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SpaceX's Starlink division is on track to offer satellite-broadband service in the United States in mid-2020, a company official said today. Meanwhile, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted two tweets that show he's testing the broadband service.
"Sending this tweet through space via Starlink satellite," Musk wrote. Two minutes later, Musk sent a followup tweet that said, "Whoa, it worked!!"
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SpaceX launched 60 satellites in May this year to test the system before preparing for a wider deployment. The company has FCC permission to deploy up to 11,943 satellites and is seeking permission to launch as many as 30,000 more.
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"We need 24 launches to get global coverage," Shotwell said. "Every launch after that gives you more capacity." SpaceX previously said it could make 24 Starlink launches in 2020.
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While SpaceX has said it intends to provide gigabit speeds and latency as low as 25ms, a big unanswered question is how much it will cost. SpaceX is apparently still trying to figure that out."Shotwell said millions of people in the US pay $80 per month to get 'crappy service,'" SpaceNews reported. "She didn't say whether Starlink will cost more or less than $80 per month but suggested that would be a segment of the public the company would target as well as rural areas that currently have no connectivity."
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There are some other interesting tidbits in the SpaceNews article. SpaceX wants to offer Starlink both to home Internet users and the US government, and the company is already testing with the US Air Force Research Laboratory. "So far, SpaceX has demonstrated data throughput of 610Mbps per second in flight to the cockpit of a US military C-12 twin-engine turboprop aircraft," the SpaceNews article said.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/elon-musk-sends-tweet-via-spacexs-starlink-satellite-broadband/
https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @12:39PM (3 children)
I wannit, I wannit, I wannit ... gimme gimme gimme!
Seriously, there are millions of people living or wanting to live in places that have no internet access or only shit internet that costs more for less. There are places that have NO connections at all and you require traveling to another city to get a connection, even just to make a regular phone call.
For example, in Canada, there are places which have no reliable Internet connection and no cell phone coverage, at all. People have died because of this lack of connectivity yet it's always too expensive to do anything about it. SpaceX immediately provides a solution here.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @12:50PM
That's a good point. One way or another you should be able to get it within the next few years. If not from Starlink, then maybe OneWeb or Amazon/Blue Origin.
I didn't sub this one because they said they were already testing Starlink by playing some online game, back when they launched Tintin A and B. Yup, here it is:
https://www.inverse.com/article/50380-spacex-test-internet-satellites-video-games-youtube [inverse.com]
The cool part is that they may test Starships by repeatedly launching Starlink. Which means much cheaper launch costs than burning up Falcon 9 upper stages, and it would build confidence in Starship. Satellite (flatsat) costs may be an issue, but they say they only need a fraction of the planned constellation to begin offering service. If the cost ends up at $100,000 per satellite, that's $5 billion for 50,000, which is not terrible if they are generating revenue.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:16PM (1 child)
Gimme a Starlink signal so I can figure out how to hack it from my bedroom for free unlimited internet forever.
Damn right.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 24 2019, @02:54PM
Maybe for just one night, you could give up the net and watch Rebo and Zooty instead?
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:13PM (6 children)
Is there anything published on how they are routing packets?
(L2, L3, predetermined from the ground or autonomous in orbit, etc)
The paths they have so far could be Ground, Sat, Ground (GSG) or Ground, Sat, ..., Sat, Ground (GSSSSG)
Eventually, the will have more orbits up, so it it will take notation to also show hops from one to another.
Is there an IP address you can do traceroute to?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:25PM (1 child)
You don't need to contact a looking glass server, see, because TFS told you gigabit speed with 25ms latency. The only question you should be asking is how much to pay for the privilege of using Musk satellite internet. Open your wallet.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:36PM
My ATT gigabit doesn't get that.
Musk should be making a lot of entrenched $CORPS very nervous.
Just think of the many captive consumer options we are exposed to, and then some guy says "its 60 miles about wherever you are".
Amazing...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:31PM
The initial ~62 satellites they launched did not have satellite-to-satellite communications capability, and we don't know if the next batch of 60 will have it.
The rest of the details should become more clear when they are actually offering service. I wouldn't worry about it until pricing is announced and service begins. Then you can read reviews of the service and get answers about the nuts and bolts.
My guess is that they don't want even their subsidiary/secondary company (SpaceX Services, Inc.) to handle the responsibilities and customer service of a real ISP, so aside from big customers like high frequency traders and the U.S. Air Force, users will be handled by middlemen/resellers/MVNOs instead. But that is just a guess.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:32PM (2 children)
Yes.
https://hackaday.com/2019/05/20/everything-we-know-about-spacexs-starlink-network/ [hackaday.com]
It's GSSSSSSSSG
There will be no intermediate G between satellite connection. It actually doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, you will be switching between satellites on an ongoing bases. We are talking maybe 1 minute per satellite here. The connections will obviosuly use phased array antennas.. Connection between satellites will use lasers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array [wikipedia.org]
Sadly, this will take a few years.
PS. Currently they are just testing things which of course would only have a few satellites and missing its main features. R&D like this is not fast
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:03PM (1 child)
Thanks, the Hackaday link is pretty clear. They have no bird to bird comms yet, so the routing is more like GSGGGGSGGGSG.
That could provide some internet access to regions limited by the availability of ground stations.
It seems unlikely to provide much in the low latency arena.
I wonder if these reduced capability sats qualify towards the minimum on orbit number needed for the FCC?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 24 2019, @06:16PM
Even if they didn't, I don't think it's a problem.
They will transition to Starship for launches, likely fitting hundreds in very comfortably, with each launch being much cheaper than a Falcon 9 launch. They could launch using the same fully reusable Starship as fast as they can build the satellites.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation) [wikipedia.org]
The minimum amount they need seems really low. 2,200 sats could be less than 10 Starship flights, or 37 Falcon 9s (a bad scenario that requires lots of upper stages to be built, but doable). I guess it has gotten complicated because they have changed their plans multiple times.
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