
SpaceX Gets FCC Approval to Sell Wireless High-Speed Home Internet from Space - hsnewman
https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/spacex-gets-fcc-approval-to-sell-wireless-high-speed-home-internet-from-space/
======
topspin
Every story about SpaceX satellite Internet (Starlink) is plagued by questions
about high latency. I think Elon needs to plan on spending a lot of marketing
money to overcome this specific misconception.

Starlink latency is quite good. LEO is a lot closer than GEO (less than ~1000
km* vs 35786 km.) SpaceX actually intends to compete with terrestrial systems
on latency; many important routes will have significantly lower latency than
any feasible terrestrial system.

Remember, fiber isn't latency free. It isn't even speed of light. It's about
70% SOL. Radio, on the other hand, is SOL (or so close it doesn't matter.) So
there is a cross over point where the latency of a LEO satellite system is
actually superior despite the uplink/downlink path.

*depending on which orbital "shell" is involved. figures range from 340 km to 1200 km.

~~~
ethagknight
No consumer will worry about latency or any other component of the physical
feat of delivering internet via Starlink. Consumers are currently buying
downstream bandwidth by the mbps from one or maybe two providers with no other
options. Only technology oldheads who remember satphones and Hughesnet will
worry, then research, then try it out for themselves. Starlink has the added
benefit of being very easy to give a “consumer trial period.” It will sell
itself, in the USA at least.

~~~
peteretep
> No consumer will worry about latency

I think this would only be true if internet gamers weren't a thing, but they
are, and they'll care.

~~~
chii
competitive gamers make up a very small percentage of all internet users (or
even gamers!). Like professional athletes, they will move or go to a special
facility for this sort of latency requirement.

Many games are not as latency sensitive as you think - people used to play
over modems!

~~~
PaulHoule
I play League of Legends and have only DSL but my ping is only 35 ms and I
can't complain -- many other players have it worse than me.

What did make it impossible for me to get kills was having 30 ms of latency in
my display system. I think the network latency is well-compensated (if the
typical user has 50 ms of latency, just delay me by 20 ms) but the display
latency kills me. When I switched to a different monitor I started playing
much better in about five games.

I think the game generates a 10 MB log for a 30 minute session so the
bandwidth requirement is not much.

I had the same experience playing Titanfall earlier; in that case turning on
the "Game Mode" on the TV turned me from someone who couldn't win at all to
somebody who could get halfway up the ladder.

~~~
kbenson
Display (and input!) latency are real things, and matter quite a bit. There
have been studies in the past where people measured the full button press to
frame update time using high speed cameras, and not all games are equal. As
for game mode on TV's, that specifically why it exists. As a passive medium a
little latency doesn't matter, but when a system is responding to input,
latency is noticeable.

If you're interested in how different TV's perform, segregated by their
individual input ports (in cases where some ports are optimized) and modes,
check out [https://www.rtings.com/](https://www.rtings.com/). I used it a
couple years ago to pick out a good 4k TV as a monitor, and the _very
thorough_ information helped me pick out something that works well as a
computer monitor (and also for the occasional gaming).

------
umvi
LEO vs. GEO networks are like plutonium bombs vs. uranium bombs.

One is simple to engineer, but resources are limited and expensive. The other
is extremely complicated to engineer, but resources are cheaper and more
available.

In this case GEO systems are simple: satellite is stationary (ignoring slight
drift which causes microsecond changes in latency), beams are stationary,
antennas on people's roofs have no moving parts. However, the GEO satellite is
extremely expensive, the spectrum it is using is expensive, and the GEO
orbital slot is expensive. Also, it's so far away that it's high latency
making online gaming nonviable.

LEO systems are extremely complex by comparison: satellites are moving, thus
the beams are moving, antennas are moving (motor driven, unless using
electronic phased array which are currently super expensive). With everything
moving you have to do constant beam hand offs, doppler correction, etc. But,
the satellites are much cheaper and the latency is much smaller.

Kudos to whomever can pull it off - there are several contenders other than
SpaceX like OneWeb.

~~~
01100011
Are hand-offs really all that complicated? Cell networks have to handle it.

I don't think you need to move the antenna, but you need a wide footprint and
probably overlapping coverage between satellites.

How does Iridium work? I'd think this has already been done(quite a while back
even).

~~~
ncallaway
Cell hand-offs don't happen nearly as frequently as they would for an LEO
constellation.

The orbital period for a satellite at 550 km is ~01h 36m. That means any given
satellite is going to be visible for a very short period of time, which means
hand-offs will have to be extremely frequent.

~~~
anticensor
Approximately every 2.5 minutes in fact.

~~~
umvi
That's per satellite; each satellite is going to have multiple beams, so
you'll have to do a beam handover like every 15 seconds and a satellite
handover every couple of minutes

------
itsangaris
This page is awful, here's the article's content:

"SpaceX just received approval from the FCC to launch 4,425 satellites into
space to build a low earth orbit network of satellites to sell home Internet.

Unlike current satellite Internet, these devices will be in a far lower orbit
and offer far faster speeds without the data caps current satellite systems
use.

The goal is that this new system will offer robust high-speed Internet,
especially in developing countries and rural parts of developed nations like
the United States. While you may not be running out to buy this if you have
fiber Internet, it could bring true wireless Internet options to Americans who
currently have no real options.

“This approval underscores the FCC’s confidence in SpaceX’s plans to deploy
its next-generation satellite constellation and connect people around the
world with reliable and affordable broadband service,” SpaceX President Gwynne
Shotwell said in a statement.

SpaceX has already launched several test satellites to prove the system works.
Now they have permission to move forward with a larger rollout of 4,425
satellites.

The system also promises to help relief efforts that currently spend hundreds
of dollars a day for 5 Mbps Internet. With this system, relief workers can
access high speed Internet even in areas hit by a major disaster."

source: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-
starlink-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-
approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit)

~~~
bracobama
Kudos for the text.

This would be truly remarkable if this comes to fruition as it has many
applications for those parts of the world without ubiquitous access presently.

------
mayneack
Looks like they've got the pair from the "distracted boyfriend" meme in their
stock image: [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/distracted-
boyfriend](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/distracted-boyfriend)

[https://i.imgur.com/KYkIKbg.png](https://i.imgur.com/KYkIKbg.png)

~~~
tempestn
Ha! Since it's SpaceX I wonder if that was an intentional Easter egg.

~~~
giarc
That's not a SpaceX page though.

~~~
tempestn
Good point. OK, so just a stock image then!

------
sbr464
For the frequent commenters about people not understanding latency, or the
differences in technical terms around bandwidth, LEO/GEO, etc, imagine this:
You may not be an economics or fiat currency expert, but given a choice of US
dollars or Mexican Pesos, which would you pick? How do you know this? Do you
work for the government or post frequently on the currency version of hacker
news? No. You learn from people around you pretty quickly. If you're in a
small town, you have limited options for bandwidth. There's Hughes Net
(Satellite crap (high latency), but works if the only option) there's a new
small Cable provider, there's DSL (phone company), etc. People chat, they
gossip, they figure out how to get the best connection, in some ways embodying
things straight out of movies like Hackers/The Matrix, even though they may
own the local feed store. It's interesting to see. Don't underestimate people.

------
omarforgotpwd
why link to this low quality scammy page instead of the original source:
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-
starlink-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-
approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit)

~~~
oska
I agree.

I wonder if this is a situation where flagging the submission helps attract
the attention of the mods, so they can consider changing the link?

------
bsmith
Can we update to the original source?
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-
starlink-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/27/18519778/spacex-starlink-fcc-
approval-satellite-internet-constellation-lower-orbit)

------
danielcampos93
I have a friend who just started working on the assembling of these satellites
and they are hiring like gangbusters. I was initially dubious that they would
be able to make their number goal but they have people working 6 days a week
16 hour days to scale up to this goal. 4000 is a huge amount of things to
build that you can shoot on top of a rocket. Not sure the longevity of the
hardware.

~~~
nradov
People working 96 hour weeks deliver shitty quality.

~~~
mrep
I'm pretty sure he meant the production line is running 96 hours a week. They
probably have it split between 2 shifts so each person is only running the
line half the time.

~~~
danielcampos93
2 shifts but the push is def to have people work more hours. Seems the main
goal is figuring out how to make all the satellites with relatively unskilled
staff(relative to satellite building. prior to this my friend worked at a bike
shop and construction and has a BS in physics).

------
johndubchak
Regardless of latency, I’m signing up. Anything’s better than Comcast!

~~~
dzhiurgis
Everyone is super excited about this and I am sure its going to capture a
significant market, but you have to realise what are alternatives and how much
they cost.

I expect them to be utterly unaffordable at least for first half of decade.

Their biggest competitor is Iridium which offer similar service at $150 per
2kbps. I will let you extrapolate real life prices from here.

~~~
vermontdevil
Iridium is not their competitor. Different market. Even the CEO of the company
said so.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Sure, terminals are likely to be different, but service is the same. I don't
see enough differences between two.

------
reasonablemann
So many latency questions. Do a basic search:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_\(satellite_constellation\)#Satellite_hardware)

~~~
smuser
Yupp relevant bit from there:

Internet traffic via a geostationary satellite has a minimum theoretical
round-trip latency of at least 477 ms (between user and ground gateway), but
in practice, current satellites have latencies of 600 ms or more. Starlink
satellites would orbit at 1⁄30 to 1⁄105 of the height of geostationary orbits,
and thus offer more practical Earth-to-sat latencies of around 25 to 35 ms,
comparable to existing cable and fiber networks[51] (although transmitting a
signal halfway around the globe takes at least 67 ms at the speed of light).

------
dzonga
the biggest win here are productivity gains. After high speed internet is
available, you'll be able to work in the bush with a laptop. away from
ridiculous rents and rent-seekers.

~~~
beenBoutIT
This could pipe unfiltered Internet into places like China/NKorea/Iran.

~~~
nradov
Repressive regimes will ban importation and possession of the antennas, and
will prevent citizens from paying for services. A few courageous dissidents
will defy the bans but not enough to matter.

~~~
dcbadacd
I don't see pieces of metal being possible to ban. Even a pizza pan would do.

~~~
nradov
A pizza pan will not do. This service requires specialized active antennas
with beam steering ability.

------
reasonablemann
If Starlink can provide 4g quality service to Canadian cell subscribers at a
reasonable price, they would have millions of users in months.

~~~
gpm
It can't. The size of a receiver is that of a pizza (this is the only way I've
ever seen it described, I wonder if there is a more precise description
somewhere) not that of a cell phone antenna.

It might contribute to providing backhaul services making cell-towers cheaper
to deploy, and it might enable things like sticking an antenna in a vehicle,
but it can't provide 4g style cell phone service.

~~~
rococode
Would it be feasible for them to build standalone cell towers of their own
that connect to these space networks? So rather than "no cell towers at all",
the benefit they provide is "no cables at all". They would just go around to
remote areas and build towers without needing to lay down the cables.
(disclaimer: basically don't understand this stuff at all haha)

~~~
gpm
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1020479995028754432](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1020479995028754432)

Random twitter user (Anner J. Bonilla🇵🇷 <more emoji's, for some reason only 1
renders on HN>)

> can Starlink be used to back haul LTE/regular cell in rural areas or
> emergency situations/disasters? Seems like a great thing for disasters where
> back haul is damaged but not sure how useful it be due to bandwidth/latency?

> Would have been super useful in Puerto Rico.

Elon Musk

‏ > Yes, that will probably be its first use

------
sigstoat
folks, the latency of other space-based internet services is because you're
talking to satellites out at geosynchronous orbit. starlink is low orbit, and
depending on the route your packets need to take, might be lower-latency than
ground-based links.

------
sidcool
The sheer ambitions and speed of execution of SpaceX (and even Tesla) is
exhilarating. I hope they make it happen and put a dent in the deeply
entrenched incumbent monopolies who are abusing their position. I would buy
the service in a heartbeat.

------
cptskippy
What are the odds that all Teslas magically get Starlink? Seems like a nice
way for Musk to prop up one of his ventures with service fees from another.

~~~
ancientworldnow
Musk has specifically said that this is not a mobile solution and won't be
used for his vehicles. The antennae is too large to be practical (the size of
a pizza).

~~~
mrep
SpaceX won a $28.7 million fixed-price contract from the Air Force Research
Laboratory for experiments in data connectivity involving ground sites,
aircraft and space assets [0] so they definitely are looking to put these onto
vehicles.

[0]: [https://www.geekwire.com/2018/spacex-strikes-28-7m-deal-
air-...](https://www.geekwire.com/2018/spacex-strikes-28-7m-deal-air-force-
data-connectivity-research/)

------
carlisle_
Who else besides the FCC needs to approve SpaceX launching over 4,000
satellites into space? That seems like a fairly significant number of
satellites, but admittedly I am a layman in this area.

~~~
elihu
I'm curious specifically about the prospect of circumventing firewalls in
China or other places where internet access is heavily restricted and
censored. I imagine that China could tell the US government to tell SpaceX to
cut it out and cite various relevant international treaties, but in a lot of
ways it's more of a political question than a legal one. I doubt many people
outside the North Korean leadership would object to providing Internet access
to North Koreans, for instance.

~~~
derekp7
China has the ability to shoot satellites out of the sky. Now if they have the
political will to do so remains to be seen. But they can also easily jam them
in their own backyard.

------
bob1029
How would the Starlink solution compare to Iridium's NEXT? Is Starlink simply
a larger-scale version of the same idea, or is there some special sauce in
Starlink vs NEXT that would differentiate their potential use cases?

From what I can tell, they are both LEO solutions but Iridium is using far
fewer satellites to achieve 100% global coverage. I assume there is some
reliability metric or other more obscure aspect that would make someone want
to choose one over the other for some particular application.

The only tangible differentiator I can come up with right now "in favor" of
Iridium (aside from the fact that it's already up there and working) is the
multi-mission aspect of the constellation - science experiments, DoD
contracts, ADS-B for Aireon, etc. But, for someone who is seeking an
affordable, satellite-bound 50+ mbps pipe to the internet, a 1000-10000
satellite constellation sounds like it's more appropriate.

~~~
kirrent
One big differentiator is the nature of the antenna needed. The phased array
antenna for starlink is apparently the size of a pizza box. Iridium satphones
are comfortably handheld.

~~~
bob1029
Is this a consequence of Iridium having L-band capabilities, or is it
something else in the design?

~~~
derekp7
It has to due with the phased array antennas being used, which is basically a
grid of antennas where each receives the signal at a different time (due to
speed of light propagation). By delaying the processing of signals an
appropriate amount from each antenna, all the individual signals can be
combined to be the equivalent of pointing a dish antenna directly at a given
satellite all the time as it is flying overhead.

------
neetdeth
Fun idea: On-orbit CDN endpoints with predictive caching to warm up the next
satellite before it passes overhead.

~~~
robszumski
If you think of this as a graph database problem, it becomes pretty easy to
solve. I'm sure this is how they will load balance between the satellites that
you can see in the sky as any one moment.

Even better, you can pre-calculate this as long as you know where all the base
stations are. Dynamic registration should be pretty easy to do too as it will
need a GPS chip in it.

------
reustle
Why only wireless internet from space? Will they provide a wired option in the
future too?

(Edit: this was a wires to space joke)

~~~
azeotropic
Please tell me you're joking.

These satellites are 100km up, moving at 8km/s. You're not going to be able to
run a cable from them to your house.

~~~
MVorlm
The op clearly means a traditional wired service like Google Fibre. E.g
'SpaceX Fibre'

~~~
azeotropic
Why would SpaceX run fiber? Wouldn't that be more in the boring company's
line?

~~~
MVorlm
I don't know. I'm not the one who asked the question. I'm simply clarifying
what someone asked.

Alternatively, they could be asking for 'wired' in the where there's a central
base station, and each individual home has wired connection to that.

Regardless, I assuming the op _didn't_ mean running a physical wire from a sat
in space.

------
dmix
I'm curious if this will become an ideal service for hackers or others seeking
to hide identity to use as a random and mobile location from which to operate?
Assuming it becomes ubiquitous as there are multiple companies racing to offer
these "constellations".

~~~
whenchamenia
You are triangulating yourself, while broadcasting kinda loudly to the sky. So
not directly. This is no hackers pancea. But a network of them hidden on
rooftops connected via side channel may find effective use.

------
petschge
I do wonder a bit why why they need THAT many satellites. Assuming an orbit at
200 miles altitude, we have a horizon distance of about 2000 miles. Comparing
the area of that 2000 mile radius ground patches with the surface of the
Earth, we need about 10 such patches. Filling in the gaps between patches
might require 10 more satellites. Naively I would have assumed that orbital
mechanics costs us another factor of two, so fourtyish satellites required.
But they plan to launch more than 4400 satellites. More than 100 times the
naive estimate. And at the cost involved they don't do it for fun. Where does
that discrepancy come from?

~~~
tnorthcutt
Is your horizon distance calculation based on no obstructions? Most people
don't live on the plains ;)

I am genuinely curious how you arrived at that number, FWIW – I don't know how
to go about calculating something like that.

~~~
petschge
That does indeed assume a sphere. If you are curious about the geometry, maybe
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon#Distance_to_the_horizon)
can help.

If you run the calculation the other way around, every satellite has to
service a ground patch with about 380 miles radius. And your antenna has to
swivel to a point that might be more than 60 degrees away from zenith. So
every obstruction of more than 30 degrees above the horizon will lead to at
least intermittent disconnects.

------
nickysielicki
If you have any interest in this sort of thing, get your amateur radio license
and start making contacts on AO91/AO85. It's so much fun to talk to someone
500 miles away with a walkie talkie, through a satellite.

------
Zenst
This could eventually open up other markets for SpaceX. A communication
network with that density would be able to offer a better resolution than GPS
and sets up SpaceX to be a key backbone service provider for autonomous flying
vehicles in any form. Be that personal transports/air taxis or courier drones.

Whilst not the intended market initially and might be some design
considerations that prevent that level of branching out. But certainly,
something to ponder down the line.

~~~
positr0n
Offering a GPS-like service would require totally different hardware. Each GPS
satellite has 4 atomic clocks. The StarLink satellites will basically be
optical routers and their timekeeping needs can probably be handled by a cheap
clock and NTP from the ground.

~~~
Zenst
Could have multiple clock sources on earth that produce the clock signals for
the satellites. So a satellite could get an accurate time if it locked onto a
few ground based sources.

Just with that volume and density of satellites, kinda begs some lateral
thinking.

------
FrozenVoid
The question i'd like to have answered: How long the sattelites actually last,
considered the amount of space junk in orbit and amount of sattelites? Do they
intend to launch several sats/day?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/9ud7s7/starlink_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/9ud7s7/starlink_satellite_lifespan/)

------
grey-area
A really interesting side-effect of the mass production of thousands of
satellites for this constellation will be to make spacex a player in the
satellite building business, bringing satellite production costs down
significantly, and thus boost demand for their launch business, it will also
demonstrate a high rate of launches. The two businesses can feed off each
other, along with the revenue from starlink. Interesting strategy.

------
syntaxing
If their service is reliable, I would join right away. I'm in a populated area
and our internet is absolutely terrible. My internet stops working at least 5
times a night. I called the provider numerous times and I plan on switching.
The problem is that the competitor isn't much better. I can't wait until
someone disrupts this POS industry.

------
bleair
I can see the appeal for customers who in rural areas with one or no real
option for internet access, or if you like to vacation / travel via RV.

Will the SpaceX system use frequencies that allow decent reception and
transmission (to the sats) if you're physically in a city? If you're indoors?

------
president
Is snooping on satellite internet traffic a thing? Wonder what security
implications this could have.

~~~
robszumski
Oh it absolutely is. You park your collection satellite right behind the
target satellite, so you soak up all the transmissions that overshoot.

[http://spaceflight101.com/shijian-17-rendezvous-with-
chinasa...](http://spaceflight101.com/shijian-17-rendezvous-with-chinasat-5a/)

The NSA has been known to use their imaging satellites to find transmitters
which they can then snoop on once they know where they are pointing.

------
robomartin
The real end game has to be servers in space. Think about a potential extreme
privacy model where servers exist outside the domain of laws on earth.

Of course, to be cynical, no earth-based company can escape being squeezed
into doing what law enforcement agencies might need them to do.

------
randaouser
Starlink I think can consider heavily leveraging a multicast or hypercast
protocol considering most bandwidth usage is related to video streams. Many
downlinks can accept a broadcast level packet.

How does a system link Starlink handle channel and spectrum allocation?

------
m3at
Are there informations available on the estimated cost to consumers for this
service? Would it even be directly purchasable by individuals?

Edit: rephrased to emphasise cost for consumers (not launch cost), an engine
search didn't return an answer

~~~
oh_sigh
Musk said $50 USD or less at one point, but I don't have a source for that at
the moment

------
chrisweekly
How long till it's possible to deploy static content to "edge" nodes in LOA?
Traditional CDNs typically advertise their geo-distributed POPs on a 2D map. I
want my cloud provider to live above the clouds.

------
drexlspivey
What are the implication with regards to space debris? I hear it's a very
real, growing problem. Will those satellites be able to withstand hits? Will
they produce a lot of debris (if 2 collide for example)?

~~~
mrep
1\. Space is really big so the odds of anything hitting each other are low.

2\. They are launching their initial satellites in extremely low earth orbit
such that atmospheric drag will cause them to decay and burn up in the
atmosphere within 5 years. They are also attempting to design their satellites
such that every single part of them will burn up in the atmosphere so that
there is no risk of any piece hitting someone.

3\. The US government is also concerned about this which is why spacex is
doing their initial launch into a lower orbit that guarantees their decay into
the atmosphere. Their future launches into higher orbits with longer decays
will have extra considerations for such problem and thus will be evaluated by
the US government individually so I would not be too worried.

------
gpickett00
Once there are space hotels, surely they’ll be the default internet provider

------
jackfoxy
How many of these satellites can they orbit with 1 Falcon launch?

------
godelmachine
For some reasons, I think underwater transoceanic cables are much more
reliable for high speed internet that satellite based internet connectivity,
for now at least.

------
wuunderbar
Does anyone have more details about the ground transceiver? How large will it
be? What are the power requirements? How much view of the sky does it need?

------
elamje
Does anyone know the EE/physics of the signal loss over that kind of distance?

What kind of band can reliably transmit that far with low power and high SNR?

------
tardo99
Do you have to have a clear view of the sky to access this, or would it work
under a roof?

Also, what's the total bandwidth available?

------
flukus
Is it time to seriously start worrying about Kessler Syndrome
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome))?

The individual satellites might degrade relatively quickly, but a collision
cascade could make the system unfeasible for years at a time and a certain
percentage of the garbage would be kicked into higher orbits.

------
WheelsAtLarge
5G is going to kill any prospects this internet service will have in big
cities within the next 5 or so years. That leaves the rural and less served
areas. Can the service be cheap enough without subsidies when a big chunk of
the population won't be using it?

10 years ago this would have been a great business. I suspect the business
will end up being a place to sink money for Space X.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
I think you underestimate how much of America is "rural area" , that alone is
a huge market that towers will never fill.

~~~
unityByFreedom
A lot of area with few customers. Will this tech truly work well? I recall
using a satellite dish for access to more TV channels years ago was never
quite reliable enough to be enjoyable. One storm or decent cloud cover and it
was out.

This feels like another of Musk's ideas that's like, "give me a ton of money
and I'll make this happen, and it only works if I can launch 100 satellites
which will cost a few trillion"

How many of these have panned out? When has Musk made a profit? Will investors
do due diligence this time, or just throw money at him because they perceive
him as successful, despite the fact that his only profit came from a lucky
website sale just before the dot com bubble burst?

I guess banks will pump this so they can get the business, and the general
economy will be left to absorb the blow when this fails to meet expectations,
like the rest of Musk's promises.

~~~
derekp7
People that are a lot smarter and more educated in this subject matter than
myself have looked this idea over (at least I hope so). And based on my level
of understanding, the phased array antennas should be able to dynamically
adapt to interference similar to how MIMO antennas work on wifi routers (the
ones that have 2 - 4 antennas on them). At least is seems like a plausible
enough idea that multiple other companies are going to be attempting the same
thing.

The legg up that Spacex has is potentially very low cost launches on reused
rockets. But I have a strong feeling that the major cost savings will only
appear if and when BFR is ready (and if it does what is claimed).

~~~
unityByFreedom
Musk continues to promise more and deliver less. In my opinion, the fact that
he's never delivered a profitable company disqualifies him from leading any
major venture.

> People that are a lot smarter and more educated in this subject matter than
> myself have looked this idea over (at least I hope so)

This was often said of companies before the dot-com bust, and very often said
of Enron. Everyone thought someone else before them had done due diligence.
Now that the economy has been doing well for awhile, it's worth taking another
look at ideas put forth as "it can't fail".

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
It seems you're attacking Musk as a person more than the idea. SpaceX is doing
undeniably well, who you can attribute that to is up for debate, but my point
is you should be critiquing the idea, not the man.

How about hope for the best and if you don't believe in them, then don't
invest?

Imo it's a really good idea, and I'm glad someone is trying to solve the
broadband issue in rural America, because there's a serious one. I live out
here, you're out of touch if you don't think there's a market.

------
bedhead
Isn't this a solution in search of a problem?

I remember Robert Pera, founder of Ubiquiti Networks, poking fun at Facebook
for floating [pun intended] the idea of a giant hot air balloon to provide
internet access while pointing out that Ubiquiti is already bringing high
speed internet to remote places all over the world. I agree - skip the
satellites just buy some some Ubiquiti gear.

~~~
wmf
Ubiquiti has made WISPs cheaper and easier yet there still seem to be plenty
of places that aren't covered by WISPs.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
And in my area a WISP would have a hard time getting it's upstream bandwidth
because of no nearby large cities and therefore no high-speed fiber for a good
distance.

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mnoah
I love how they added “wireless” to the title, as if to imply there is a wired
space internet.

------
evidencepi
For all the chinese users behind the wall, latency is not a problem at all for
all.

------
vineshants
Hopefully to see this wonderful innovations during my lifetime. I am 50 yrs
old.

------
7e
The economics of megacities, 5G and fiber strongly disfavor Starlink for the
world's richest urban populations. They will have a difficult time finding
enough paying customers in the barren spaces of the world.

------
isthispermanent
How does this work when things need to be launched into space? I get that
4,400 spread out over such a large area makes them minuscule but it's still
something.

~~~
gibybo
They are tracked and avoided, just like all the other satellites already up
there. Low earth orbit is a large place, you could increase that number by
many orders of magnitude before you'd have to start worrying.

------
mr__y
Couldn't the latency problem be at least partially solved by moving servers to
LEO as well? At least as a CDN?

~~~
krageon
Servers break a lot, so no.

------
pg_bot
I hope they call it Skynet.

------
wittedhaddock
if anyone here thinks this stuff is super cool and wants to figure out how to
solve internet for the public, by making it as cheap and as fast as possible,
while private, please shoot me a note at james@communityphone.org (it's my
life)

------
aiyodev
I guess it's time to move onto the next shiny thing to keep the fan-investors
entertained. I wonder how long they can keep this up.

------
bamboozled
How do clients retransmit data without extremely high latency? Is it just that
LEO satellites aren’t high enough for it to be a problem anymore?

~~~
Rebelgecko
The satellites are only a few hundred miles away, and light travels faster
through the atmosphere than it does through copper or fiber.

------
slg
EDIT: I was wrong here to criticize the latency since SpaceX's implementation
will attack the problem completely differently than traditional satellite
internet which has has latency numbers measured in hundreds of milliseconds.

~~~
gpm
The latency numbers due to the laws of physics through space are _lower than_
the latency numbers due to the laws of physics through fiber when talking
about reasonable distances (e.g. new york to london stock exchanges).

Light travels faster in space than fiber. SpaceX's satellites (unlike existing
constellations) are low enough that that benefit makes up for the small of
extra distance.

~~~
BeefySwain
To expand on this further, current "satellite internet" offerings are through
the use of geostationary satellites 22,236 mi above the equator. The latency
to the satellite and back to earth, plus whatever the latency is to get to
wherever you are actually trying to go, is significant.

In contrast, the offering that SpaceX has just gotten approval for would use
satellites that are about 342 mi above, and the network of satellites would be
used to route the connection to a hop close to the destination.

The result of the above is latencies that are actually lower than even a
direct fiber connection if the haul is long enough, because connections across
Starlink would be at the speed of light (minus the amount of time it takes to
process packets at each hop), and the speed at which data is transferred over
fiber is some fraction of the speed of light.

------
andrewstuart
Isn't space based Internet really second rate due to latency?

Of course its great if there's no other Internet access, like rural areas, but
it's a really poor service isn't it?

Happy to be corrected.

~~~
_Microft
That's definitely true for solutions in geostationary orbit where the signal
needs to traverse 36000km twice between two ground stations, adding about 0.2
seconds delay for the request and again for the response.

SpaceX is planning a constellation in low earth orbit, that is supposed to
route the traffic around the globe and down to a ground station near the point
where the server is. That's saving the delay from having to go through an
optically dense medium (fiber, speed of light is there about 200000km/s) and
taking advantage of the much higher speed of light in vacuum.

~~~
Scaevolus
I'm very skeptical that satellite-to-satellite connections have sufficient
bandwidth to make that more effective than downlinking to base stations.

~~~
gpm
Why? (Genuinely curious if there is a reason, I'm not an expert on this)

Satellite-to-satellite connections are handled by pointing lasers at
eachother. Ground-ground connections are handled by pointing lasers at
eachother through a fiber. Fundamentally they seem pretty similar to me.

