Elon musk free internet satellite - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 12:02:34 pm
content: Hi,Is this feasible? any ideas?

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 12:10:29 pm
content: The simplest way to see why this is very unlikely to ever be the case, Is ask, how much data can the bandwidth channels used for a comms satellite handle, and compare it with the coverage area of said satellite.There are very few times the end result would not be something resembling mcdonalds wifi, where it takes 10 minutes to connect, and when you do, your lucky to get multiple digit bits per second.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2018, 10:27:26 pm
content: Even if it is feasible on a technological level, it will be banned by local governments around the world.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 12:09:05 am
content: It's possible, in theory, to design a satellite to transmit many small beams instead of one large one, but putting that into space would be asking a lot. Ground based P2P solutions would be way easier to implement.

author: rrinker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 04:36:27 am
content: I must have missed this - what's he trying to do differently? We already have satellite internet services that beam directly to homes using the same small dishes used for satellite TV. Works reasonably well, too, faster than the absolutely useless "high speed" DSL I am using right now in a somewhat rural area. Only problem is the latency - fine as long as you aren't gaming.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 06:04:26 am
content: Maybe he wanted to put these baby new FPGA's with several 400G Ethernet inside of them, though many countries would complain, but who caresas long as it's free

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 07:32:45 am
content: Quote from: ataradov on December 22, 2018, 10:27:26 pmWhy would it not be feasible? I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it. The only troubling aspect of it is the proposed number of sats, but then the guy is the CEO of a launch provider with highest number of launches in 2018.Why would the governments around the world ban it? It's just another competitor in an existing (and not even new) market.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 07:35:08 am
content: Quote from: Domagoj T on December 23, 2018, 07:32:45 amSee what happened when Facebook tried to launch "free" internet in India.You will have to play by all the local banning rules in places like China or Russia. And even then government will probably not be happy that THEY are not in control of the equipment that provides access. Imagine there is a revolution and the government wants to disable all the means of communication to stop it. Well, Musk may decide to open it even further. And there is nothing local government can do at that moment. So their only option is to not allow it at all.

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 08:28:44 am
content: How is it different than any other satellite based internet service?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 08:33:36 am
content: Quote from: Domagoj T on December 23, 2018, 08:28:44 amLegal entity that provides the service is under control of the government. Even if satellite can broadcast for multiple countries, the only way to get the service is to register with a local ISP.I assume Musk does not want to open a new ISP in each country just to handle the billing.

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 08:49:25 am
content: He had to open offices in countries where Tesla wanted to sell cars. Those cars have to adhere to laws and regulations of countries they are being sold in.I don't see why you would assume he plans to go full Robin Hood when it comes to this.

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 08:54:47 am
content: We'll have see. Car regulations are more or less universal, and US and European ones are the strictest. So one you pass those, you are more or less good everywhere.Telecom laws change all the time. It is not just a simple sales office. In Russia, for example, even local long term ISP have hard time dealing with block lists provided by the government and often things go wrong.But even if he manages to get this to work in the US to begin with, it would be a great start.

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 09:09:16 am
content: And if he can get it operational in US, Canada and EU, he's got most of the market covered. He also gets offshore stuff (oil rigs and ships) thrown in for free.So, there are only three governmental bodies he needs to satisfy, and those are fairly reasonable.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 09:35:14 am
content: I was wildly excited until I realised you didn't mean "Internet free of Elon Musk".Now I am bitterly disappointed!

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 01:33:43 pm
content: It's great PR, promising internet to all, but apparently it requires.. 4425 satellites. Some sources claim 7000http://time.com/5456083/elon-musk-spacex-satellites/Assuming the operation life is what, 7 years? that means at least 12 a week need to be put up there (19 is the upper figure). That's 7 years until completion, and 12 satellites a week for its entire operational life.Granted he could probably put up 40-50 at a time, but that is still a launch every 3 weeks until the projects end of life. Not to mention how crowded it is up there, they would probably be required to have maneuvering capability, which increases their size/cost. Its of course technically feasible, but like many things, is it practical? Also, it won't be free of course, who is paying?

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:05:50 pm
content: Another stupid idea from Musk. Remember, he promised you starting sending tourists to Mars by 2019. He still has a few days to deliver. Any guess how this is going to end up? The CBC radio in Canada called him "full time visionary" for a reason.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:12:10 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on December 23, 2018, 03:05:50 pmStop spreading bullshit he never said.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:15:15 pm
content: Quote from: ataradov on December 23, 2018, 07:35:08 amThere's not much they can do when those satellites are up there. Their only option would be to shoot down the things, which would cause way more of an international uproar than it's worth. Other countries aren't going to be amused by weapons being deployed against communications satellites.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 03:22:38 pm
content: They should be small boards, which they should be self contained, a card like the size of a graphic card which a few 400G Ethernet and multiple 5G connections, would not take that much space, so a rocket lunch could potentially take 100 units of them to space!

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 04:16:30 pm
content: Quote from: ali_asadzadeh on December 23, 2018, 03:22:38 pmAnd don't forget power. Sure the panels are folded for transport, but it will still increase the size. And dont' forget there are already about 2000 comms satellites up there - if he does this he will be increasing this number 3 fold... so Tesla will "own" 60% of all satellites ? It's just a mammoth project that will cost billions. I'd like to see a cost comparison to providing connectivity to remote areas using other methods.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 04:31:44 pm
content: Quote from: Buriedcode on December 23, 2018, 04:16:30 pmFirst of all it's Spacex, not Tesla. Secondly they already got FCC approval. And there aren't 2000 communication satellites.Quote

author: Buriedcode
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 05:17:48 pm
content: About 3700 according to this article:https://talkingpointsmemo.com/idealab/satellites-earth-orbitincluding non-operational ones.I just don't see how they are going to maintain the number of satellites required. Especially if he is planning on providing internet for "free".

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 05:25:59 pm
content: Where does this "free" aspect come from?This thread is the first time I see this claim. I vaguely remember the claim of "affordable", but not free.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 06:03:09 pm
content: I think it was said that only about 10% of the capacity will be for local internet service anyway, but none of it will be free. SpaceX needs the money if they're going to get to Mars any time soon.Since SpaceX haven't launched any test flights to Mars yet, which is what Musk was hoping for back in 2016, it's a good bet that any commercial flight is at least 10 years away.

author: ali_asadzadeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2018, 07:00:44 pm
content: Elon likes AI, and AI likes lots of free Data, so that comes the free internet!try to see the big picture, the only way to compete with google and specially it's AI and it's AD services is providing free internet, then use some new search engine to collect data, train the AI and sell all kinds of things, starting from the ADS to AI services etc... the future is AI, and only giants can survive there

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 05:48:00 am
content: Unless Musk has found a way to massively increase the speed of light, then satellite internet will never compete with terrestrial internet simply due to latency. With modern web servers using HTTPS for everything, there’s a lot of handshaking going on for each HTTPS connection, so high latency kills web page loading performance, even if the actual bandwidth is high. (Same reason why 56K dialup and 56K ISDN had very different performance: ISDN had far lower latency.)People wildly underestimate the importance of low latency for web browsing performance. It’s not just about gaming!

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 06:27:42 am
content: There's no way to know with certainty until this system is actually working, but I remember either Musk or SpaceX stating the additional latency will be almost unnoticeable since these satellite "constellations" will be in very low orbits.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 10:08:20 am
content: Quote from: tooki on December 24, 2018, 05:48:00 amThat's why those satellites will be at low altitude.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 10:26:22 am
content: Quote from: tooki on December 24, 2018, 05:48:00 amDid you think that Musk would get permission to place his satellites in the super-valuable geostationary orbit where you get that ~2 second round-trip light lag?Also, the size of the antenna / reflectors for that distance with the necessary tranceiving power plus interference with those mass distribution TV satellites will hinder some established services worth big $$$. You also get all the radio com signals mushed together at such a distance without a directional antenna on the ground. Many smaller low orbit satellites can focus, as they orbit around, on small areas of land, even down to the size of a city. At geostationary orbit, your lucky if you can focus your antenna beam diameter down to the size of a continent.Remember, you are comparing something like 36 thousand kilometers to 0.2 thousand kilometers. At 36000km, try to build a reflecting antenna to focus on a single city. Then place 7000 satellites, each one never drifting, each focused on a different city sized point.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 11:09:46 am
content: LEO communication satellites aren't anything new. At the moment there are a few companies trying to set up networks based on that technology. And free internet for the world isn't a viable business plan.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 11:25:23 am
content: Though I wonder if Datamining bandwidth limited internet with constant advertising redirects would be?

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 11:31:08 am
content: Interesting project. Probably has a better chance of succeeding than landing on Mars within a decade, but with an estimated total cost to develop and implement of US$10 billion, free internet isn't likely to happen.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)Apparently the current plan is for these satellites to orbit just above and below where the ISS is. The two prototype satellites are pretty big actually, at least I think so (400kg). It'll be interesting to see how small they can make production versions. If they're going to launch thousands of them they surely need to be cheap.

author: beanflying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 11:42:39 am
content: The larger question is why are we discussing yet another twitter fart with zero details from Musk about something else he didn't invent but is claiming as the next great thing of HIS?He truly has become the Edison of our time.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 11:51:44 am
content: Discussing It because Not everyone out there will know why It will be hard to pull off if even possible, and Stealing some google hits away from copy-paste news sites to a technical forum is generally a benefit to humanity

author: beanflying
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 12:27:14 pm
content: Talk to some people who use the current Satellite and the latency with broadband in Australia with very limited user numbers makes that easy to figure out. Even going forward one or two generations of speed into the future (if they can be found) and it doesn't add up within 10-20 years.Meanwhile the public keep getting told he is a visionary and look at the great ideas HE keeps having (Clearly he is a company of one). The media control and dodgy youtube accounts have corporate bs and positive spin written all over them and on top of that he receives free air time on mainstream media whenever he fartsAnyway enough Grinch typing 11.30pm Christmas Eve here. All the best to everyone even Musk

author: donotdespisethesnake
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 01:45:17 pm
content: No one has said it will be free, that is just nonsense.Starlink satellites will operate at about 1200km, round-trip latency about 10 ms, which is completely different to geo-stationary (~35,000km).If you doubt Musk can launch 12 satellites per week, you might have heard of Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, or even BFR. There will be so much spare capacity he will be able to launch the satellites very cheaply. A lot of people seem to think Musk is a buffoon, and to be fair he says a lot of stuff that is very speculative if not daft, but what makes him quite unique is that he has a solid realistic business plan, and so far he has been able to deliver technically on those plans (if not on time).

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 02:08:33 pm
content: Besides some niche applications internet via satellite is complete nonsense. The data throughput of current submarine cables (fiber) is exceeding 100Tbit/s. But there's no limit for human stupidity.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 02:44:31 pm
content: Terabits/second of transoceanic cable capacity does no good to me or the tens of millions of others who don't live within a couple of kilometers of a cable route.Where this LEO solution might be of real use is solving what we call the last mile problem here in the US, and is presumably the last kilometer problem elsewhere. An economical solution to getting high speed links to low population density areas has proven to be a tough problem. How this costs out and performs will depend on the details of the implementation.And as others have pointed out it has a roughly 30:1 latency advantage over GEO solutions.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 24, 2018, 05:30:15 pm
content: Quote from: madires on December 24, 2018, 02:08:33 pmYou should move a little bit out of your comfort zone and find there is no or very poor internet in many places. Actually if you take all land area, only tiny part of it have decent internet.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2018, 03:54:14 pm
content: I know that very well. I had to deal with dial-in quite long. Still, LEO internet satellites can't solve the last mile problem for all the consumers, it's a niche application. Providing internet access to lots of consumers requires a massively scalable network design. Otherwise you end up with huge CAPEX and OPEX and also with rebuilding your network from scratch every few years while burning a lot of money. If you have telephone lines you deploy DSLAMs (up to about 50-250Mbit/s per subscriber), in case of cable TV CMTS' (up to about 400Mbits per subscriber), FTTH (GPON with up to 1Gbit/s per subscriber) or maybe 4G/5G mobile technology. They all have one very important thing in common: they are scalable. For more subscribers add more linecards or boxes, for more throughput add more fibers. If a new standard emerges replace old boxes with new ones. Back to the idea of LEO internet satellites. One satellite will handle maybe an aggregated throughput of 1Gbit/s, providing 10 subscribers with 100Mbit/s or 100 subscribers with 10Mbit/s downstream. How do we get the 1Gbit/s for each satellite to the correct satellite? Don't forget, LEO satellites won't stay in an area for too long. A: Lot's of uplink sites. And what about the subscriber? Will a US$30 box do the job? No, he needs a transceiver with antenna,. A bit expensive and not plug-n-play. And he will also have fun with rain, snow, fog, ice and what have you. How do you handle technology upgrades? You can't simply send a field engineer with a new box to a satellite. Deploying 8000 "Next Generation" satellites? Maybe you start understanding that the idea of internet satellites isn't feasible because of the lack of scalability.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 25, 2018, 05:44:41 pm
content: Quote from: madires on December 25, 2018, 03:54:14 pmBut they are not viable for remote areas and areas with scarce population. Expenses for building infrastructure would never pay off.

author: Red Squirrel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 25, 2018, 06:13:10 pm
content: I think one way to make it feasible is to make it cost something, does not have to be a lot, but it should be something that you have to subscribe to, and without a subscription you can't access it. (would be encrypted etc) This would limit abuse, once that's done, then it's the thing of allocating bandwidth, I think there should be a cheap (like $10/mo) package that is like maybe 100kbps. There could be higher packages but then the cost goes up fast. To me the idea of something like this is to act as a last resort/emergency way of getting internet and not as a primary way, as that does indeed seem unfeasible. Trying to bring high speed globally is probably unfeasible but bringing in a low speed but semi usable connection may very well be feasible.Though I do wonder if the cost is justifiable when you could put that money towards ground based fibre going to wireless towers. Maybe a new wireless mesh protocol is even in order for this sort of thing. You feed towers and then user devices or even other smaller towers can complete the mesh from the nearest tower via a high range but low speed wireless connection. To gain access you'd then convert to ethernet or wifi. Make the protocol a standard and where anyone can participate, so they would put in the initial network, but anybody can buy the equipment and put up their own towers too and it would all be part of the same mesh. So imagine a lake of cottagers, they could chip in to put up their own tower and get line of sight to another tower, and so on. Data would just take the best path, so if someone puts up another nearby tower and actually runs their own fibre then it will take that path.There are mesh protocols like this but they arn't really widespread. This would need to be plug and play where you can buy various gear to interface with it using wireless and wired.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2018, 12:21:52 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on December 25, 2018, 05:44:41 pmNeither the deployment of any other technology. In the past this problem was solved by a state owned telco and the right to have a telephone, i.e. the cost of building and operating the network was shared. Today, with private telcos and their main focus on profit we need subsidies and regulation to get rural areas up to speed. There are also local initiatives, e.g. municipal FTTH networks, which are able to compete with commercial telcos easily. In most cases they provide more bang for the buck and some really cool features.I'm aware that the big telcos in the US lobbied several states into passing laws denying municipals to build own networks.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 26, 2018, 12:36:13 pm
content: Quote from: Red Squirrel on December 25, 2018, 06:13:10 pmWe've tried that already with WLL, WMAN and IEEE 803.16. About 15 years ago there were several companies developing wireless meshed nodes - interesting stuff. But that technology never took off. Some of the ideas have survived in the form of projects like Freifunk.