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posted by chromas on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the ping6-from-outer-space dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:43AM (13 children)

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:43AM (#660752) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:02AM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:02AM (#660754) Homepage Journal

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:36PM (#660830)

      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: 5, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:04AM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:04AM (#660756) Journal

    Geostationary sats [wikipedia.org] orbit at 35,786 km. The Starlink [wikipedia.org] fleet would orbit at 340 km and 1100-1200 km.

    While internet via a geostationary satellite has a latency of no less than 240 ms, the lower latency limit for Starlink orbiting at 1100 km is only 3% of that, about 7 ms.

    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.

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    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:17AM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:17AM (#660760) Journal
      Iridium has a number of years to respond to this. And they might just provide a nice stepping stone to some other business which is entering the market.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:37PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:37PM (#660952) Journal

        Actually I went through the Starlink wikipedia article and it says:

        The system will not compete with Iridium satellite constellation, which is designed to link directly to handsets. 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.

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:26AM

      by Spamalope (5233) on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:26AM (#660801) Homepage

      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)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday April 01 2018, @08:17AM (#661077) Homepage
    I don't understand why you're callig this stupid idea a "broad pipe"? You do realise that you'll be sharing that uplink with over half a million other people? If it's using GHz frequencies, that means its bandwitch will never exceed MBps, and divided by that half million, that means you'll only ever get a few byts per second.
    --
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    • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday April 01 2018, @09:58PM

      by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Sunday April 01 2018, @09:58PM (#661252) Journal

      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.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday April 02 2018, @02:19PM

      by Freeman (732) on Monday April 02 2018, @02:19PM (#661465) Journal

      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

    by Freeman (732) on Monday April 02 2018, @02:12PM (#661462) Journal

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:15PM (#661631)

    uh, by hovering right over your house. did you read the summary?

    • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Monday April 02 2018, @07:26PM

      by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Monday April 02 2018, @07:26PM (#661635) Journal

      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