For the dishes: I don’t know the details of the 2 systems, but is there no way to retrofit the Starlink dishes to use Eutelsat’s constellation? I mean if we exclude the legal IP mess for reverse-engineering the electronics and software.
Yes, but:
Increased by 3.9X.
This is why I will never be rich. I never see business opportunities to buy tons of stock and act upon them.
You also need a ton of money to invest or you’re just getting pocket change.
Even if I would see them I probably wouldn’t have enough money to benefit of of them
invest in community run broadband instead
Yes, but the surge is for Ukraine and Europe is gearing up to defend itself. It’s easier for Ruzzia to take out community broadband than it is satellites in orbit around earth.
And it’s harder to do both at once.
Of course it did, While we are at it, are there any programmes that aim to clean up space junk ?
People neglect that problem. There is so much garbage flying out there at such high speeds that unless something is done, we will never be able to have functional satellites or space launches again.
Elon’s StarLink WILL accelerate the Kessler syndrome, also reminder that the Nazi literally put a tesla-sized space-junk in space
I actually remember that. When I saw the car in space I thought it was a reference to the 1980 movie Heavy Metal. This was when I first learned about Elon.
Sat internet is so overhyped. As it’s limited by physics cell towers will always outperform them. Simple as that.
- cities - cables and 5g
- country side - 4g and cables in high concentration areas
- middle of nowhere or war zones - low orbit sats.
This is purely a security issue not a consumer one.
Spoken like a true spoiled city person Good luck getting the necessary infrastructure built (cables, towers, et al) to really remote places. It’s probably more expensive in the long run than having a satellite constellation.
Good luck? Most of the world is already there. I had 3g in deep jungles of Thailand last weekend and even in the most remote places in China have wire these days.
The main point is that sat is limited by physics so cell towers and wire are upgrades over sat so it makes much more sense to start with better technology now as we’ll never need less connection.
Counterpoint: even an hour out from Oslo there are people relying on Starlink
And wires are not bound by physics? To run cables over such long distances you have to boost the signal at periodic distances to avoid voltage drops and noise
If we can figure out how to put them on the bottom of the ocean and pipelines over just about any terrain, I think we can figure this out
Yes and we can also use a solution which requires absolutely no cables and digging at all, and that doesn’t disrupt any natural environments and occupies land.
And yes I’m aware of the impact satellites have on the atmosphere. There’s no free lunch.
Because building space ports and rocket launches have 0 impact as well.
But you acknowledge this, so what’s your point? Why pay a techno billionaire when we can publicly fund cables way cheaper and more friendly?
Oh I’m all for Musk to eat shit. I was arguing that satellites are better, not starlink in particular. Lemmy seems to have issues separating their (valid) hate for muskrat with some of his companies or related technologies. And OP was arguing that cell towers are an improvement over satellites? Wth
Why can’t we have a publicly funded satellite constellation?
Idk i live in a country where we have wifi in some forests and free wifi in every large city. And we’re an ex soviet shithole.
Americans honestly think their shitty infrastructure is the best in the world.
Infrastructure can be a real problem in some places.
I’m currently on a mountain and since they upgraded to a hybrid satellite/cable system the speeds have skyrocketed. Laying cable/towers is just not viable, especially with dense rock peaks blocking line of sight.
Also I have coworkers in Nigeria who lose internet multiple times a day (and often don’t have the bandwidth for a video call) but most of them have bitten the bullet and paid the high up-front cost to get starlink at home. And now can do HD video calls with zero interruption (unless they have power issues, but that’s a whole other thing).
So I think there’s a lot of use-cases for sattelite, especially for people who aren’t considered worth the investment in non-sattelite infrastructure.
It’s just unfortunate that yeah, space junk is going to one day (suddenly) be a massive problem.
Edit: ah I may have replied to the wrong comment
So much space junk….
If only I wasn’t too chicken shit to start investing… I was looking at Eutelsats stocks earlier in the week. But it’d be my first steps on the market so decided against it.
I finally got brave enough to do it. Between August and January I had made over 800%.
Trump has ruined that for me. Oh well.
I’m not even sure how, it seems like its kind of wealth gated because you have to be able to make enough from your investments to cover brokerage fees. I’m not aware of any non US retail investment platform that doesn’t have a regular fee to pay.
Trading212.
Unpopular opinion: we don’t need freaking internet from satellites, just get cat6 in every home and everyone is happy. I’m sure the cost would be lower then having to launch 999999.91 satellites to have similar speeds
Satellites are not there for speed, but breadth
cat 6 in every home lol. you have any idea about range of cat 6? I mean, any?
~50m for cat6, ~100 cat6a, enough to get you to a switching box where you connect to fiber.
This would work in the US on the coasts and in the cities.
Even the eastern parts of the west coast states the math gets bad. Running cables over/mountains to service the poorest 10% of the states population.
Getting into the square states you have 10s of thousands of miles of mountains and deserts to get to a vanishing small number of people. There are twice as many people in my city as there are in the entire state of Wyoming and we are the third largest city in Texas.
Are you really going to run cables all over an area of the alps but the size of France to bring service to a number of people equivalent to one midsize city? Most of it is protected national Park people don’t even live in.
Most of Nevada is uninhabited desert with some of the hottest temperatures on earth.
We can leave half of Texas empty and still have service for 95% of the population.
It’s not as simple as “just do it” over here. We have huge problems, but the challenges are legit.
I know that cable is not a solution for everyone but most of the humans like to live in communities, yes there’s are exception. Wiki says US population is about 80% in urban
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States
You realize the most significant use of satellite internet right now is Ukraine, right? Like you’re aware that this has almost nothing to do with the US and is about starlink/Elon fucking with Ukraine and the internet they provide the military fighting in a war. Right? Like you’re not that oblivious, right? You’re not jumping in here suggesting they lay cat6 in a warzone are you? Cus that would just be foolish and make you look like a jackass, which I’m sure you’re not.
Obviously I’m not suggesting Ukraine should use cat6 or fiber, but those are exceptional situation and that’s a military use case.
I meant for day to day use, most people already live in urban area are satellites don’t make sens
So again, this isn’t for day to day use. It’s for extreme situations, like being on top of a mountain where laying lines is difficult and warzones where explosions are constantly destroying your infrastructure.
You’re speaking out of your ass. Even if we just talk about the US, “most people already live in an urban area” is false. Have you seen the Midwest?!? Rocky mountains? Appalachian mountains? You’re so beyond ignorant of the issue and you just keep doubling down.
You should stop before you continue to expose your gross ignorance on the subject.
oh I didn’t know there’s a fiber box in 100m at any place in the country! tell that to my ISP who cant serve any internet through the landline telephone cable because it’s too far from distribution! oh and also to all the customers of microwave wireless networks.
and this doesn’t even need to be on the countryside! It’s a problem here even in villages that the ISP is not allowed to run any cables on the high voltage electric poles!
Oh so now there’s also fiber is there?
Obviously there is fiber, copper is usually “last mile”. Its cheaper to have a long fiber and short copper. Copper more or less anyone can install, fiber is more specialized.
I’m not proposing to reinvent the wheel, just continue what has proven to work.
You don’t seem to be getting it. Where is the fiber coming from? These properties almost certainly have only copper the whole way, so in order to upgrade them to decent internet they would have to completely relay the fiber line, and unlike copper, fiber requires electricity so then they have to lay an electrical line as well. It’s like a whole thing.
It’s only economically viable to do that when there’s going to be a large population density at the other end for small rural locations it really isn’t worth it.
Your opinion is not unpopular, it is simply uninformed.
Copper at decent speeds requires more signal amplification then fiber
Single-Mode Fiber (SMF): Max Length: Up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) or more without needing signal boosters or amplifiers
The Australian government is heavily criticised for half-assing fibre internet because they did copper to the house in most cases. We still, a decade later, have one of the worst internet in the western world.
I think satellites are likely much cheaper to deliver internet to a whole continent than trying to run bloody copper.
Exactly! Amazon can ship it to you for like 10 bucks. Problem solved!
You need to plug it into something though. If you are on a boat, what are you going to plug into?
For my house I use a 4G router and a combination of ethernet and wifi over the LAN. 4G is also fine for kayaking, but if I had a larger boat that went further out and for longer I would probably consider satellite options.
You do if you’re fighting a war against Putin and the ketamine troll is threatening to turn off your internet.
Now get rid of the home and the cable, how do you cover 99.9% of the earth? Nomads need satellite, and so do rural homes too far from an isp fiber/copper endpoint But yes, if starlink has it done, why double the satellites to do it again with a different name? Because it’s easier to launch 1000 more satellites than dismantle the system that enables such feats.
There are remote areas where cable won’t reach. For example, I need surveillance on a remote farm and I would love to get internet there.
Cable will reach anywhere. There is not such a place that cable “will not reach”. Is there a profit incentive to serve you as a customer in a capitalist system? Maybe not. But cable will reach.
The cost of a cable to a remote cabin is clearly not worth it either when you can just use a 4G antenna instead at a fraction of the cost. Ships won’t even be able to reach 4G signals.
Not sure if you are in Europe, but in the US there are places where you could walk the width of Germany and see 100 houses. It does not serve to be technically correct here. Also, how would that work with boats / other vehicles and places without infrastructures?
There are exceptions, but in most cases (in Europe) hardwire should work fine. The problem is that starlink is advertised for any use case.
Their are villages in rural England who don’t have fiber. It wouldn’t be cost-effective delay it for the six customers that require it.
In a lot of these places the best option is 4G. In a previous job we setup a small area with 4G internet and it was both faster and cheaper than what BT was providing.
Massive farmhouse and surrounding buildings that had all been converted into separate homes, not sure exactly how many people lived there, somewhere around 15 or so. There was also a functioning farm there as well which was why we set it up, the total LAN covered an area like half a km wide. Connecting everyone up with 4G was a cheap side benefit to the main project so it only cost like £100 extra.
Well, cable will not reach a warzone which is a rather pertinent use for a satellite communication system at present.
You’d need signal boosters at regular intervals, which need power… so now you’re running multiple cables.
But you can’t run them too close together as the power will induce noise in the data cable.
And after a long distance even the power needs boosting.
And to protect the cables, you’d need to bury them or put them on poles. Separately.
At a certain point, cable becomes the expensive option…
Usually fiber is used between cities and in cities and copper is for the “last mile”. Usually there is a switching box for the street / building complex
You still need signal reconditioning for fibre too, which needs power…
I know where you’re coming from, but not everywhere is populated enough, so these alternatives exist.
I know plent of places in my European country where cable does reach, but was made for landline phones and cannot carry any data for internet because its so far from the nearest distribution center. even wireless like microwave can’t sustain more than a quality camera feed
One broken cable can result in a city/town without internet. Speaking from experience.
Also satellites have other uses like GPS
I doubt they use the same satellites for GPS
I understand, but that is the exception. Even in your case probably getting 4G / 5G to that area would be cheaper / easier long term. Also Europe has a relatively high density compared with other continents
I’m in Italy and outside cities, the Internet is still horrendous. And as I said, if you have a remote farm or garden, which are fairly common here, then you are on your own. Sim based internet is a thing, but there are monthly limits which are risky when you need surveillance and automation to be always live.
4G or 5G would still be a better cheaper alternative, I’m not sure what bandwidth a starlink / whatever other alternative but my guess is that is much lower then a classic cell tower.
Cell towers usually have multiple directional antennas, smaller coverage but much cheaper to maintain. Also can be fixed, can be upgraded to next generation. Satellites are pretty much one time use, can’t be upgraded, can’t be fixed, if something goes wrong the solution is to burn and send another one.
Cat 6A caps out at like 330 ft. Also thats a ton of copper.
Fiber optic nonprofit utilities makes more sense in cities and in rural areas we should just subsidize cell phone data plans.
I didn’t say that cat6 should be used everywhere, usually is just for “last mile delivery” get it from your home to a switching box that has fiber.
Bring back ethernet jacks on phones!
Not unpopular but I think they are just trying to grab some of SpaceX market share in this space (no pun intended). I agree cable is better but these folks are trying to make money.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Canadian telesat LEO system will be capable of. They’re supposed to be launching satellites next year and are using a higher orbit so will need much fewer satellites than starlink.
But sadly increased latency. Also don’t hold your breath on Canada telecom anything, we have a history of being the worst at it.
I don’t mind a bit more latency (should still be nicely below 100ms) but my use case is more related to mid-Atlantic mobile connectivity than remote region broadband.
Their planned implementation just seems much better than others with beam shaping, linked satellites and less than 200 satellites to maintain and replace.
Although you’re not wrong about our telecom track record…
Your internet and mobile phone service kicks the UKs arse.
Oh no, oh dear everything no. Maybe in a few cities sure, but where I am I literally have no functioning internet anymore (they let the lines degrade below 1 Mbps) and have massive patches where cell phones don’t work at all (love when I hit a antelope and have to stand on the roof of my car to maybe get enough signal to call a tow).
Like no joke we have the worst and most expensive telecom in the developed (and a lot of the developing) world.
I should have considered the fact that I was always within an hour or so of Toronto.
The GTA is not really indicative of Canada at this point. It is the center of the universe after all…
No, appreciated. I had heard good things though.
Maybe from Telus/Rogers/Bell media. Its an issue really, the pro Canadian telecom propaganda is very much a thing here. I am told I have “great internet available” even where I am and then if I try to actually get it they ether say never mind or try and give me a cell modem. I am not alone on this ether, its a major issue.
To be fair two cans and a piece of string kicks the UKs arse when it comes to telecommunications.
Yup. Thanks Thatcher.
Bye bye future space launches once we have full or partial Kessler syndrome.
Bye bye earth based astronomy.
But dang this tech is so much better than Hughesnet
<ButtonPressingMeme>
Kessler syndrome doesn’t really apply for purely LEO satellites. They all burn up in a single digit amount of years.
It’s not something to worry about yet.
On the contrary, I think it is something to avoid. Imagine letting a single person ground all space launches for 9 years. And all the pollution that adds to the atmosphere. All the junk landing on people’s farms or houses.
It doesn’t work that way. I dislike Elon as much as the next sane person but we don’t need to invent new reasons to dislike him on top of all of the bad reasons that exist.
What evidence do you have? I’m going of of what experts are saying on the fediverse:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-starlink-could-cause-cascades-of-space-junk/
It does work this way, and Starlink is waging a PR campaign that it’s no big deal.
This is true at 500km altitude, but not so at higher LEO altitudes.
Is starlink business model like uber/airbnb? Killing the market with low prices by circumventing regulations to establish their monopoly?
No, it just vertical integration. You need to send up rockets to make money, so you make sure they never have an empty slot on them by filling it yourself. You get enough satellites up, then you have a revenue generating payload you can send up steady from then on.
Then it is a monopoly building if you take the limited slots before others companies 😁
I was wondering because starlink’s terminals are around $500 while eutelsat’s are 10k. It seems it can be only possible if you accept massive losses on first years, with help of to investors to keep the company running, to take down competitors. Like uber and many others did, which had years of losses before having income.
SpaceX isn’t an Uber model, its a goverment leech model. It’s had heavily, heavily goverment subsidies to the tune of 18 billion dollars over its 10yr lifetime.
Terminal prices are likely just an economy of scale issue. Much cheaper per unit to make 100,000 than 1,000. Im sure as eutelsat grows the prices will come down.
If Eutelsat and the EU rocket program get 18 billion in goverment investment like SpaceX, im betting they can also accelerate all of the above.
SpaceX doesnt have a moat, it just has the lead. Rocket labs in new Zealand is already hot on their tails. No reason the EU cant join or surpass them.
What will they launch on? Star Link is barely feasible because they can launch at cost on falcon 9.
Look up Ariane 6. It’s still more costly than the Falcon 9 but who in their right mind would trust the numbers Elon is sharing? Seems like they both cost around 100million $ per launch. Elon is claming 30million per launch and that he will make it cost 2 million…
Yeah I’m familiar with Ariane 6. It costs almost double what SpaceX changes external customers per launch, not even counting that their internal rate would be even lower. Plus you’d need more launches since the payload capacity is lower. You’d end up paying 3x or more the cost. At that point, why not just buy falcon 9 launches? Otherwise it seems like there’d be very little way to compete.
Good. Fuck Starlink.
