I signed up for starling last month. Excited about the proposed speed and bandwidth.
Being a fan of Musk and his accomplishments I look forward to giving this system a go.
I live in rural Appalachia and the options have been bleak to say the least.

Big Brother or Skynet, your pick.

Looks like it performs pretty good! ALso good explanations how it works.

quote:

Originally posted by Xer0:
Looks like it performs pretty good! ALso good explanations how it works.

Ya know, I was originally going to post that video, but since Linus is kind of an 'acquired taste' so to speak, I opted for another video instead. You are right though, Linus does a very good overview and test of the system.

Stay tuned, my bet is Marques Brownlee (MKBHD on YouTube) is likely to put out a good video on Starlink given how close he's been with Musk over the past few years.

This should be a game-changer for all you poor saps stuck out in East Jabip with dial up speeds!

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:

I checked into starlink last year & it was unavailable. Now it says late 2021 for my address.
$600 bucks for hardware (shipping & tax) + $99 a month is a little salty, but I'll likely try it for >10X what I currently have.

At those prices, I'll pass.

What are the expected speeds?

Still think there was a terrestrial solution with microwave links that would have been far cheaper than a bunch of rocket launches and disposable satellites.

I admire him for his manned space program and his desire to get back to the job and Mars but as an amateur astronomer Starlink is a massive disappointment and his joke of a ‘solution’ is an insult.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Still think there was a terrestrial solution with microwave links that would have been far cheaper than a bunch of rocket launches and disposable satellites.

I admire him for his manned space program and his desire to get back to the job and Mars but as an amateur astronomer Starlink is a massive disappointment and his joke of a ‘solution’ is an insult.

Cell phones have been around for 30+ years. Cell towers are built all the time with no hardwired connection to anything, using microwave links to talk to other towers until they can reach a backbone connection.

There are still huge swaths of the United States, much less third world countries, with little or no cell service.

Not to mention that a satellite system covers the ocean and planes (Starlink receivers are already on SpaceX ships and the US Military has tested them on several large aircraft), and also not to mention that the people on the conservation-minded to eco-nut spectrum would probably have a big problem with towers, batteries, solar arrays (since we're trying to cover places with no power distribution system), etc., every 10 miles through every national park, wildlife reservation, and so on, and even with towers every 10 miles, there would be tons of dead zones in areas of rugged terrain.

Your presumption is that every square inch of the planet needs coverage. My opinion is that there are large areas of the planet that doesn’t need coverage and that actually makes those places desirable.

As for the military, I am pretty sure they have their own communications well in hand long before Musk came on the scene

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Your presumption is that every square inch of the planet needs coverage. My opinion is that there are large areas of the planet that doesn’t need coverage and that actually makes those places desirable.

As for the military, I am pretty sure they have their own communications well in hand long before Musk came on the scene

It's a little disingenuous to say there's a much easier terrestrial solution when the solution you envision is a solution to a different problem.

On the subject of military use, I used the military's Starlink-on-aircraft tests as an example that Starlink can be used for broadband internet on aircraft. The fact that it was the military that did those tests is irrelevant.

Not really. Given the cost of each satellite, the cost of the launch vehicle and the cost of the launch itself, every single dollar could be spent on building terrestrial infrastructure.

Each satellite it estimated to dust about $1 million and the cost of the vehicle is about $90 million with launch costs of around $50 million.

That can buy a lot of towers and fiber optic

The Starlink launches so far have been 60 satellites each (or so), so let's call it $2 million to build one and get it to space. With about 40,000 planned satellites, that's $80 billion.

According to one site I found on Google, a cell tower costs around $100,000 to $350,000 to build, and according to another, the US currently has over 300,000 of them.

Let's average the build cost to $225,000.

300,000 cell towers at $225,000 each is $67 billion... and that doesn't even cover the entire United States, which is only 6-7% of the Earth's land area.

It also ignores that building a tower in the middle of nowhere where there aren't any workers or existing infrastructure would be a lot more expensive than building another one in a city or next to an interstate.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Each satellite it estimated to dust about $1 million and the cost of the vehicle is about $90 million with launch costs of around $50 million.

That can buy a lot of towers and fiber optic

I'm not sure where you got the costs from, but from what I can tell the military is paying $90 million a launch because they don't want reused boosters. With the reused boosters it costs about $28 million a launch "and that's with everything" is what the article says.

Another cost reduction is that Space X has a "ride share" program where another company can launch a satellite when they launch the star link satellites. So if it costs $28 million to launch and star link launches 55 satellites and one for DirecTV, they can charge DirecTV $10 million and take another 1/3 off the costs off the launch.

Am I reading that right? 40,000 planned satellites? I don’t foresee any issues with that. It will be the next “green” project to clean up that shit. Or is the plan to degrade the orbits at lifespan and they re-enter? Seems like shit will get stuck up there either way. 40,000. I got to do some reading.

After a little reading it sounds like a space based planetary shield to protect from alien invasions aren’t too far behind. That is a shit ton of stuff in orbit. 60 satellites per launch. Yikes.

The satellites are at orbital heights where if a satellite dies, it is expected to deorbit and burn up in the atmosphere within 5 years.

And while 40,000 satellites sounds like a whole bunch, it's worth keeping in mind that each satellite is about the size of a car (including its solar panel array) and the orbital shell they are in has a surface area of over 200 million square miles. That's about one satellite per 5,000 square miles.

Reading their material, prior to optimal life they say they will maneuver them into decaying orbit. Also reading their material each satellite weighs 570 lbs.

It sounds like a lot because it is. It will easily be the largest amount of man made junk in space (albeit useful perhaps or not depending on your viewpoint) of all time. Dwarfs the next largest. Would you be so giddy if the PRC was putting 40,000 satellites into orbit?

I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
Your presumption is that every square inch of the planet needs coverage. My opinion is that there are large areas of the planet that doesn’t need coverage and that actually makes those places desirable.

While its nice to disconnect for some people others desire it.

Would it be nice to have a cabin in the mountains and still have internet, I think so. Do I want a cell tower next to my cabin no. I would rather have a satellite in the sky I would never know is there then my neighbor renting his land for a cell tower. Its the best of both worlds.