Inmarsat vs Starlink Antennas

Turbofuture ^ | Sep 22, 2020 | Tamara Wilhite

[tbw2]

Inmarsat is a satellite communication system that is likely to become obsolete once Elon Musk’s Starlink system is up and running. The differences go well beyond age and branding. Let’s learn more about the differences between the Starlink and Inmarsat antennas.

[tbw2]

Inmarsat vs Starlink Antennas
https://turbofuture.com/industrial/Inmarsat-vs-Starlink-Antennas

[buwaya]

The Starlink system will be in competition with every telecom system on earth. Its maintenance and expansion/upgrade costs should let it eventually underprice everyone else.

Musk will rule.

[tbw2]

Agreed. He’s an engineer’s engineers. Written by an engineer.

[IndispensableDestiny]

I think INMARSAT’s global voice, location, and beacon services will continue for quite some time.

[Paladin2]

This doesn't look like a bad antenna either

[Rio]

I’ve been wondering if Starlink will spin off as a separate company from SpaceX.

[DoubleNickle]

Poorly written article imo.

[KarlInOhio]

A side benefit of a massive independent satellite network is that people living in places such as Iran and China can access the internet outside of the strict filters set by their authoritarian regimes.

So no matter where they are in the world they can read what Facebook and Twitter allow them to read.

[jz638]

Inmarsat orbit height: 35600km
Number of inmarsat vehicles: 13

Starlink orbit height: 550km
Number of eventual starlink vehicles: tens of thousands

Those things seem to be much more important than frequency ranges in any conparison though I’m sure there are some RF engineers out there who like to think about antennas and frequencies first.

[Pollard]

I’m hoping Musk will let phone companies buy in and supply service for people like me who’s only options for internet is dsl or satellite(overpriced junk). Our little phone company has been running fiber optic cable along side phone/dsl lines whenever they put in a new service but the phone installers said it will be decades before they get everything in and operational. It’s 24 miles to town and they haven’t even got fiber optic in town yet.

Our dsl is pretty good because we happen to live 1/4 mile away from the big phone junction box that is the size of a shed and has it’s own electric service. If they could put a starlink endpoint dish on that and use the fiber optic to get it to us, that would be the ticket. Phone company could still make money, Musk would make money and we’d have nice fast internet. It’s a win, win & win.

[Conan the Librarian]

We’re on a sail boat and looking hard at Starlink. We can mount the antenna off the stern. A bit more expensive now than what we are paying for a Mifi, but, we can get internet in the middle of the Pacific.

Don’t need it yet, but, will one day.

[tbw2]

A big Vivaldi antenna

[sloanrb]

Starlink has a signup page to become a beta tester. They are looking for rural people to test their internet.

https://www.starlink.com/

[dila813]

I used Inmarsat for phone calls and it cost me $2.50 per minute for a phone call and a $5 connection fee back in 1992.

It was new at the time, I suspect the cost came way down but there was no chance that Inmarsat was going to more than a niche telecommunications solution.

[dila813]

Yes

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Intensely poorly-written.

[Grampa Dave]

AT&T and Comcast “owned” our medium size city for over a decade+. Private online hookups were slower, unreliable and more expensive. They/the city regulated internet speed. If you lived in a neighborhood with a lot of college kids, during holidays and summers, the internet crawled.

When I cut my cable 3+ years ago and went to Comcast business, part of my package was a new high speed modem with 5 g capability (not of interest to us then or now.). Their lowest speed handles our needs very well.

What was impressive, was on weekends, holidays and in the summer our internet connections were very fast for streaming and other internet use versus the old slowdown.

Somehow with minor power outages, the system stays on. So our battery powered laptops and phones stay connected to the wifi/internet, which is still on .

[AFreeBird]

Get the star link yourself. Cut out the middlemen

[ctdonath2]

Only to better deliberate the symbiotic.
SpaceX needs Starlink to practice & demonstrate extensive reuse of rockets. Nobody wants to be the 5th or 12th or 100th reuse of a first stage until they’ve seen it done - often. Starlink is a cheap disposable cargo that will way more than pay for itself and those demonstrations.
Starlink needs SpaceX for lots of dirt cheap launches. No profit margin to expense, first stages & fairings are practically free (paid for by previous use), only cost is fuel & operation.
The two might be separated only because they’re different businesses, but the symbiosis makes each possible.