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FCC Authorizes SpaceX's Ambitious Satellite Internet Plans
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved an application by Elon Musk's SpaceX, allowing the aerospace company to provide broadband services using satellites in the U.S. and worldwide. "With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States," the FCC said in a statement. CNBC reports: This marks the first time the FCC has allowed a U.S.-licensed satellite constellation to provide broadband services through low-Earth orbit satellites. "We appreciate the FCC's thorough review and approval of SpaceX's constellation license. Although we still have much to do with this complex undertaking, this is an important step toward SpaceX building a next-generation satellite network that can link the globe with reliable and affordable broadband service, especially reaching those who are not yet connected," Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer at SpaceX said in a statement.
SpaceX will begin launching the constellation it dubbed "Starlink" in 2019. The system will be operational once at least 800 satellites are deployed. Starlink will offer broadband speeds comparable to fiber optic networks.The satellites would offer new direct to consumer wireless connections, rather the present system's redistribution of signals, transforming a traditionally high-cost, low reliability service.
SpaceX will begin launching the constellation it dubbed "Starlink" in 2019. The system will be operational once at least 800 satellites are deployed. Starlink will offer broadband speeds comparable to fiber optic networks.The satellites would offer new direct to consumer wireless connections, rather the present system's redistribution of signals, transforming a traditionally high-cost, low reliability service.
There's a lot yet to be revealed. If this system really requires a pizza-box-sized antenna, it's good for home use and some automotive use (that would fit fine on an RV, etc.) and a lot of uses that currently use a cellular modem. But consider that Elon might be attempting to do an end-run around all of the world's cellular telephony companies. If there's enough system gain to use a cell-phone-sized antenna, it's a real game changer.
If you believe Elon (and we know not to always believe him), this is going to pay for Mars. If it works with a handheld terminal, maybe it could.
Bruce Perens.
Signals in copper and fiber do not travel at light speed (in a vacuum). Radio signals in space do.
So eventually, a mesh network of satellites might actually have lower ping times than fiber connections.
As side note, for the average (consumer) internet connection, most latency is in buffer bloat, not in signal traveling time. As anecdotal evidence, I frequently have faster connections to servers at the other side of the Atlantic than to servers in my own country.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
"With this action, the Commission takes another step to increase high-speed broadband availability and competition in the United States," the FCC said in a statement
Increase competition!?!?! Wasn't Ajit Pai was put in charge of the FCC precisely to prevent such a catastrophe from befalling the existing well established structures of localised telecommunications monopolies? Competition on a nationwide level would seriously impair their ability to shaft the consumer!
the satellite will still need to relay to another satellite at least once before it gets to the ground and back
Why? Seems to me that there should be plenty of instances where your signal path is just you -> satellite -> ground station.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Even if it is around 100ms ping, that's good enough for most Internet usage (especially if the jitter is low). Outside of FPS/MOBA players, who really cares about sub 100ms pings anyway?
If it is cheap and bandwidth is high this could be a game changer for a lot of places. If you are currently on fibre of course you don't care, this (probably) won't beat that, but if you are living in the outback with shitty 1mbit DSL, then this could be huge. And that's a huge potential customer base that right now doesn't have a lot of great options, plus depending on just how good this is, there are also a lot of folks living in cities with poor connections due to contention that might be interested.
Musk seems to have more ambitious projects that one single human being could handle alone.
That's why he hires people. Very little of consequence in this world is ever done by a single person. We Americans tend to like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists but the reality is that we depend heavily on each other for even the most basic of necessities.
Elon's job is not to do these projects but rather to hire the people who can do them. Think of his job like that of Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs. He allocates capital, set a direction for the company, and hire the right people to make it happen, and sells the vision of the company. He likes to get involved with the engineering because that helps him understand how well his employees are doing their job (and because its fun) - similar to Steve Jobs in that respect but that isn't his real job. Elon's real job is to provide capital where it is needed, hire the right people, and to act as chief sales person. And he seems to be rather good at that.
Indeed. Satellite-satellite relays are a minority of traffic, not the majority. Where possible, the communication is a single hop - between the user and a base station located on an internet backbone. Now, this station may be a significant distance from the user, but it's all still line-of-sight.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
5000 ms is to the Moon and Back TWICE. Where do you think the Starlink satellites are going to be? You are orders of magnitude wrong with these ping times.
They picked "Starlink"? I mean, this is literally a "Skynet". Hope it wasn't licensing that stopped them.
Er.. the velocity factor in CAT-7 equates to about 3/4 of c in a vacuum.That's close to the best copper can do. Fiber has a refractive index which results in about 2/3 light speed for signal propagation.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.