite is in an optimal position if it can't send immediately -- texts should arrive quickly, but they don't have to be quite real-time.
That's my guess anyways, there might be some other tricks involved and it's an impressive thing to do at any rate.
That's my guess anyways, there might be some other tricks involved and it's an impressive thing to do at any rate.
Really big antennas, and really slow signals. The satellite is expected to downlink at 2-4 megabit, and uplink will likely be slower still.
2-4 megabits per "cell zone."
If you're really out in a super remote location you might be the only person in your zone, but if you're camping with a dozen friends you'll all be splitting that 2-4 megabits.
Still tremendously impressive though, if they're able to pull it off.
If you're really out in a super remote location you might be the only person in your zone, but if you're camping with a dozen friends you'll all be splitting that 2-4 megabits.
Still tremendously impressive though, if they're able to pull it off.
Gen 2 sats and a big antenna, will work with existing phones
Maybe we're back to the days of lunchbox cell phones that get extremely hot and are questionably safe to hold next to your head.
I'd assume they included a cheap rudimentary cell antenna on the back side.
This sounds like direct to satellite from existing handsets. I can imagine that LTE at 550km is possible but quite a feat of engineering.
Direct from cell to sat, goal is deadzone free, global coverage
This is indeed very nice if it is implemented. As for T-mobile, how about they commit to ipv6 on all of their LTE networks? Here in Poland they have a network sharing agreement with Orange which means they use the same infrastructure, but when I use Orange's APN I get an ipv6 address. With T-mobile only ipv4 and they have no plans to implement ipv6.
What do you get other than decreased privacy?
And so begins the next chapter of "Our Electromagnetic Prison".
Just add another layer of tinfoil.
Color me not the least impressed.
I pay $200/month for my family to use T-Mobile. Data barely works in my backyard--and I'm one city over from their headquarters. I've called them and I've Tweeted. They energetically tell me they're taking action and... nothing happens.
I pay $200/month for my family to use T-Mobile. Data barely works in my backyard--and I'm one city over from their headquarters. I've called them and I've Tweeted. They energetically tell me they're taking action and... nothing happens.
Have you considered a CellSpot? It served me well in the days when my phone didn't support Wi-Fi calling.
That is a good suggestion, thank you. Unfortunately when I’m out of the backyard it means I am doing a ton of work that doesn’t benefit by my carrying an extra device around
The CellSpot is something you install; you don't carry it.
It's a mini cell tower! YES, I'm looking into it!
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/4g-lte-cellspot
https://www.t-mobile.com/support/coverage/4g-lte-cellspot
We’ll see. This will be interesting to see how it plays out. Both T-Mobile and SpaceX are capable companies but they always boast these grandiose plans that technically do what they say but turn out to be lackluster.
*EDIT* excluding the space exploration division of the company. I had a brain fart for a moment and forgot about its huge successes.
I was thinking more on the satellite internet portion which this would be concentrated on with T-Mobile most likely.
*EDIT* excluding the space exploration division of the company. I had a brain fart for a moment and forgot about its huge successes.
I was thinking more on the satellite internet portion which this would be concentrated on with T-Mobile most likely.
What has SpaceX done that has turned out even remotely lackluster?
Okay, excluding the space agency portion. I honestly forgot about that for some reason. Because of the nature of the post, I was focused on the satellite internet part of the company. Which has been somewhat lackluster.
How so, I personally know quite a few people using the service, and it has been nothing close to lackluster.
starlink so far has been lackluster compared to the promises, and it's only getting worse.
Nobody on earth agrees with you.
Except the FCC, users on Reddit, most news outlets doing investigative journalism, etc.
Dear SpaceX,
How about you just give me service in middle USA. I pre-ordered in 2021, you’re currently saying I have to wait until 2023. What gives? You’re launching over oceans, Europe, South America, why not Missouri or Indiana or Kentucky?
How about you just give me service in middle USA. I pre-ordered in 2021, you’re currently saying I have to wait until 2023. What gives? You’re launching over oceans, Europe, South America, why not Missouri or Indiana or Kentucky?
> I pre-ordered in 2021, you’re currently saying I have to wait until 2023. What gives?
The current network in Missouri and Indiana and Kentucky is saturated [1]. This will get better as they launch the next shell of satellites, and as they upgrade the satellites to v2 (more/better antennae, laser interlink). There can only be so many subscribers per "cell" on the map.
[1] https://www.starlink.com/map
The current network in Missouri and Indiana and Kentucky is saturated [1]. This will get better as they launch the next shell of satellites, and as they upgrade the satellites to v2 (more/better antennae, laser interlink). There can only be so many subscribers per "cell" on the map.
[1] https://www.starlink.com/map
The satellites aren't geostationary. That satellite that's currently over your head will also travel over Europe, South America and even some oceans. Would be kind of a waste not to use it there too.
Because your area is already at capacity. It doesn't affect you for them to operate in other locations.
Building and shopping dishes at a loss is expensive and requires money to scale, signing roaming agreements that bring in cash with no customer service work or hardware manufacturing required is comparatively easy.
You can always pay extra for their marginally slower RV service.
One reason may be the deployment of Starlink to Ukraine
Probably because the base station in that area is maxed out. Not a limitation of the part in space.
It's just another way for Musk to keep Spacex from going bankrupt. This will not work well for TMobile but SpaceX will get some money to stay afloat. Another Musk's scam.