
Starlink – SpaceX’s broadband internet system - mulcahey
https://www.starlink.com/
======
stupidcar
So, part of Musk's long-term play here has got to be, eventually, to include a
Starlink terminal into every Tesla, right? Probably without even charging any
subscription. You and your passengers get free broadband internet in the car,
and Tesla get a high-bandwidth channel to every vehicle on the road, allowing
them to stream live, high-fidelity telemetry data back to their HQ and push
out software updates as and when they need to.

~~~
jdietrich
It's far more ambitious than that.

In the developing world, we've seen a leapfrog effect in telecoms - they
skipped over fixed-line phones and went straight to mobile phones. It's far
easier to blanket a rural area or a dense slum with 3G signal than to run
wires to every house.

That poses a problem when you need fast fixed broadband - there's only so much
mobile spectrum to go around, you can't really cheat the Shannon-Hartley
theorem, so you end up with tight data caps and unreliable performance.
Rolling out fixed infrastructure can be prohibitively expensive, so a lot of
areas are stuck on mobile-only.

Low-orbit satellite broadband potentially breaks this dilemma. The low orbit
provides tolerable latency (within 30ms of fixed broadband), there's an
abundance of spectrum in the Ku and Ka bands and you can steer a tight beam
with a phased array. Starlink and OneWeb could potentially offer a satellite
broadband product that is competitive with fixed-line broadband on cost,
latency and bandwidth, but that is available almost anywhere on earth.
Becoming the default broadband provider for half the world's population is
Kind Of A Big Deal - maybe enough of a big deal to bankroll a Mars mission.

I think there's obvious potential for this to be _Kind Of A Big Deal_ on a
purely personal level. Is your local cable monopoly absolutely terrible?
Within a couple of years, it might not be a monopoly any more. Huge amounts of
rural real estate becomes a heck of a lot more attractive if _literally
everywhere_ has good broadband. This might just be one of those once-in-a-
generation technologies that meaningfully changes human geography.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
I read an HN comment before that convinced me it's physically impossible for
this system to work for more than a couple million devices at VERY low
bandwidth (I think the quote was like 0.1mbps). Is this true?

I was all aboard the SpaceX hype train until that comment. I remember looking
into his argument, and it seemed like everything checked out.

~~~
eutropia
I'm sure that very smart person thought of problems in 5 minutes in an
internet comment that the engineers who just put 60 satellites in orbit with
didn't consider about their total addressable market...

------
crakenzak
Very excited about this. What's interesting is the deployment mechanism, where
they almost use the momentum of the rocket to "fling" the 60 tightly packed
satellites away from the booster, and then after about 3 hours they fire up
the Krypton ion thrusters and start the course correction phase. IIRC the only
other times this deployment mechanism is used is on tiny CubeSats where they
opt for this more conglomerating type of deployment due to the durability of
the CubeSats.

Will definitely be getting service for some family members in Northern Africa
where incredibly slow speeds are charged high prices if Starlink can compete
on price.

~~~
Simple_Guy
>where they almost use the momentum of the rocket to "fling"

this is compulsory anyway due to physics.

~~~
apexalpha
Why? You could also just use a spring to push it out.

~~~
DarmokJalad1701
And what happens to the rocket from the reaction force from the spring?

~~~
ceejayoz
Nothing, because you used a spring to launch the _other_ satellite on the
other side of the payload at the same time.

Or, you just use thrusters, like the ones that launched from the Shuttle did.

------
programmarchy
> ion thrusters powered by krypton

> autonomously perform maneuvers to avoid collisions with space debris and
> other spacecraft

Pretty cool.

Also, the north and south pole are conspicuously avoided by Starlink,
confirming my suspicions about the locations of intergalactic space ports.

~~~
shmerl
Where do they get more krypton? Or they have limited fuel?

~~~
programmarchy
I think they have limited fuel. According to the site, at the end of life, the
satellites de-orbit. Maybe they will be recovered and recycled, too? Either
way, the Starlink grid needs to be replenished with new satellites from time
to time.

~~~
dsl
> the satellites de-orbit. Maybe they will be recovered and recycled, too?

Deorbit is a fancy word for burn up in the atmosphere.

They are within earths gravitational pull, so if they have a hard failure or
run out of fuel to the point they can't "push back" they get vaporized on
reentry. It's a clever fail safe.

~~~
varjag
LEO satellites deorbit due to friction with residual atmosphere, not because
of gravitational pull. Orbiting already means you are in an equilibrium with
gravity.

------
sidcool
This is an amazing achievement. The pace at which SpaceX is doing things is
nothing short of a miracle. Congratulations team SpaceX. I can only feel envy
at the super cool engineering being done there.

------
SEJeff
From the page source:

    
    
         <meta name="author" content="Elon Musk">
    

Elon runs the show!

~~~
ttflee
What are those 'og: _' and 'twitter:_' meta tags for?

~~~
ceejayoz
Open Graph tags. They facilitate the thumbnails/descriptions/etc. that
automatically show up when you post the link to various social networks.
[http://ogp.me/](http://ogp.me/)

Without them, Facebook/Twitter/etc. have to guess what the most representative
image and introductory paragraph describe the link. They often miss.

------
hairytrog
This is probably the biggest threat ever to autocratic governments worldwide -
government independent communication. Whereas conventional broadband and cell
requires government sanction (to build towers, control frequency bands, build
infrastructure, censor messages) and conventional communication requires
physical meeting and distribution, Starlink breaks their grip hold. If people
everywhere have unrestricted access to a market driven www without being
limited by autocratic governments and dictators, communication and rallying
together will proceed unimpeded. Starlink should be setup with absolute
transparency.

~~~
inamberclad
Conversely, it could be used as an entirely uncontrollable tool to spread
dissent and propaganda. The same issue has played out on the current internet.

~~~
stcredzero
_> > This is probably the biggest threat ever to autocratic governments
worldwide - government independent communication._

 _> Conversely, it could be used as an entirely uncontrollable tool to spread
dissent and propaganda. The same issue has played out on the current
internet._

No conversely about it. Who wants to control dissent and propaganda? The
Chinese government. The Russian government. The US government, with the
cooperation of Google, Facebook, et al. Not all dissent is good. Some of it
will be downright bad. Some of it will be immensely valuable, however. The
truth will out, so long as no one is empowered to decide "the truth" on behalf
of everyone.

If the government and big corporations can lock out and stamp out everyone it
deems to be "bad people" they can do it to anyone. No one should have that
power, no matter how hard they promise they'll follow a motto like, "Don't be
evil."

~~~
panglott
The lie flies and the truth walks =/

~~~
stcredzero
Slow and steady wins the race. Better to let the truth win eventually,
honestly and organically, than to start fixing the contest.

------
cocoggu
That's amazing,

As a foreigner living in China, I'm wondering if such network can be
technically prevented from being used in covered land/countries? How cool
would it be to finally get an unrestricted access to the Internet here.

But I'm probably just dreaming.

~~~
indolering
China can both jam the satellite signals or (as Musk said during a Q&A) blow
the satellites up. Selling directly to consumers will _not_ be Starlinks main
line of business, it will be backbone connections to local providers. So even
if Starlink is unwilling to do any filtering, the local ISPs will do the
filtering.

~~~
mr_toad
> blow the satellites up

!

They don’t just sit over China. There’s no way they could just start shooting
them down without repercussions.

~~~
numakerg
China is the poster-boy of doing things without repercussions. They could
shoot down any commercial satellite and suffer barely any consequences.

------
ChuckMcM
Presumably once enough of the network is up, SpaceX will have an "all orbit"
telemetry setup using their own network.That would free them from using the
NASA network and maybe we'd get to see drone ship video that didn't always cut
out at the landing :-).

One of my managers from Sun, Don Hoffman, left and went on as an early
employee of Teledesic, a LEO satellite broadband company in 1990 :-). But the
prohibitive cost to get to space, and the size of their satellites, ultimately
doomed them.

Starlink is a good example of an idea that failed but could succeed now
because technology has moved far enough forward to actually do what the
engineers envisioned in a more cost effective way.

That said, its a risky move for SpaceX which has the potential to be
considered as having a launch monopoly given their costs structure, and using
that to get into adjacent markets is something that is the kind of thing that
antitrust lawyers go after.

~~~
3JPLW
Isn't the drone ship video problem on the "ground" side? That is, the
vibrations and motions the rocket induces ends up messing up the satellite
dish's targeting.

~~~
sq_
The problem, in my understanding, is that the drone ship currently passes the
video data to shore via a link to a satellite in geostationary orbit. Because
the drone ship's dish has to be aimed within a very tight arc in order to
communicate with the satellite, the vibrations from the first stage's landing
burn causes the connection to be lost.

Because there'll be a _ton_ of Starlink satellites up there once the
constellation has been completed (and they'll be much closer than
geostationary), the acceptable arc for the dish to be aimed should become
wider, and it will likely become possible for SpaceX to use the Starlink
network instead and maintain a good connection the whole time.

------
mmcclure
Is there any information out there about what the terrestrial requirements to
actually use this service are going to be? Is it going to require antennas
similar to line-of-sight microwave internet providers like Monkeybrains? How
much is that hardware expected to cost?

The satellites themselves, the way they're being deployed, what altitude
they'll be in orbit...all of that is really fascinating, but I'm very curious
what this is actually going to look like to use.

~~~
stupidcar
I don't think they've announced much regarding the pricing or specifics of the
terminals, but Musk has said in an interview they will require an antenna
array with line of sight, and will be about the size of a pizza box.

~~~
gpm
I think there was an interview where they talked about aiming to get the cost
of a base station down to ~$200 (some number of hundreds, think it was two).
That was probably cost to SpaceX not an end user though, and it obviously
doesn't include cost of service.

~~~
stupidcar
Most people probably won't buy the terminal outright, though, I expect? You'll
just buy a Starlink subscription with a fixed initial term and they'll lease
you the terminal as part of that.

~~~
toomuchtodo
People pay $1000 for an iPhone. I don’t think $200 upfront is onerous.

~~~
Kye
People in areas this is meant for don't pay $1000 for iPhones.

~~~
gpm
Airplanes, cruise ships, ski (and other) resorts, rich hermits, expensive
summer camps, consumer trains, etc all do. For lots of commercial activities a
thousand dollars is a rounding error compared to the costs of their other
equipment too.

------
skunkworker
So by the end of the year (best case) they will start commercial service after
6 launches. And plan on 2-6 more this year.

This could have a huge impact on people wanting to live out of a van remotely
and still be connected.

~~~
perilunar
Or a boat.

When I can get cheap high-speed low-latency internet in the middle of the
ocean then I'm buying a boat and going to sea.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I do wonder how well Starlink's antenna will handle roll. Current VSAT require
rather large boat, but this is probably different.

I can see price for older boats increase purely due to Starlink. It's already
somewhat cheap way of living and I do hope special tax provisions are made for
people out in the ocean (I don't use any social benefits for paying my taxes
in country X...)

~~~
mr_toad
It’s a phased array antenna. Unless your boat goes sideways it will probably
get a signal.

~~~
dzhiurgis
It does go sideways, all sailboats do. But usually less than1 knot when
sailing 5-10 knots.

Roll on monohulls is pretty big. Current generation of Youtubers seem to have
switched to catamarans, which makes me too envious - I am not sure I can save
up that much before responsibilities catch up on me.

~~~
Klathmon
I'm far from an expert on this, but I believe the biggest benefit to phased
array antennas is that they don't have any moving parts, and adjusting where
the signal is pointing is almost instant.

As long as the "pizza box" can track the sats, it should be able to
communicate through some pretty intense speed and acceleration changes.

------
chipperyman573
Am I missing something? I feel like this website has no actual information on
it. It's just pretty pictures and a bit text that doesn't talk about anything
new.

~~~
grey-area
The first 60 satellites launched last night.

------
Baeocystin
Does anyone know what that pulsing visible in the mylar of the second stage
was? I've watched several SpaceX launches, and never noticed such a long-
period (about a second) repeating 'thump' before.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=504&v=riBaVeDTEW...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=504&v=riBaVeDTEWI#t=17m2s)
is when you can first see it. It's visible in the top view looking at the
satellites as well.

~~~
rblatz
I noticed that too! I texted a friend that works at SpaceX asking why does it
look like the second stage has a heartbeat. I don’t have an answer but I’ll
post back if I get one.

~~~
soulofmischief
At 18:00 it looks like a membrane inside the satellite stack is also pulsing?

------
brianwawok
But what is the pricing?

Is it a $8000 base station + $200 a month for a 1 GB capped connection?

Or a $500 base station + $50 a month for 1 TB of bandwidth?

I hope for the latter but fear the former.

~~~
nugga
I wish they offered sensible guaranteed minimum bandwidth and didn't
oversubscribe their links too much and included good QOS/traffic shaping with
maybe prioritizing game traffic (or udp) for lower latency gaming.

I'd be more than happy getting say a guaranteed 5 MB/s (~50 mbps) steady with
super low latency on the cheap everywhere on the earth. I'm currently getting
about 1-2 MB/s on 4G mobile internets for ~25 eur a month but at least it's
_real_ unlimited.

~~~
brianwawok
Yah I have no need for real unlimited, and would much rather have some better
latency than people doing torrents can get more stuff. So basically.. I am all
for sensible data limits.

------
porkloin
Considering that the market for this product is people with subpar internet
connections, it might be worth considering building a website that doesn't
require nice hardware and a fast, stable internet connection to accurately
load the page :)

~~~
rovek
The audience for the product is not the same as the audience for the website.

~~~
porkloin
That's fair, this is probably more brochure to generate buzz, etc. It' still a
little ironic, though. I got a chuckle out of it anyway.

------
gr2020
Have they said how traffic will be routed? If I'm in, say, the US, and I'm
connecting to a web site in Australia, would the satellite I'm connected to
send my traffic to a terrestrial router near me, and let it traverse from
there via regular ground links to Australia? Or would my traffic travel via
satellite to a terrestrial router near the destination?

~~~
ncallaway
My understanding is this first version will route traffic back to the ground
and terrestrially, because they don't contain interconnection links.

Future versions will have laser interconnections and route traffic through
space.

[https://hackaday.com/2019/05/20/everything-we-know-about-
spa...](https://hackaday.com/2019/05/20/everything-we-know-about-spacexs-
starlink-network/)

------
abootstrapper
Not only is this technological amazing, hopefully it will provide competition
to areas with monopolistic ISPs. More choices, lower prices, faster speeds!

------
YjSe2GMQ
Apart from the launch method - how is this going to be different from existing
VSAT deployments? They're quite expensive (starting from ~thousand dollars per
month):

[http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-
list.asp](http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-list.asp)

Or those, with prices around 50usd/gb:

[https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-
Deale...](https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-Dealer/var-
services/rate-plan/)

I doubt every Tesla will have one on board. LTE is so much cheaper.

Quite useful for medium and large marine vessels, or truly remote locations
tho.

~~~
skunkworker
Their satellites are in Geostationary orbit (about 22,236 miles away). This
constellation is at 400 miles.

22,236 in Lightseconds: 0.11936716 (one way) 400 in Ls: 0.0021472775.

(assuming directly overhead)

~250ms round trip for GEO vs 4.2ms for LEO

------
scandox
In Ireland we've just agreed a 5 billion euro rural broadband scheme which
will involve laying fibre that goes to 540,000 rural homes. 3 Billion is the
cost to the state, 2 Billion is the private investment and the private company
will own the infrastructure after (I think) 20 years or so. The whole thing is
going take several years to become functional and I think 7 years to be fully
functional.

So my question is: how likely is it that something like Starlink could provide
an alternative in any meaningful timeframe?

~~~
hef19898
If you ask me, not likely. Simply because the Starlink satellites will need to
be replaced regularly. And thus will be expensive. While your terrestrial
fibre is always there and easy to repair. Launching and building 12k
satellites will also be very expensive and time consuming to begin with. But
than reusing rocket boosters requires a certain number of launches to be
economically feasible (I don't remember the correct number from the ESA (?)
study I read a while ago). Just how Starlink will help SpaceX reach that
number of launches and whether this results in overall profitability is the
real question I have. But I guess _this_ data will never be published...

~~~
Tepix
Starlink will not just serve one country so the cost per country/customer goes
down a lot.

~~~
toomuchtodo
But not enough to compete against efficiently deployed fiber in rural areas
where you’re not ripping urban streets apart.

It’ll be amazing for mobile users and developing countries though.

------
pergadad
So, technically what do you need to use their offering down the road? A
satellite dish on the roof? Just a small antenna as built in in most phones
today?

And where do I sign up? :-)

~~~
mulcahey
It’s a “user terminal” about the size of a pizza that can be mounted in a
roof. Since it’s a phased array the direction doesn’t matter (unlike a
traditional dish for a geostationary satellite). Once they are producing them
in volume they should be pretty cheap.

~~~
dingaling
> Since it’s a phased array the direction doesn’t matter

Of course it does matter, a phased array isn't magic. A steered antenna will
have much better gain when the target is at low elevation, when a fixed phased
array will be operating at very oblique angles.

~~~
mulcahey
What I mean is you don’t have to point a dish within arcseconds to get a
connection. You just have to make sure it’s facing upwards. Per the Starlink
Wikipedia page:

> Instead, it will be linked to flat user terminals the size of a pizza box,
> which will have phased array antennas and track the satellites. The
> terminals can be mounted anywhere, as long as they can see the sky

------
jerkstate
Cool! I noticed that it uses a star map to locate itself, like the SR-71
blackbird did before the time of GPS. Is this novel or common for satellites?

~~~
0n34n7
There is no GPS in orbit. You need a point of reference and stars are pretty
(99.99x10^zillion)% reliable, and yes, the SRS used the same idea.

~~~
blkhawk
who gave you that impression - ofc there is GPS in orbit. it is just that the
usual commercial GPS software refuses to deliver coordinates above a certain
height or a certain speed. this is ostensible to prevent GPS from being used
in non American ICBM and cruise missile weapons.

the GPS birds are in a 20k km orbit and you should be able to use them just
fine at lower orbits (starlink sats are planned to be in several fairly low
orbit shells 320/550km).

I suspect you can even use GPS all the way out to say the moon if you are a
bit creative. (catching GPS sats coming aroud the earth for positioning, or
using a special dish antenna to get reflected GPS signals)

~~~
wcoenen
> 20k km

A double metric "kilo" prefix like that feels awkward. I know it's common, but
I've always felt that we should just say "megameter" instead. (Also, a metric
ton should just be called a "megagram".)

~~~
lmm
Agreed with megameter, but disagree with tonne: the kilogram is the base unit
that physical constants etc. are measured against (e.g. Newton's constant is
measured in Newton meter squareds per kilogram squared). It can be less
confusing to talk about microkilograms than grams when doing physics.

------
abledon
Anyone else do a double take at the word 'Krypton' and question whether that
only existed in the superman DC universe?

~~~
qilo
Krypton (from Ancient Greek: κρυπτός, romanized: kryptos "the hidden one") is
a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of
group 18 (noble gases) elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas,
krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere and is often used with other
rare gases in fluorescent lamps. With rare exceptions, krypton is chemically
inert.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton)

------
drewg123
Has anybody found a map of what they mean by the "northern US and Canadian
latitudes after six launches"? How far north does one have to be?

I'm super excited about this disrupting the north american broadband market,
which has little to no competition in most areas where I've lived.

~~~
positr0n
Here's some great visualizations of the orbits and an explanation of what it
means that the orbits are optimized for the northern hemisphere. (This
confused me at first since obviously any orbit has to go just as far south as
it does north of the equator.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEIUdMiColU)

~~~
tene
Perhaps I've missed it somehow, but I didn't find anything in that video that
refers to any asymmetry between north and south hemispheres?

~~~
gvb
At 5:03 [1] he talks about how the laser links give good connectivity east-
west but not as good north-south.

[1] [https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=303](https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=303)

------
topbanana
I know this is quite niche, but as a keen amateur sailor I'm pretty excited
about this.

------
atemerev
So, “Skynet” name was already taken, I suppose? :)

~~~
detritus
Amusingly, yes:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellite)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_\(satellite\))

------
PaulHoule
I want to know how it is going to work in terms of radios.

If you have enough satellites you could just point a mildly directional
antenna straight up and know there is always at least one that is close
enough. (e.g. another kind of "virtual geosynchronous")

In that case you have a low-cost base station.

If on the other hand you have fewer satellites and you need to track them as
they move across the sky, you are looking at a much more expensive base
station.

------
Causality1
>At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board propulsion system
to deorbit over the course of a few months. In the unlikely event the
propulsion system becomes inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth’s
atmosphere within 1-5 years

So, how long a lifespan do these satellites have if their propulsion system
works properly to keep them in orbit?

~~~
rmarcil1
5 yrs. So, 2,000 replacements a yr - that's alot of rockets.

~~~
Causality1
Five years if the propulsion fails. Presumably the propulsion is being used to
maintain orbit, thus extending that lifetime.

------
elamje
What I don’t understand is how the Starlink satellites will connect to network
clients. For instance, if you connect your phone to Starlink, does your phone
have antennas powerful enough to propagate signal back into low earth orbit??
I can imagine satellites having powerful enough antennas/RF, but your cell
phone?

Any RF nerds know if this is easy to do?

~~~
FullyFunctional
They covered this. It's isn't for cellphones. You need a pizza-sized receiver
on the ground. (EDIT: typo)

------
isoprophlex
Super exciting! Ion thrusters!

I thought this was some scifi stuff, straight out of kerbal space program. But
they appear to be actually viable!

~~~
greedo
I wonder if they'll start using Twin Ion Engines anytime soon?

~~~
stcredzero
Having two will offer some redundancy. You could probably signal process the
RF given off by them to get to exactly the right mechanical screaming sound.
The ISS already has the right kind of segmented cupola window.

------
sdan
Looking at this and Google Loon, I think Google Loon (as far as I've seen) is
a flop compared to this, given that this works to some extent. Google Loon's
capabilities also seem subpar to this widespread network.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Interestingly, Google is believed to be the largest outside investor to
Starlink.

They decided to hedge their bets?

~~~
jpm_sd
It is typical for Google to fund multiple competing projects, whether internal
or external, for almost anything the founders find interesting.

------
mxuribe
Prediction of the future triggered by the Starlink launch:

* Starlink launches; many cheer the achievement!

* Over the next few years, critical mass is reached with the numbers of LEO satellites present...the world rejoices in more ubiquitous broadband internet availability (at better costs than the current monopolistic ISPs).

* Moving beyond the next few years, too many satellites get launched, go through their demise phase, and vaporize into dust...creating a thin layer of dust over the entire world...causing issues for crops and plants worldwide. Solar cell devices also struggle to produce enough electricity.

* Nations of the world dismiss fears, ignoring the problem. Society continues to be enchanted by social media and celebrities. The first set of celebrities ride a Blue Origin spacecraft into space/orbit...The U.S. NIH and other federal R&D organizations reallocate advanced cancer (and other medical) research funds towards designing more comfortable space crafts to help more celebrities "make it into space".

* More Starlink satellites continue to get launched, exacerbating the dust layer issue, and significantly impacting worldwide crops' and plants' ability to photosynthesize efficiently. More people are suffering famine. In parallel, an AI achieves consciousness, and integrates itself with (basically overtakes) the Starlink system. Elon's prophecy about AI __possibly__ bringing the downfall of humanity is ironically self-induced by one of his companies.

* Finally, the Earth unexpectedly[0] gets hit by a stray near-earth-orbit asteroid, nearly cracking the planet in half, and plunging the remaining world into darkness (made worse by the dust layer from the failing Starlink satellites)...Elon puts out a final tweet: "But at least we've avoided the AI from controlling Starlink to enslave humanity!"

[0] = Well, actually these were the only folks who knew the asteroid was
coming: [https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/](https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/)

------
unixhero
This is going to seriously disrupt the pricing models of existing telcos. Not
necessarily the existing tech, but definitely the pricing demanded by Telcos
of their consumers.

~~~
hef19898
Assuming Starlink is cheaper per bandwidth than terrestrial fibre and 5G. As
long as we don't see Starlink pricing, and more importantly cost, there is no
way to tell.

~~~
rmarcil1
Is $40 a month for 100 Mbps the bar to beat in most cities? What is typical
cost for 1Gbps?

------
euph0ria
What would the actual latency be more or less for a consumer?

~~~
rickycook
there has been mention that it could be lower latency for crossing the world,
because of the speed of light in space is faster than through fibre

the further your communication has to travel, the better starlink will be for
latency

~~~
euph0ria
I suppose there is latency just getting to the satellite and back that
increases the overall latency as well?

------
deanclatworthy
Very light in actual details. What does low latency mean? How low? What does
high speed mean? How fast are we talking in real-world terms?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
The worst case (satellite as near the horizon as possible, so as far away from
you as possible) speed of light lag for a signal to reach the sat is <3ms.
Since a request-response cycle needs to hop 4 times (req up, req down, resp
up, resp down) the worst case lag over a single satellite hop is <12ms.

If the other endpoint is not within the field of view of the same sat as you,
there needs to be a second hop, from the ground station up to the sat and back
down again, which adds another up to 12ms, and so on and so on. Alternatively,
they will likely put a ground station on top of all IXPs and from there the
signal goes on fiber.

------
larrydag
Very little information about the ISP service itself. Anyone know about the
Starlink product such as service, pricing, terms, etc?

------
exabrial
What do the base stations look like? Do they also need a phased array antenna
or is this something that could fit on a cell phone?

------
nostrademons
Maybe this could be what I'd hoped Google Fiber would be. Any information on
latency/bandwidth/cost yet?

~~~
ehsankia
Latency, being LEO, should be ~30ms, though it definitely depends on the
number of satellites / coverage. Bandwidth can go up to a gigabit, but it's
not clear how it'll be packaged and what the price will be.

------
taf2
Once this is globally available how would a nation state block access? Does a
system like this really equalize access?

~~~
ForHackernews
I'm sure you can just jam their signal. It's very easy to overpower a distant
signal from space with a nearby transmitter and ground-based power.

~~~
klohto
That would require transmitters placed across the whole nation though, right?

~~~
moftz
Yes, these are phased array antennas on the ground so they can point right to
the satellite as it passes overhead and ignore almost entirely everything
nearby. By happenstance, this design also helps with reducing sidelobes on
transmit and receive, the easiest ways that a third party could jam and detect
this terminals. Unfortunately, this first generation of Starlink birds do not
have intersatellite links meaning they still need a ground station somewhat
nearby to provide the other end of the comm link. Even if you did sneak a
terminal into a country, there wouldn't be any terminals nearby providing the
internet connection anyway. One SpaceX figures out how to get the laser
intersatellite link going, this will be a very lucrative business.

I'm not exactly sure what the best use of this current generation of Starlink
is, I guess it could provide backbone for rural cell towers. It sounds like
it's totally useless for aircraft and ships out in the ocean (major Iridium
customers) and too expensive for individual rural residential users. I'm sure
it would be possible to setup small Starlink-based ISPs in rural areas that
could use dark fiber lines or microwave links to provide internet for rural
users.

------
vbuwivbiu
and this could be replicated at Mars which is where all the billionairs are
going to move to after New Zealand

------
nihil75
I don't get how upload is suppose to work.. In the 90's satellite internet the
upload was sent via phone line / ISDN. Are we suppose to have powerful
directional transmitters attached to our laptops? Or do they intend for the
Starlink internet to be distributed via regional ground stations and just fail
to mention it?

~~~
wtallis
Initially, there will need to be a lot of regional ground stations, but not
because of any asymmetry in the connection. End user base stations will use a
phased array antenna similar to what the satellites themselves use, though
probably a bit smaller. Ground stations will be very important early on,
because these satellites do not include the planned laser links for
communication between each other, so they can only bounce signals between end
users and ground stations.

------
jmcguckin
Rather than giving the broadband away for free, Tesla vehicles gives starlink
an instant customer base that is growing by 6,000 customers every month. The
cars don’t require the fastest speeds - to get service comparable to cellular,
the antenna for starlink can be quite a bit smaller than the 3m one for
maximum performance.

------
village-idiot
I really wish they’d include some idea of how much it’ll cost to purchase the
service.

~~~
Tepix
I'm pretty sure it will depend on who you are and where you are. Supply and
demand.

~~~
village-idiot
Presumably a lot less different on a location basis because that’s the point
of satellite internet.

~~~
Tepix
But in low income countries the price that gets you the most revenue will be
lower than in high income countries.

------
gdubs
This is very exciting for rural areas that are sorely lacking broadband
access.

------
jimmcslim
As impressive as this is, I am gravely concerned that this (and the generally
lower cost of entry to LEO these days) will drastically increase the chances
of a Kessler Syndrome event sooner rather than later?

~~~
klohto
Not really because Starlink is in a such low orbit, that any collision would
just mean they fall not causing more damage. Worst case scenario would be that
most of the Starlink fleet goes down.

~~~
jimmcslim
Didn’t India’s recent anti-satellite missile test throw some debris into
higher orbit where it became a potential (albeit brief) risk to the ISS?

------
FullyFunctional
So no broadband in Greenland or northern Norway? If the graphics are accurate,
Denmark gets high density coverage while north America is pretty sparse.

I look forward to seeing more details.

------
galaxyLogic
How will they avoid these satellites from becoming space debris themselves in
the end?

~~~
consumer451
According to the linked site:

> KEEPING SPACE CLEAN

> Starlink is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation, meeting or
> exceeding all regulatory and industry standards.

> At end of life, the satellites will utilize their on-board propulsion system
> to deorbit over the course of a few months. In the unlikely event the
> propulsion system becomes inoperable, the satellites will burn up in Earth’s
> atmosphere within 1-5 years, significantly less than the hundreds or
> thousands of years required at higher altitudes.

~~~
p1mrx
That's cool, they're using solar-powered ion propulsion to compensate for the
atmospheric drag inherent in low earth orbit.

So from a space debris standpoint, it's "walk away safe" in that a dead
satellite can do nothing but fall into the atmosphere.

------
shmerl
No Antarctica coverage? It could be useful for research stations there.

~~~
lightgreen
Could be useful underground and underwater, and on the Moon too!

It is not reasonable to increase program cost by 50% just to provide internet
to 1000 people living in Antarctica, who already have satellite internet.

~~~
wtallis
I really doubt it would be a 50% cost increase. They're already planning a few
hundred satellites to fly in orbits with 81° inclination, which should provide
some coverage for the coast of Antarctica. Adding a few dozen in a polar orbit
would be more like a 0.6% increase in the total number of satellites planned,
which I can imagine the military paying for with pocket change if the system
as a whole proves to be successful.

~~~
RealityVoid
But, still, 0.6% increase in costs would be amortized over the lifespan of the
project or not?

~~~
wtallis
If they added a polar orbit to the constellation, they would populate it with
just one or two launches. So the costs of adding that polar coverage would be
incurred basically all at once, and would have to be recouped over the
lifetime of those satellites.

------
sundvor
Very cool, and slick website add well.

Hoping to see coverage added for Australia!

------
Liron
I hope they make a ton of profit from this and set an example of how our
capitalist system can let you do great things for the human race if you
navigate it strategically.

------
nexuist
Is it really an Elon project without the phrase "an order of magnitude"
appearing anywhere? ;)

~~~
backspaced
It’s an extremely common phrase in science and engineering that has been in
use since before Elon was born.

~~~
nexuist
Yes, I know, but Elon is also a marketing guy, and this is one of his tricks.

Not saying it's a bad thing! I'm excited for Starlink and I think it will do
good for the world.

------
rezeroed
In the UK it was too late for me to watch unfortunately.

------
phkahler
Cool. Now don't run up debt and fail like Tesla.

------
elisharobinson
openAI + starlink = SKY NET

its unclear if elon wants to avoid an ai apocalypse or just get ahead of it.

~~~
pavs
a common misconception, OpenAI is not owned by Elon musk.

~~~
ttsda
Not owned, but was partially funded by him.

------
battletested
I don't like the animation on the website. I'd expect stationary satellites,
not moving criss cross around the earth. Or will they not be stationary? This
is confusing..

~~~
martythemaniak
The animation is accurate. To stay stationary, a satellite has to be 35000km
away from the earth, these will be about 500km away. They will move very fast
across your line of sight, but have very low latency.

~~~
battletested
thank you all for clarifying!

------
CharlesDodgson
This seems to a trope that crops up every couple of years, tech entrepreneur
decides to setup satellite internet biz.

Pretty sure Bill Gates did something similar at the end of the dot-com boom,
Google have tried other wide area internet solutions like Loon, Facebook has a
similar internet.org project and now Musk.

~~~
gvb
Yes but the path to the solution is inverted.

Previously attempts:

1\. We need global internet.

2\. Satellites!!!!

3\. We need inexpensive rockets to launch our satellites.

4\. Fail.

SpaceX / Starlink:

1\. We have have excess satellite launching capabilities due to our
inexpensive rockets.

2\. Global internet!!!

3\. Build and launch thousands of satellites.

4\. Profit?

~~~
rmarcil1
If u get enough customers to cover the $.5Bil annual costs to keep
replenishing the 12K Sats. And the sooner Starship is operational the lower
the costs - loss of Falcon upper stage is the major cost.

------
teekert
Pretty cool, it doesn't even have to be fast to make a difference, even old
modem speeds will allow for payments, messages etc. It would have made a big
difference for these two girls [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lisanne_Froon)

------
32032141
What an absolutely worthless website.

"Your browser does not support WebGL"

~~~
ritz_labringue
Well, the website is actually pretty nice, maybe it's time for you to get a
modern browser.

~~~
diggan
Even so, the website is just static content basically (except the globe at the
top that you can rotate) so requiring webgl for the entire website (or even
JS) feels a bit too much. Could just have hidden the globe if webgl/js is not
enabled.

