Posted on 06/21/2020 7:02:42 AM PDT by srmanuel
Speed (Mbps), download quantity and cost will be determining factors.
Cellular has broader access than cable in rural areas, but it lacks download quantity compared to cost.
My cable mid-level has 150 Mbps with 1000gb per month at $70 (IIRC). The closest cellular/wireless is around 4g with 20gb at $80.
Cable does need better competition, as they increase rates and speeds without giving users any options.
Landline phone has a good deal (false appearance) of a $49 per month for life. The trouble is, for my address, the speed is a laughable 3 Mbps. That barely services a single streaming event.
They are suppose to start beta testing in August, you can sign up to receive an email when they start taking applications for the beta at starlink.com. Nationwide rollout isn't suppose to take place until 2021 although the entire system won't be complete for several more years (though much of the later years is simply to add additional bandwith and redundancy).
In addition to SpaceX, OneWeb (a Branson, Airbus enterprise) will be a direct competitor to SpaceLink or whatever the SpaceX/Musk project is called.
I’m signed up too. Hope I get a chance.
Good luck
exactly, for me if this works and works well for a reasonable price I would go with it....
For me it’s about a sense of freedom, if I could get my wife to go along, I would sell out and move out into the country and go off grid as much as possible.
With technology today it can be done and still have all the modern conveniences, it’s still kind of expensive for some things but the peace of mind for me would be worth it....
I would be retired, I don’t like having neighbors or living in a neighborhood with an HOA, I don’t like paying the fees, they’re constant arguments among neighbors and just the hustle and bustle of city life grates on me
I grew up in the country and would like to go back
The problem with satellite internet is latency. The time it takes to reply to a request and send the signal back.
The USA is obviously the first place it will be fully functional should all go well...
If it works reliably now, it should only get better as the technology gets better and a learning curve of managing it all gets better...
Heck I might consider coming out of retirement to work in tech support for them...
If the service turns to work as described, you should be able to provide tech support from anywhere, live remote and work for them...that would be ideal..
The delta-V’s I dealt with weren’t ion propulsion.
They weren’t LEO satellites either.
Thanks, I signed up.
Ion won’t get anything into orbit. Thrust (1 poundf) is considerably less than the mass of the satellite.
These things are out at 400-700 miles. I guess that is technically “low earth” but it’s not as low as many/most.
Just signed up. Thanks for the post.
Current satellite internet providers have satellites in Geo synchronous orbit approx. 22,000 miles up....a LEO orbit is a fraction of that....
If they achieve under a 30ms latency with this service it can be very, very successful.
That’s not as big of a problem with StarLink as it has been with older satellite systems.
Previous systems, such as Hughes or Dish networks use Geosynchronous satellites. They are at an orbit of 22,236 miles. That is 0.119 light seconds, meaning the absolute minimum latency for a round trip is about a quarter second (0.238 seconds). Of course, to talk to a computer on the ground, you have to go up and down twice brining it to almost half a second.
StarLink orbits at roughly 342 miles or 0.00184 light seconds. That means the total time to another computer is only 7.4 ms. That’s a much more reasonable latency overhead.
Potentially direct, nearly undetectable global communication.
The system potentially prevents national control of the information flow.
*ping*
I have Prime and that’s as far as I’ll go with that Nazi.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How much further can you go?
Correct, if getting a dish or whatever is required to hook up were able to made by anyone then it would be somewhat revolutionary...
That's me. I signed up to beta test Starlink. They need users in northern latitudes to start. I'm at just over 42°N. We'll see. My internet now is terrible via cell phone "hot spot."
Here is the orbit of one of the sats. See when the train will be over your house.
You are not a day trader, you’re a seconds trader!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.