Interesting comparison - how important firing (actually, relieving) high numbers of generals is in war, when the rubber has to hit the road.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE
It might not be comcast that dies, but rather a couple of the cell phone vendors. Those are the businesses that are making bank on what is basically low bandwidth wide area coverage. Given the transmission path is going to be going up, it seems that a lot of the existing problems with topology and buildings getting it the way will be reduced.
Anyway, I'm in a town with google fiber, but can't get more than a 30Mbit uplink on spectrum (which is actually faster than AT&T) because the only places in town with competition are the areas already served by google fiber.
It won't take much to kill these lumbering giants that refuse to invest in their infrastructure. Particularly given the ill will most people feel towards them.
Amen, I am in a smaller city in Central Va. If you go more than 10 minutes outside the city no Comcast. There is a local cable company but it is 3x the Comcast price for half the speed. I can be 15 minutes outside of the city and have no internet options.
Starlink service will not compete with cell phones; the terminals are too large. If anything, it will complement cell service, by making tower backhaul easier.
It's also unlikely to directly compete with wired ISPs in cities, as the bandwidth required for everyone to have a terminal would be high. But it could enable unwired 5G stations as micro-ISPs, which would be a similar effect.
What it will kill are rural or undeveloped area ISPs (such as they are) and provide high threat to undersea cables and cross-country fiber.
All of the above is positive, in my opinion. As long as the Starlink sats somehow, eventually, fall out of corporate hands. I mean, such infinite power...
Starlink is highly ambitious. What they're trying to do is basically a miniature version of the o3b network MEO architecture, where every CPE terminal needs to track two satellites simultaneously. The difference is that an o3b terminal starts from about $30,000 , they're trying to build something with a CPE cost under $700.
This is literally a "has never been done before" satellite communications challenge. The only thing comparable for LEO based services is the Iridium architecture, which is designed around a very different use case and data rate (about 3600 bps, for the first gen stuff).
Yes, and the successor corporation of Iridium which bought it out of bankruptcy, and renamed itself to Iridium, has been wildly successful in the maritime, government, aviation, exploration/expedition, military markets. Which is where having a 2400 to 3600 baud (or voice and SMS) service that functions literally anywhere on the planet, pole to pole, is a highly desirable service.
The original 1998-2000 marketing materials for Iridium are ridiculous, like a traveling executive is going to take a gargantuan expensive satellite phone with them when traveling internationally, rather than relying on GSM roaming agreements.
Wildly successful after $6b in debt was written off, and only in a small (but profitable) niche, not the originally envisioned mass market. I know it sounds ridiculous now, but the original plan for Iridium was to replace that traveling exec's GSM phone, with the expectation that handset size & pricing would drop as the service grew.
> where having a 2400 to 3600 baud (or voice and SMS) service that functions literally anywhere on the planet, pole to pole, is a highly desirable service.
I spent a year at the South Pole, where Iridium was, practically speaking, our only link to the outside world for most of the day. The higher bandwidth satellites are only available part of the day, either due to their orbit putting them below the horizon (Iridium uses polar orbits, unlike most communications satellites), or them being booked by other users. As you say, it's priceless for the occasional problem where help is needed from experts up North. Nominally, the station also has 24/7 text email through Iridium, and a couple voice lines, which is mostly a good thing for people's sanity.
Shortwave radio could address some of those uses, and there is a one there too, but it would be a rather different experience without something like Iridium.
one of the other satellite architectures that could address the South Pole high bandwidth access problem, basically the same thing as o3b, but in 90-degree inclined polar orbits. The o3b meo satellites are generally visible anywhere within plus or minus 45 degrees latitude from the equator, because they are in Equatorial orbits. But if there was sufficient market demand there is nothing to say that a highly inclined orbit, similar system could not be deployed.
the existing starlink test satellites are in highly inclined orbits, so if there were a great deal more of them, this would also be a possible solution.
I love jargon heavy posts. I just dropped an hour learning about o3b, MEO, CPE, low earth orbit, data rates. This kind of googling leads to new hobby pursuits and some times new career thinking.
Now study geostationary c, ku, and ka band transponder capacity, earth stations, vsat modems/dishes/rf chains, to have a better understanding of the current two way satellite status quo.
Yes, though two way satellite Ka is generally uses to refer to all of the bands above the "traditional" Ku band FDD frequency channels, but below 31GHz.
There are a lot of "has not been done before" going on right now in the satellite industry. Musk is the only one getting press, though. And keep in mind that the cpe cost hasn't been justified anywhere I've seen. Phased array is still far from $700, so it's not clear how they plan to recoup that.
Yes I am also highly skeptical of what the CPE cost will be. Starlink has been over hyped in the non-satellite-industry technology press as if it will be a panacea for residential, rural internet access and for small business. But I'm thinking the rooftop terminal cost might be more like $3000-5000 of hardware, not totally outside the realm of possibility to recoup the cost for on 36 month contracts, but not something that's going to allow for $90/month residential broadband. More like a small-medium business product. Or $250-300/month.
If they can't do it economically and with enough gain, SNR and low noise factor using phased array (questionable), the rooftop CPE is going to have to look like an identical pair of motorized, two axis tracking 50cm compact cassegrain dishes, each with its own BUC+SSPA and Rx RF chain. Basically miniaturized o3b. Again not cheap.
I'm basing it on my knowledge of all comparable two way satellite antennas, Rx/tx rf chains and modems. But there really is nothing comparable. The cost may end up being opaque and hidden to the end user wrapped up in 24, 36, 60 month service contracts. Sort of like how you can get a $950 phone for "$0" with contract.
Current phased array two way satellite stuff that is small, and intended for geostationary purposes, is manufactured in such small quantities that it is hard to compare.
If it is cost-effective for SpaceX with 0 customers so far, do you think DirecTV, dish, etc, with millions of subscribers for more than a decade wouldn't do it? I would be good money they've spent their fair share of r&d on this, and the good ol ~70cm parabolic dish wins out. And they don't even have to solve the problem of the satellites moving.
DirecTV and others' Rx only geostationary market is 50x larger than small two way vsat, because most of the USA doesn't need vsat service. They're all based on standard cheap geostationary rx only tech. A DirecTV dish and feed + lnb are super simple and cheap to manufacture.
I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get. It's the next revolution and the most important tech since the smart phone.
Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge.
Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power it with solar and battery arrays and connect it with these satellites. A self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day. Water is a well away and a septic tank isn't difficult to build.
Iridium didn't escape national regulations. Why would this?
If this system is to be operable in China, an agreement must be reached. That might mean a firewall for all people in China, all Chinese citizens everywhere, or both.
Operating without permission from China would generate a complaint to the USA. The USA is obligated to enforce international RF restrictions on satellites operated by US companies.
It's going to be pirate radio all over again. How long do you think the USA will exert complete control over a privatised space industry? I'd bet the first satellite shootings will happen over copyright violations, not national security.
Unless it's broadcast for free or with some cryptocurrency scheme... I'd expect the only challenge will be collecting money from people. The government should be able to interfere with that. Otherwise I don't really see what they could do otherwise to stop it.
No doubt. I just believe that interest in rural living will explode in certain areas that are beautiful. And not even that rural necessarily.
The reason I think it becomes more popular is that people won't feel so remote any longer with modern conveniences and communications. The big no-no for many people today who choose city or suburban life is that they can't easily communicate with the rest of the world, don't have easy access to consumer products and certainly don't have modern things we take for granted. This changes very soon I think.
So it's not even that most or a majority of people would do this but I think there's a lot of people relatively speaking that would choose this if they had these modern accommodations which are simply impossible right now.
Not sure which bit you're replying to, but with this constellation latency is expected to be < 100 ms, more likely on the order of 35 ms.
I've heard reports of the test satellites achieving 25 ms, but haven't found a source yet.
The reason of course is that these satellites are in low earth orbit, so only a few 100 km away, rather than geostationary orbit like most internet satellites that are at 35 000 km away
This shouldn't be down voted. While photonic-bandgap fiber can approach speed of light in a vacuum (to ~99.7%) it is not commercially deployed in any volume AFAIK, and standard fiber propagates signal at only about 70% of vacuum. Starlink will of course involve a minimum fixed distance penalty of a few hundred kilometers on each leg and some amount of inherent constellation bounce penalty each sat. Even so over distances of a couple thousand kilometers or more having the signal go near maximum (even up/down, air is not vacuum but with an index of refraction of only 1.0003 is damn close) vs 70% actually looks to be quite significant. I see no reason while standard fiber couldn't be beaten even under optimal point-to-point conditions (like NY to London, around 5500 km) if they were able to get it up fast enough in the near term.
And that's point-to-point from an HFT viewpoint, whereas of course in most situations fiber will not be even close to taking a direct route between locations. Even if photonic-bandgap fiber got deployed for transoceanic or continental backbone links Starlink could still of competitive practical latencies if the satellites are orbiting low enough and impose a low enough overhead.
This seems like one of those mundane-seeming posts that you later look back on, and realize someone accidentally predicted the reason the US and China started World War 3.
Or maybe China just keeps really, really close tabs on what goes in and out of the country, and having a receiver is immediate grounds for re-education.
the great firewall is not dead. Chinese authorities with spectrum analyzers could easily locate any rooftop customer premise radios. These things need to transmit. and they will need clear unobstructed view to the sky, nearly Horizon to Horizon.
there are already a number of countries in the world where men with guns will come and take your rooftop equipment if you try to operate an unauthorized two-way, small satellite link to the outside world. Uzbekistan for example, go take a small cheap 1.2 meter ku band VSAT terminal there, and operate it...
China is also a perfect example. I could totally go out right now and spend monthly recurring transponder kHz lease money to get a small to medium amount of two way capacity on Russian geostationary satellites that have ku band spot beams covering parts of China, and set up a two way link to a teleport in Germany.
But I give the chances of being able to operate a 1.2 to 1.8m size small VSAT in Xinjiang province for more than a week or two, very low odds. Whoever does this is going to end up in a prison or reeducation camp.
If they are successful with some sort of most-flat-panel phased array that can talk to two or three satellites simultaneously, I don't think it will be quite as obvious on a roof as a 1.2m cheap small VSAT... But it will still need to be big enough to have sufficient gain for a real link budget, and CNR ratios for complex modulations.
And its EIRP to Tx to a satellite >300km away at bitrates of 0.5 Mbps or better will be easy to find with portable spectrum analyzers hooked up to directional horn antennas.
Even for people in this industry that follow the news, you're right. I see hardly anything about it. However, there are a few really good analysts on Twitter that talk about it, and the consensus seems to be that starlink is in trouble. Between taking debt and the questionable status of the satellites that were launched, it seems it needs to be written about more.
Well, making debt is not a problem. Its inevitable. We are talking about a new mass production facility for satellites.
I have also read many people that SpaceX tech is ahead of everybody else in a number of areas. Not to mention that they can launch way cheaper then everybody else.
There were claims that they had propulsion problems and that might be true but we don't really know.
Where did you read that? The article specifically stated he wants less complicated satellites, and most of their technology is not in-house. SpaceX isn't making space-grade rf equipment with 300 people.
Not everything technical they do is done at that location. SpaceX has between 6000 and 7000 people. SpaceX already does lots of in-house electronics, for Falcon 9 and of course Dragon.
They have the propulsion system in-house and I think I have also read that they are doing the ground terminals themselves.
The article was only about spacex satellites, so that was the context of the thread. I mentioned originally that they're not ahead of other companies in the satellite space. They are definitely ahead in the launch category.
> I'm amazed how little coverage Starlink, OneWeb, etc get
Most of what Musk is doing (if it works) will strip tens of billions (trillions?) of dollars from very, very established industries.
Telco (Starlink), Auto (Tesla), Oil (Tesla), Transport (Boring), Power/oil/gas (SolarCity).
There are extremely rich and powerful interests that have no interest in him doing that, and you can bet they don't want the media telling the world what's going on.
Please don't compare everything he's doing in the same bucket. Even if starlink were to succeed technically, it's not clear how they'd pay for the ground system. The satellite is the only piece talked about, but the ground system is betting on technology to take a massive cut off what it costs currently. It's more likely to will only be sold to enterprise/business customers, and not Joe schmo in rural Kansas.
SpaceX needs this to succeed to increase revenue, based on a wsj story from last year. The launches, while fascinating to watch and a huge technical achievement, won't pay the bills forever.
In my antenna design course in graduate school, our Professor had insider information about the specifications the Starlink people were targeting for their mobile ground stations. He gave designing a similar antenna system as one of the final projects for the course. The exact numbers aren't important (nor are they really a tight secret; if you are well-versed in antenna design I imagine you could spend 10 minutes and come up with a list of specifications that are pretty close to what we were given in the course). We found that the mobile base station would be neither complex to construct, nor expensive (Conservatively <$100. We were focused on the antenna (with the right manufacturing deals we estimated ~$15-20 for total antenna fabrication costs) and we didn't investigate the radio or amplifier too thoroughly so we just budgeted $80 for those pieces and called it good).
The fundamental requirements were things like: at least X dB main lobe gain, electrically steerable to any point within a the cone 60 degrees off of azimuth, total physical size less than .5 m^2, operates at Y.YY GHz with resonant bandwidth of Z.ZZ GHz, etc... The design my team went with was an array of microstrip antennas with a network of phase shifters to electrically steer the signal via beamforming. It's actually quite amazing what you can do if you just get the right shape of metal to vibrate at the frequencies you pump into it. Antenna design is a wonderful confluence of mathematics, design and black magic.
Are you saying that your class came up with an antenna design that's about 100x cheaper than anything else out there today for leo satellites, and you didn't patent, nor start a company with it? Something is fishy about your story.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to when you say 100x cheaper. Googling “LEO satellite antenna” will result in plenty of hits that are well below $2000. As I said before, the $20 price point was for manufacturing of the antenna itself (micro strip antennas are very cheap, materials-wise) and so do not include any of the other auxiliary systems needed such as a radio transmitter, an amplifier, etc, although for LEO you dont need to shout very loud to be heard by the satellites.
What are the cost projections for system? If ~95-99% of customers (living in densely populated area) don't adopt it, economics may make it unviable for rest also.
Wish it was that simple. Maybe when there is a big enough community (then it would get expensive isn't it). I once wished for that but after getting married the priorities change 1) kids schooling 2) ours and kids social life 3) medical emergencies 4) window shopping and cheese burgers dammit :) I think we the average folks are enslaved
this.
If you are interested in a place with cheap houses which already has sanitization, electricity, and basic internet connectivity, many areas on the mountains in central italy are good.
They are also mostly de-populating, because people want a ton of other things from the modern life, which a small community cannot sustain.
Yes, the "getting away from it all" is a weird kind of fantasy; I don't know why a satellite would suddenly enable it.
> A self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day.
Rural areas are going to be the last places for full driverless, surely? Badly paved or gravel roads with zero markings? Higher chance of animals in the road? Poor metadata or lack of postal codes?
I believe there will be much larger communities than there is today. It won't be a majority or even a large minority but significant over what it is today. Hence the buy the property today for 10-20 years out.
Certainly not for everyone in every possible situation but there's a lot of people that would choose today if they didn't have to give up communications, electricity and other modern conveniences.
We won't see a flight like we did to the suburbs but I do think we'll see a renewed interest in rural living with all the modern tools of urban and suburban life. When "things" are virtual and physical things are easily shipped, it becomes real as disillusioned people try and reconnect with something more real - but not too real and rugged. ;)
Privacy? Gone! Everything can send their data out without going through your own network.
I mean this is really cool, but as more and more network access is available that can circumvent my own network control, the more I worry about the privacy implications. And while cellular antennas exist now, that network seems too expensive for mass adoption in every IoT device.
Do you think its not going to have all the normal blocks on it just because its in the sky? A firewall is a firewall whether its in orbit or an exchange.
I've thought about the satellite internet & China firewall interaction a bit and I feel that ultimately, musk owning starlink and tesla will probably mean that he will have to play ball with the Chinese government. Tesla sold 2 billion worth of cars in 2017 in China. A handful of tesla features were purportedly included just to woo the Chinese market, namely the overkill air-filter.
As for buying rural land, I couldn't agree more. Looking towards the future, I do think that we will need to greatly increase the quality of our septic systems. Currently in my county, if your soil does not drain quickly, you need a UV sterilizing bed, which puts the cost at a new system around 20-30k.
Maybe this is an obvious question, but is spacex allowed to bump / not take orders from its opponents in favor of its own internet satellites? That would effectively force any competitor to launch with someone more expensive, allowing spacex to corner the space-internet market on cost, right?
Yes. Just like Samsung can stop selling Apple screens. But they don't, because spacex is hurting for revenue, and satellite launch forecasts have slowed substantially.
SpaceX can fly--or not--whomever they want. And they are, in fact, not flying their competitors. OneWeb is booked on a variety of SpaceX competitors: Arianespace (mostly Soyuz, but also optionally Ariane 6), Virgin, and Blue Origin.
SpaceX certainly hopes this gives them an advantage, and it probably does, though eventually someone is bound to copy them if they prove successful. Blue Origin is already well on their way to a Falcon 9-alike.
Launch is also only part of the cost of a satellite constellation.
This headline is not as negative as the article (or reality):
"Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program’s senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites"
Their progress is slower than musk wanted, and of that of the competitors telesat and oneweb from what's public. He was firing because the project isn't going well.
This is the context in which companies end up with slick players who's primary skill is to reframe the metrics and sell the idea of progress regardless of what's going on in reality.
That's a bit presumptive. This assumes that the executives don't ask any hard questions and believe everything the managers tell them without ever really digging into the problems. Or that the hiring/promotion process is broken enough to let people who game the system slip through.
What's worrisome is that Tesla was doing pretty well until Musk issued his edict to get the Tesla plant going too fast.
Several of his manufacturing execs quit in 2016. They needed another year. It took another year, and Tesla's reputation took a big hit.
76 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 90.1 ms ] thread"eventually you have to decide its time to shoot the engineers and ship the product"
Anyway, I'm in a town with google fiber, but can't get more than a 30Mbit uplink on spectrum (which is actually faster than AT&T) because the only places in town with competition are the areas already served by google fiber.
It won't take much to kill these lumbering giants that refuse to invest in their infrastructure. Particularly given the ill will most people feel towards them.
It's also unlikely to directly compete with wired ISPs in cities, as the bandwidth required for everyone to have a terminal would be high. But it could enable unwired 5G stations as micro-ISPs, which would be a similar effect.
What it will kill are rural or undeveloped area ISPs (such as they are) and provide high threat to undersea cables and cross-country fiber.
Disclaimer: Never been a customer. Started my own ISP's instead.
This is literally a "has never been done before" satellite communications challenge. The only thing comparable for LEO based services is the Iridium architecture, which is designed around a very different use case and data rate (about 3600 bps, for the first gen stuff).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridium_Communications#History
Initial investment ~$6B, sold to US gov't for $25m. Here's hoping Spacex has better luck.
The original 1998-2000 marketing materials for Iridium are ridiculous, like a traveling executive is going to take a gargantuan expensive satellite phone with them when traveling internationally, rather than relying on GSM roaming agreements.
I spent a year at the South Pole, where Iridium was, practically speaking, our only link to the outside world for most of the day. The higher bandwidth satellites are only available part of the day, either due to their orbit putting them below the horizon (Iridium uses polar orbits, unlike most communications satellites), or them being booked by other users. As you say, it's priceless for the occasional problem where help is needed from experts up North. Nominally, the station also has 24/7 text email through Iridium, and a couple voice lines, which is mostly a good thing for people's sanity.
Shortwave radio could address some of those uses, and there is a one there too, but it would be a rather different experience without something like Iridium.
the existing starlink test satellites are in highly inclined orbits, so if there were a great deal more of them, this would also be a possible solution.
Not exactly the same bands as ka radar.
If they can't do it economically and with enough gain, SNR and low noise factor using phased array (questionable), the rooftop CPE is going to have to look like an identical pair of motorized, two axis tracking 50cm compact cassegrain dishes, each with its own BUC+SSPA and Rx RF chain. Basically miniaturized o3b. Again not cheap.
How do you get to that?
The will mass produce these themselves seems highly unlikely that they would be so expensive.
Current phased array two way satellite stuff that is small, and intended for geostationary purposes, is manufactured in such small quantities that it is hard to compare.
Think about the great firewall of China. It's dead after this. Having a cell provider and home internet provider. Gone. Poor bandwidth anywhere on Earth - a thing of the past. This is important and huge.
Buy rural property that is undeveloped. In 10 years time you'll be able to power it with solar and battery arrays and connect it with these satellites. A self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day. Water is a well away and a septic tank isn't difficult to build.
Also China has an anti-satellite missile program.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASAT_program_of_China
If this system is to be operable in China, an agreement must be reached. That might mean a firewall for all people in China, all Chinese citizens everywhere, or both.
Operating without permission from China would generate a complaint to the USA. The USA is obligated to enforce international RF restrictions on satellites operated by US companies.
Some people can be alone, but most of us actually enjoy the company of friends and family.
The reason I think it becomes more popular is that people won't feel so remote any longer with modern conveniences and communications. The big no-no for many people today who choose city or suburban life is that they can't easily communicate with the rest of the world, don't have easy access to consumer products and certainly don't have modern things we take for granted. This changes very soon I think.
So it's not even that most or a majority of people would do this but I think there's a lot of people relatively speaking that would choose this if they had these modern accommodations which are simply impossible right now.
I've heard reports of the test satellites achieving 25 ms, but haven't found a source yet.
The reason of course is that these satellites are in low earth orbit, so only a few 100 km away, rather than geostationary orbit like most internet satellites that are at 35 000 km away
26ms lower from new York to London (total 50ms).
Past instances of this sort of speedup have shown that this is worth billions to high frequency traders...
Reddit post that includes includes links to the academic paper that latency number is coming from, and lots of other useful information: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/9sy4q7/starli...
And that's point-to-point from an HFT viewpoint, whereas of course in most situations fiber will not be even close to taking a direct route between locations. Even if photonic-bandgap fiber got deployed for transoceanic or continental backbone links Starlink could still of competitive practical latencies if the satellites are orbiting low enough and impose a low enough overhead.
Or maybe China just keeps really, really close tabs on what goes in and out of the country, and having a receiver is immediate grounds for re-education.
there are already a number of countries in the world where men with guns will come and take your rooftop equipment if you try to operate an unauthorized two-way, small satellite link to the outside world. Uzbekistan for example, go take a small cheap 1.2 meter ku band VSAT terminal there, and operate it...
China is also a perfect example. I could totally go out right now and spend monthly recurring transponder kHz lease money to get a small to medium amount of two way capacity on Russian geostationary satellites that have ku band spot beams covering parts of China, and set up a two way link to a teleport in Germany.
But I give the chances of being able to operate a 1.2 to 1.8m size small VSAT in Xinjiang province for more than a week or two, very low odds. Whoever does this is going to end up in a prison or reeducation camp.
Right; I think people are visualising this like a sort of Thuraya iPhone, which it very much will not be, because physics.
I mean Thuraya is amazing if you in the middle of the ocean, but no one under 40 has ever used a modem at that speed before...
And its EIRP to Tx to a satellite >300km away at bitrates of 0.5 Mbps or better will be easy to find with portable spectrum analyzers hooked up to directional horn antennas.
I have also read many people that SpaceX tech is ahead of everybody else in a number of areas. Not to mention that they can launch way cheaper then everybody else.
There were claims that they had propulsion problems and that might be true but we don't really know.
They have the propulsion system in-house and I think I have also read that they are doing the ground terminals themselves.
Most of what Musk is doing (if it works) will strip tens of billions (trillions?) of dollars from very, very established industries.
Telco (Starlink), Auto (Tesla), Oil (Tesla), Transport (Boring), Power/oil/gas (SolarCity).
There are extremely rich and powerful interests that have no interest in him doing that, and you can bet they don't want the media telling the world what's going on.
SpaceX needs this to succeed to increase revenue, based on a wsj story from last year. The launches, while fascinating to watch and a huge technical achievement, won't pay the bills forever.
The fundamental requirements were things like: at least X dB main lobe gain, electrically steerable to any point within a the cone 60 degrees off of azimuth, total physical size less than .5 m^2, operates at Y.YY GHz with resonant bandwidth of Z.ZZ GHz, etc... The design my team went with was an array of microstrip antennas with a network of phase shifters to electrically steer the signal via beamforming. It's actually quite amazing what you can do if you just get the right shape of metal to vibrate at the frequencies you pump into it. Antenna design is a wonderful confluence of mathematics, design and black magic.
Wish it was that simple. Maybe when there is a big enough community (then it would get expensive isn't it). I once wished for that but after getting married the priorities change 1) kids schooling 2) ours and kids social life 3) medical emergencies 4) window shopping and cheese burgers dammit :) I think we the average folks are enslaved
They are also mostly de-populating, because people want a ton of other things from the modern life, which a small community cannot sustain.
> A self driving carriage will deliver whatever goods you need the same day.
Rural areas are going to be the last places for full driverless, surely? Badly paved or gravel roads with zero markings? Higher chance of animals in the road? Poor metadata or lack of postal codes?
Certainly not for everyone in every possible situation but there's a lot of people that would choose today if they didn't have to give up communications, electricity and other modern conveniences.
We won't see a flight like we did to the suburbs but I do think we'll see a renewed interest in rural living with all the modern tools of urban and suburban life. When "things" are virtual and physical things are easily shipped, it becomes real as disillusioned people try and reconnect with something more real - but not too real and rugged. ;)
I mean this is really cool, but as more and more network access is available that can circumvent my own network control, the more I worry about the privacy implications. And while cellular antennas exist now, that network seems too expensive for mass adoption in every IoT device.
As for buying rural land, I couldn't agree more. Looking towards the future, I do think that we will need to greatly increase the quality of our septic systems. Currently in my county, if your soil does not drain quickly, you need a UV sterilizing bed, which puts the cost at a new system around 20-30k.
SpaceX certainly hopes this gives them an advantage, and it probably does, though eventually someone is bound to copy them if they prove successful. Blue Origin is already well on their way to a Falcon 9-alike.
Launch is also only part of the cost of a satellite constellation.
"Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program’s senior management team at the Redmond, Washington, office, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites"
Their progress is slower than musk wanted, and of that of the competitors telesat and oneweb from what's public. He was firing because the project isn't going well.