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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The Federal Communications Commission approved an application by Space Exploration Holdings, doing business as SpaceX, to provide broadband services using satellite technology in the United States and around the world. With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States.
This is the first approval of a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies. SpaceX proposed a satellite system comprised of 4,425 satellites and was granted authority to use frequencies in the Ka (20/30 GHz) and Ku (11/14 GHz) bands to provide global Internet connectivity.
From Techcrunch:
The company has already launched test versions of the satellites, but the full constellation will need to go out more than two at a time. SpaceX eventually plans to launch 12,000 of the things, but this authorization is for the high-altitude group of 4,425; a separate authorization is necessary for the remaining number, since they'll be operating at a different altitude and radio frequency.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:19AM (4 children)
Among other things, this will probably finally push everyone into coming up with systems for removing space debris.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:02AM (3 children)
Take a guess who will be the one to launch and deploy those systems?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:27AM (2 children)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:42AM (1 child)
I've heard that the BFR could be used to capture space debris. In fact, you could bring it back down and into a museum.
You could imagine NASA paying for a relatively cheap recapture of large pieces of debris as well as old satellites. You could get a lot of them inside the BFR fairing, and they would survive to be put in the National Air and Space Museum. SpaceX gets the added benefit of reducing some threats to its satellites and opening up some new orbits... and it would be the entity with by far the most sats in orbit under its Starlink plans.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Saturday March 31 2018, @12:19PM
https://youtu.be/3ftN0zqHtn0 [youtu.be]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:21AM (2 children)
On my planet, it's not free! No way am I paying Elon for internet access!
I can't wait to hack this shit.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:24PM (1 child)
If you attack Musk's satellites from an uplink station on a ship, in the open sea, are you truly a space pirate? What jurisdiction is in charge of preventing this?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:07PM
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd say the law of the country the ship is registered in.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:43AM (13 children)
How is any satellite system going to do away with high latency ? It is not really a factor for email and general surfing, but gaming or video conferencing on a satellite connection is less than satisfactory. Streaming is okay once the initial buffering is completed but many other services suffer from the built in delay.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:02AM (2 children)
Cryptocurrency mining doesn't need a fat pipe, it needs a short pipe: my LiteCoin rig is doing just fine with Comcast's cheapest cable service.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:36PM (1 child)
Thank you for your input, Mister White Privilege. Thank you for pointing out that only the First World Entitled have the wealth to produce more wealth.
Fuck you, Crawford.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:34AM
lkjasdncks asjdcnjasd asd csa
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:04AM (3 children)
Geostationary sats [wikipedia.org] orbit at 35,786 km. The Starlink [wikipedia.org] fleet would orbit at 340 km and 1100-1200 km.
Now we're talking. Even less latency for the 340 km satellites.
Funnily enough, SpaceX just launched 10 new satellites for Iridium yesterday. They have 50 total and those orbit at 670 km. Iridium has flown on Falcon 9 rockets. If SpaceX flies their own sats on cheaper, fully reusable BFRs (and no markup since they will own them) that can lift bigger payloads, Iridium will have paid many times more than what SpaceX will need to in order to establish its own sat network.
Many may just be reading about Starlink for the first time, but SpaceX projects that it will be the dominant revenue source for the company in 10 years.
With this recent development over here [soylentnews.org], there is a potential to put satellites in even lower orbits.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:17AM (1 child)
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:37PM
Actually I went through the Starlink wikipedia article and it says:
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:26AM
Also interesting: Iridium launches paying for the development of reusable launch vehicles SpaceX uses to undercut them on price.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday April 01 2018, @08:17AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday April 01 2018, @09:58PM
We only have one cable option, Spectrum and they top out at 23 and despite all their advertising they are not going to upgrade the infrastructure here in Yuma. I can get a Century link connection but that is barely 15 mbps here. In California I grew used to my 50-60 mbps connection through Astound(Wave). Hughes net is available here but horribly expensive. When I have to conference call for work or get busy I have to boot everyone off Netflix and Amazon to maintain the barest semblance of decent video and multiple workstation connections, and in the evening times even that won't cut it, leaving me working at midnight or driving to Phoenix which can be a 3 hour trip on a bad day. I'd love to have a Gbps connection but that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @02:19PM
I'm guessing this won't replace landline data services. At least not in the near future. What this would be great for is everywhere in the country that AT&T, etc don't care to build the last mile. There are plenty of places where Fiber is one street over, but AT&T or other company deems it not worth running the line to you. Then you have the people in the sticks who can't get anything better than dial-up / possibly Satellite.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @02:12PM
Please note, these are LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Satellites that are being proposed / launched. They will be approximately 700 miles up instead of approximately 22,000 miles up.
Ars Link with info: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/spacexs-satellite-broadband-nears-fcc-approval-and-first-test-launch/ [arstechnica.com]
"Gigabit speeds, low latency
SpaceX has said it will offer speeds of up to a gigabit per second, with latencies between 25ms and 35ms. Those latencies would make SpaceX's service comparable to cable and fiber. Today's satellite broadband services use satellites in much higher orbits and thus have latencies of 600ms or more, according to FCC measurements.
The demonstration satellites will orbit at 511km, although the operational satellites are planned to orbit at altitudes ranging from 1,110km to 1,325km. By contrast, the existing HughesNet satellite network has an altitude of about 35,400km, making for a much longer round-trip time than ground-based networks.
We asked SpaceX for an update on its satellite broadband plans today, but the company declined to comment.
OneWeb was the first company to seek FCC approval to enter the US broadband market with low-Earth orbit satellites and received approval in June 2017. OneWeb wants to offer service in Alaska as early as 2019. Boeing is also planning to offer satellite broadband."
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:15PM (1 child)
uh, by hovering right over your house. did you read the summary?
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday April 02 2018, @07:26PM
I live right next to a Military exclusion zone, a bombing range and within the border zone with Mexico. I've gotten used to the balloon platform hovering within site, what's one more observer ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:17PM (4 children)
So they got FCC permission. But those satellites orbit the earth and necessarily will cross other countries, possibly disturbing signals there if sending. Does that mean they need permission from all the other countries, too? Or will they switch off communication as soon as a satellite leaves the US borders, until it enters the US again?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Sunday April 01 2018, @08:18AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @02:51PM (2 children)
This isn't much different than existing Satellite Internet. Sure they're "Lots closer", but 700+ miles up is still a really, really long way. Typical commercial aircraft don't go above 30-35k feet (less than 7 miles up). Even most military aircraft don't go much higher. In comparison the SR-71 Blackbird maxed out at around 85k feet. Space is a measly 50-60 miles up, it's the gravity well that extends really, really far. Awesome XKCD https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/File:gravity_wells.png [explainxkcd.com]
Looking up info for this answer really put the earth into perspective for me. The atmosphere that's keeping us all alive isn't "very high".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 02 2018, @06:52PM (1 child)
The relevant point is not the height as such. As long as it is not in the geostationary orbit, it will move over other countries, and as long as it sends strong enough to allow internet connections from earth, it has the ability to disturb other signals there (this includes in particular signals from other, geostationary satellites).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @07:51PM
Again, something that hasn't caused a problem with existing Satellite Internet Providers. Either, this is something they work around, they also provide service in those areas, or isn't a problem. It's entirely possible that existing Satellite Providers workaround this issue simply by stopping transmission when the satellite is out of range of the area they provide service. It just seems like you're trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"