JoeSchmuckatelli Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 1 minute ago, tater said: Yeah, I think that ship sorta sailed with Sputnik. Way off topic, but I wonder what the Soviet reaction would have been to the US achieving orbit first? As it happened, the side more likely to complain (Ike has suggested "open skies" with aircraft as a precursor to the U2 overflights, after all) then overflew in orbit first—so now it was definitionally "OK." Jamming is certainly a possibility. There was no technological ability to take down Sputnik at the time. US, CN and RU all have the ability to eliminate satellites at this time. The problem is - and I think the only current constraint - is the self-interest in not causing a catastrophic cascade that eliminates space as a resource for themselves. Even without physically destroying the craft, targeted EM can 'burn' out commercial craft, and signal jamming is a mature / maturing field (RU is getting particularly good at that these days). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 6 minutes ago, tater said: Yeah, I think that ship sorta sailed with Sputnik. Way off topic, but I wonder what the Soviet reaction would have been to the US achieving orbit first? As it happened, the side more likely to complain (Ike has suggested "open skies" with aircraft as a precursor to the U2 overflights, after all) then overflew in orbit first—so now it was definitionally "OK." Jamming is certainly a possibility. The US was very concerned about this, this is why the first US satellite was purely civilian and scientific. It was important to get an precedent before they started with spy satellites.Ended up only the Americans thought like that so space was free, not that anybody could do anything about it for many decades anyway.And yes you can jam, this however is pretty hostile and nothing stops the other side to use other frequencies if so. --- Satellite receivers are unregulated although some dictatorships bans them. An starlink base station transmit so it require certification like any transmitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuckatelli Posted December 14, 2020 Share Posted December 14, 2020 10 minutes ago, magnemoe said: starlink base station transmit so it require certification like any transmitter. ...and be discoverable, like any transmitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silavite Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 On 12/7/2020 at 2:02 PM, tater said: Interesting: https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2020/ SpaceX is many (all?) of the red areas. On 12/7/2020 at 9:06 PM, mikegarrison said: What is that? It says something about "Rural Digital Opportunity" but there are locations right in the middle of Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, etc. Heck, some of those red areas are on the MIT campus, which is not very rural or lacking in internet.... It looks like this is the result of a flawed process. I think that the author (and/or the source, Derek Turner) puts an excessive amount of criticism onto SpaceX, but that's just my opinion. In the words of two comments: Quote It seems rather disingenuous to focus on the one provider which, due to their technology, absolutely can serve any rural customers who want access, rather than the ones which would say "we don't have service in your area, pay us $20k to run lines to you." Maybe Starlink won the right to serve certain urban areas in this "rural" funding round, but that's the FCC's fault for having those as part of this funding round at all, not SpaceX's for bidding on them. Quote Put in a less sensational way, 87% of the money Starlink got was to serve the rural areas. Doesn't sound so bad then huh? I don't see them listing the breakdown of the "parking lot" type areas versus actual urban homes where being served by Starlink isn't necessarily pointless. They listed a few terrible sounding examples but how much of that 13% are like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Yeah, I don't think SpaceX put bids in to serve that arroyo over there —> I think they can provide service in ANY rural area, the the map is showing rural areas they can service (which are "rural" based on some stupid criteria the government decided). Any wired service would obviously have to bid to run wires... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 17 hours ago, magnemoe said: The US was very concerned about this, this is why the first US satellite was purely civilian and scientific. It was important to get an precedent before they started with spy satellites. I mean, didn't everyone do the same ? Especially in ye olden days where the tech (esp. camera and radar) are limited to be heavy and bulky, you have no option but send the most rudimentary of instruments up with the earliest rockets you have. These days though, a GoPro with some ways to orient itself (maybe really tiny CMGs like this one) and some solar panel, batteries and transmitter is a satellite. Question of "is it civilian or military" is merely in the eyes of the beholder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 It's obvious that for SpaceX/Starlink this was all just free money from the government. I doubt there were any requirements to actually have a customer in those spots. Probably all they had to do was make service available, and as long as the sats fly overhead then service is available. I have a lot of opinions about this, but most of them are things I can't say without breaking the forum rules. I'll just note that the problem was obvious to anyone who zoomed in on the map and looked at it for less than a minute, so clearly it's not something that was just overlooked by the FCC. This was an intentional grant of money to these companies for what seems to be very questionable return to the public. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeSchmuckatelli Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 (edited) 27 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: .... This was an intentional grant of money to these companies for what seems to be very questionable return to the public. Hah! Welcome to the reality of the Public - Private Partnership. Government has been giving rich people huge dumps of tax dollars forever. At least with SpaceX - rockets are entertaining Bring on the bread! Moar Circus! Edited December 15, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Yeah, the government defined "rural" in some bizarre way, and this is the consequence. "We're from the government, and we're here to help." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 I really can't say anything more about this subject without violating forum rules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Looks like the FCC normally refer to "census blocks" as the minimum unit to ascertain broadband availability. I'm unsure how they got these sub-units, since from the census maps I see, the census blocks are larger chunks than these weird little areas colored on that map. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 I have a feeling that the general red-ish area would be able to receive the signal from Starlink 24/7 anyway. It's just terrible, terrible naming of the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 Everywhere that can see the sky gets Starlink 24/7. You take a program that likely has some utility, or at least good intentions (broadband for underserved rural areas in this case, as good internet access is becoming pretty much required for anything). Take the obvious case here in NM, the Navajo Reservation (or other Native areas). Far from the infrastructure backbone, few services. That totally makes sense, and I assume that the defined areas (on that map) are more the areas within census blocks that don't currently have the appropriate broadband. Odd to see any within town though (that said, my phone barely works in some local minima signal areas, so if I was using wireless for internet, I'd simply not have it at my in laws, etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, tater said: Everywhere that can see the sky gets Starlink 24/7. I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Are they really devoting a lot of satellites to high-latitude arctic and antarctic coverage? Iridium uses polar orbits and ends up covering those areas more or less incidentally, but very few commercial services would bother to intentionally supply coverage to places that are mainly just ice. Edited December 15, 2020 by mikegarrison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted December 15, 2020 Share Posted December 15, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, YNM said: It's just terrible, terrible naming of the program. It's got nothing to do with accidentally choosing a misleading name. The way this works is that Congress passes a law allocating some money for expanding "rural broadband opportunities", and then the executive branch decides how to implement the law. It's not an accident that what sounds like (and possibly was intended to be) a program to bring broadband access to under-served rural parts of the country gets turned into a way to funnel money to communications companies for serving places like airport runways and highway medians and unbuildable greenway lots in cities. This is actually not even close to the most controversial thing that the current FCC leadership has done in the last four years. This is the same FCC administration that aggressively worked to dismantle the popular rules requiring "net neutrality". Edited December 15, 2020 by mikegarrison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1020316268311/Starlink Services LLC Application for ETC Designation.pdf They have >10k users in beta. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Starlink is now available to the general public! ...sort of. Its very limited, first come, first served, and according to the info won’t even be in my area til mid-late 2021. Thats... really disappointing. I would’ve expected to be higher up the list just based on latitude. Same cost as mentioned long ago, $99/mo, $499 for hardware + $50 shipping, taking a $99 deposit now if you’re area’s not served yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Yeah, $99/mo is kinda steep since I can get moderately fast DSL. Anywhere rural here that's a good deal, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuBisCO Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Called my step-father up, told him I want to get him starlink for the family farm, he is paying $180 a month for 2 phones lines and 20 Mbs DSL and he wants to get rid of the phone lines and replace them with Voip (he has been saying he wants to replace them with Voip for years now, needs a kick in the butt to do it). Minnesota is high enough latitude we should get good early coverage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 3 minutes ago, RuBisCO said: Called my step-father up, told him I want to get him starlink for the family farm, he is paying $180 a month for 2 phones lines and 20 Mbs DSL and he wants to get rid of the phone lines and replace them with Voip (he has been saying he wants to replace them with Voip for years now, needs a kick in the butt to do it). Minnesota is high enough latitude we should get good early coverage. That's exactly the sort of situation Starlink is optimal for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuBisCO Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Just now, RCgothic said: That's exactly the sort of situation Starlink is optimal for. I order it, most compulsive buy in my life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 37 minutes ago, RuBisCO said: I order it, most compulsive buy in my life. My buddy at MCC ordered it last night for his NM house. The place is far enough outside Santa Fe that his broadband is not great, and he has 4 domes with telescopes he likes to run remotely, so it seems like a good fit for him. I can afford it just as a lark, but it bugs me to needlessly spend money, so I don't think I will unless it it mature enough to be 24/7 reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuBisCO Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 5 minutes ago, tater said: My buddy at MCC ordered it last night for his NM house. The place is far enough outside Santa Fe that his broadband is not great, and he has 4 domes with telescopes he likes to run remotely, so it seems like a good fit for him. I can afford it just as a lark, but it bugs me to needlessly spend money, so I don't think I will unless it it mature enough to be 24/7 reliable. Well I'm hoping it will be 24/7 reliable up here at 45°N by "mid to late 2021" as it says, it will be a real bummer if it is is not by the time I get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 25 minutes ago, RuBisCO said: Well I'm hoping it will be 24/7 reliable up here at 45°N by "mid to late 2021" as it says, it will be a real bummer if it is is not by the time I get it. That's 10° N of me, likely will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wumpus Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 1 hour ago, tater said: My buddy at MCC ordered it last night for his NM house. The place is far enough outside Santa Fe that his broadband is not great, and he has 4 domes with telescopes he likes to run remotely, so it seems like a good fit for him. I can afford it just as a lark, but it bugs me to needlessly spend money, so I don't think I will unless it it mature enough to be 24/7 reliable. From what I remember of NM weather, you will at best get 23.5/7 reliability. Nothing is going to get through a NM storm, but they don't last long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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