Elon Musk Says Starlink Internet Private Beta To Begin In Roughly Three Months, Public Beta In Six (techcrunch.com) 55
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that a private beta for the company's Starlink satellite internet service would begin in around three months, with a public beta to kick off roughly three months after that. TechCrunch reports: The initial beta test will apply to those located in "high latitudes," Musk added. To date, SpaceX has said that Starlink service will initially be made available to customers in Canada and in the northern United States in 2020, with additional service expansion to follow to other parts of the world throughout 2021. On Twitter in response to a question about whether Germany counts as "high latitude," Musk said that it does, indicating beta service at least may be available in more markets than the U.S. and Canada ahead of next year. Yesterday, SpaceX launched another big batch of Starlink satellites, bringing the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to 422.
probably the reason for high latitudes (Score:2)
Say you can only do a 10-15 degree band if you say hit down to Philli and up to Quebec city, you'll get 80% or so of Canada's population, 1/4 or so of the US, and swing that around the globe, you get spain, uk, france, germany, poland, etc all the white 'stans, northern China etc.
Re:probably the reason for high latitudes (Score:4, Interesting)
It sounds like you're envisioning a high-angle geosynchronous orbit but these'll be in LEO, whipping around the planet in just a few minutes. As such, they should cover provide coverage pretty much everywhere, assuming enough of 'em.
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just a few minutes
Translation: 20min, give or take
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Yeah true. Think the whole point of the whole globe not being covered though is that initially there won't be enough of them. I can't really figure out what the orbit paths are assuming they pass through one of Space X's launch locations. They are all too far south, unless they were going on a much more north south direction instead of east'ish west'ish. But if they did that they wouldn't hit Germany. Maybe they maneuver their orbit a lot off of great circles aligned with the launch site? Don't know.
Re:probably the reason for high latitudes (Score:4, Informative)
Click "Live Map" [findstarlink.com] up top.
Here is a simulation [youtube.com] someone has done for nearly full constellation (video is addressing the lack of inter-sat comms though).
I'm not sure what you call Starlink's orbit type, but OneWeb's are polar orbits [n2yo.com]. OneWeb is bankrupt at the moment though.
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That YouTube video gets a few things wrong, but if you freeze the video at around 3 minutes [youtu.be] you can get an idea of the current satellite coverage. Unfortunately, one of the things the video gets wrong is it shows the orbital planes rotating with the Earth. Thats not how it works. If you imagine the paths of the satellites to be fixed, and the Earth rotating underneath them, then you'll see that right now the only places with coverage most or all of the time are the bands at around 40 to 50 degress north and
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The earth is rotating under the orbital planes in his video, it's just moving much more slowly than the actual satellites (about 20 minutes for a starlink sat to orbit the earth vs the earth rotating once every 24 hours). For instance, watch from 3:22 - 3:47 and look at the orbit paralleling the SoCal/Baja coastline and you'll see he has the orbits moving separately from the earth beneath. Then he speeds it up and it becomes more evident. He just does a spinning pan shot once for effect.
Latency (Score:2)
Thanks for the link. I was surprised to see that the total latency would be LOWER with the satellites faster intra-satellite laser communication than sending it over ground via fiber-optic.
For some reason - I was thinking that the distance up to the satellite and back would take a long time -silly , I know. But I guess the fiber optic has to run all over the place, avoiding obstacles, connections,relays, etc.
Seems almost counterintuitive that sending it up to the satellite would be faster, but I gu
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The speed of light through glass is also slower than through air or space. On ground yeah you go all over the place not straight line, but also all the coupling points I assume introduce their own delays, ie you might be fiber to the local phone company office's router internally electric, then converted back to light out to the next hop. Those conversions will add latency. Satellites might be able to do the full transfer in a single hop. Light from one satellite to another, converted once internally and br
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They are all too far south, unless they were going on a much more north south direction instead of east'ish west'ish.
You've got it backwards; while the latitude of your launch-site is largely irrelevant for polar orbits, to achieve orbits that are parallel with the equator, it's ideal to launch from the equator.
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That assumption is unwarranted. If you could only burn a rocket once in a single direction and your payloads had no maneuverability, perhaps you could end up in such a scenario. But not only can Falcon 9 do multiple burns to change orbit, but the Starlinks use their onboard krypton thrusters to move hundreds of miles from where they initially deploy.
I'm in (Score:1)
I can't wait. I hope it works in my Tesla.
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Just wait, that will surely come, at least for the bigger ones. I actually like this service, just because say what you want about Musk, compared to Comcast or AT&T he's a freaking angel.
I'd really like to get a SolarCity roof one day, once they stop lighting houses on fire, together with a powerwall, but that whole system requires an internet connection to work. So, if power goes out in the neighborhood for long, your own power will deactivate itself when it can't phone home for a day or two. But wi
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I'd really like to get a SolarCity roof one day, once they stop lighting houses on fire, together with a powerwall, but that whole system requires an internet connection to work. So, if power goes out in the neighborhood for long, your own power will deactivate itself when it can't phone home for a day or two.
Solar City is no more, it is Tesla that developed the roof.
We have a solar city/tesla panels and only installs that continue to have Amphenol connectors have issues. IOW, none of the new installs over the last few years have had issues.
Also, you do not need an internet connection for your power to stay on..
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Also, you do not need an internet connection for your power to stay on..
Tesla says an Internet connection is needed [tesla.com]. It may work without such a connection, but how reliably and for how long?
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For example, our electricity will stop automatically if the grid drops. That is built into Tesla solar.
If they add powerall (tried to get it, and they said LONG WAIT) now, it will automatically shift around based on electricity availability, but without internet, I can not manage it based on electricity pricing.
BTW, that link does not go anywhere.
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You need to watch Planet of the Humans (Re:I'm in) (Score:2, Offtopic)
I'd really like to get a SolarCity roof one day
Before you do that you should watch the documentary Planet of the Humans that was produced by Michael Moore. This film shows the environmental damage that the solar power industry is doing.
People keep talking about how the silicon for PV cells comes from sand, but that's not the case. Most sands have too many contaminates for producing PV cells. Where they get this silicon is from quartz. The film shows quartz mines taking apart mountains, kind of like the joke about eating an elephant one bite at a tim
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Before you do that you should watch the documentary Planet of the Humans that was produced by Michael Moore. This film shows the environmental damage that the solar power industry is doing.
Heh, I'm not a Green, if anything I'm a Brown. I like the off-the-grid element of these products. I'd use a coal-fired generator if that were best, but the nice thing about this advancing technology it that it's gradually becoming better than anything fossil-fueled.
It's too bad there isn't a solid solar thermal solution for the greens though, beyond for a water heater. It would never pay for itself, but there's no waste products, or exploited third-world workers, or any of that, and it's way more DIY-fri
High Latitude (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:High Latitude (Score:5, Informative)
One of the factors that skews the perception is the Gulf Stream, I'm from Norway which is in the north of Europe. In fact, if you look at a map it's on the same latitude as Alaska and Siberia but our winters are 6-7C warmer than in Alaska. That for example leads to the UK being mostly soggy rain rather than snow and ice despite being further north than any point in the US lower 48. It's actually colder mid-winter in Chicago than in my hometown despite being over 20 degrees further south. Just to put that in perspective, if you went another 20 degrees you'd be south of Florida.
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Though to be fair, even though we had humidity, you would win that hands down.
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I always find it interesting when Europe is berating others, esp. America, for using AC. Yet, Europe has a nice moderated temperature, compared to say Chicago, where I saw temps go from -40 to 107 F (-40 to 42 C).
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Actually it's the other way around: North America is considerably farther south than most people tend to think. New York City is further south than Rome even, and at approximately the same latitude as Madrid. The whole USA excluding Alaska is further south than the most southern point of my own country, Belgium.
Or rather, what most people tend to think of when one says "most people" very strongly depends on their point of view.
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There's one other thing that people always forget: ground stations. The satellites need ground stations to relay the traffic through. In places where there are no ground stations the traffic will have to go from satellite to satellite until it reaches one that is in range. Latency will be variable depending on where you are.
Anyone know how many ground stations they have yet and where they are?
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Anyone know how many ground stations they have yet and where they are?
SpaceX in 2019 filed for 7 ground stations, so-called "gateway stations" in their architecture, which use 1 meter diameter tracking dishes, all in Ku-band. Their filings indicated they will transition to Ka-band later. Evidently the earliest batches of satellites have no Ka-band transceivers. Corners cut to make the launch schedule.
The original testing ground stations were supposed to be in Redmond, WA; North Bend, WA; Brewster, WA; Hawthorne, CA; Conrad, MT; Merrillan, WI; and Greenville, PA. The FCC f
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Thanks, +1 informative.
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Oh, so they should just instantly have thousands of satellites in orbit before switching anything on for anyone at all?
light pollution FTW (Score:1)
yep
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I've made that complaint before... but Starlink deserves at least some credit for its willingness to try and ameliorate the problem - they're testing different satellite coatings on this most recent launch, seeing if changing the angle of the solar arrays helps, etc.
Competition for Canadian ISPs (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope Canadian ISPs are starting to get nervous. I've got three choices in my rural area for broadband, and they all involve wireless of some kind. Real speeds are anywhere from 10 to 20 Mbit/s down, and a pittance up. Even my cell-based service is limited to 20 (although they give me 20 up). Yet my phone can do 100 easily. If Starlink can get 100 Mbit/s up and down to rural areas, this will indeed be welcome and might pressure the incumbents to let go of some of caps and things.
Re:Competition for Canadian ISPs (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, I'm sure the big incumbent carriers' way of adapting to this will involve lots of money being funneled to various congress-critters.
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They might actually be happy to have Starlink as it will allow them to argue they don't need to serve unprofitable rural areas or spend money upgrading their infrastructure any more. I think that's what BT is hoping in the UK, just delay upgrading the old copper until wireless replaces it and say that's good enough.
They may also be waiting to see if Musk actually delivers. He has a habit of being wildly optimistic on Twitter and then missing goals by years. Even if they do start public beta this year you pr
Censorship EU, China, any Islam nation, USA.. (Score:1)
Re:Censorship EU, China, any Islam nation, USA.. (Score:4, Insightful)
No need to raid homes. Satellite receivers go outside your home if you want to get a decent signal, so they're obvious.
But China, Iran and most countries will simply require SpaceX to route packets to receivers in their country through a ground station which applies any desired spying and censoring. SpaceX is a space company, not a free speech company, so they will no doubt comply.
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But China, Iran and most countries will simply require SpaceX to route packets to receivers in their country through a ground station which applies any desired spying and censoring. SpaceX is a space company, not a free speech company, so they will no doubt comply.
Or more likely not do business in those countries at all for quite some time. SpaceX will be able to fund 6 missions to Mars on the pure hatred of Comcast and Frontier refugees.
High speed trading (Score:2)