Starlink Direct to Cell
UBIQUITOUS COVERAGE Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities enable ubiquitous access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you may be on land, lakes, or coastal waters. Direct to Cell will also connect IoT devices with common LTE standards. STAY CONNECTED Direct to Cell works ...
I know a lot of people have issues with Elon musk. But starlink really has been an incredible game changer for people in rural areas or places where it's not practical to get cell or internet service. My parents live on the side of a mountain in Colorado where there's no cell service and it would have been thousands of dollars to run an internet line. Starlink has completely changed the game for their connection to the outside world and with us. I'm sure this will be even better for them.
Bad people can do good things. And good people can do bad things.
The technology and drive to get this rate of growth is amazing.
To an even more direct point. Musk bought Starlink just like he bought SpaceX and Tesla. The only things he's had a direct hand is the original X which thankfully got bought up by Ebay, and Twitter/X which he's been actively running into the ground.
A few articles for reference.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/spacex-employees-denounce-ceo-musk-distraction-letter-2022-06-16/
https://www.theverge.com/23815634/tesla-elon-musk-origin-founder-twitter-land-of-the-giants
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/19/elon-musk-management-style-twitter-tesla-spacex
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/business/spacex-workers-elon-musk.html
How many thousands of dollars?
It's $600 to get the equipment set up, and $110 a month thereafter. It's the only viable solution for some, but I have to wonder if ISP's are truly to blame for 95% of our rural internet issues.
Maybe instead of 4,000 space launches, we should hold ISP's accountable and provide better solutions on the ground that don't fuck up the environment and ruin our view of the stars for generations to come.
Like thousands upon thousands of dollars to run cable because the infrastructure doesn't exist at all. And yes, ISPs are absolutely to blame for rural internet issues. They don't see it as a valuable investment so they don't want to expand to those areas because it's such a small community and instead put the burden on the community. Even though the government subsidizes the shit out of them for them to do specifically stuff like this. They don't have enough rules they have to follow.
And sure, I'm sure we'll be able to hold ISPs responsible reasonably well overnight and that will fix rural people's problems overnight. Starlink is really good for a lot of people. I'm not saying it's good for the environment or space. But it helps people who basically have no way to connect with the greater world connect.
First, Musk didn't do this, the engineers at SpaceX did. Second, I fully acknowledge that it makes internet cheaper and gives more people access, and that's a great thing. What's not so great is the impact to astronomy from the ground. And unfortunately, this issue is only going to get worse as more subscribers and competitors join in. I really wish there was a solution, but even with SpaceX painting the bottom black the satellites are still visible.
I'm also nowhere near smart enough to come up with a solution here, so I suppose this is more of a rant than anything.
No one will trust Starlink after what Elon pulled in the Ukraine.
Disagree. Source: am starlink customer
This is what Apple should be working on instead of basically just sitting on cash.
More players, cheaper for consumers.
Apple gave up in innovation when Steve Jobs died.
Apple is in business of milking faux rich
From their timeline it seems it'll be a year or two before it becomes available, but that's pretty cool nonetheless. I wonder how strong (and sensitive) of an antenna the satellites need to communicate with phones designed for much shorter range communication, and if it'll work with cloud cover.
Actually, because its line of sight the transmitters not need be super powerful. I am an amateur radio operator and the sats i can talk to in LEO use like 100mW (0.1W) transmitters and we can pick them up. The biggest proble.m really is that the satellite needs a large antenna to pick up the phone. The higher the frequency they use the smaller the antennas on the sats can be.
Brilliant!!
Text will be golden, like …LIKE Apple has in their new iPhones.
Voice though… hmm I gotta wonder if it’ll sound like old overseas calls or bad zoom calls with the lag?
But hell yeah this is big. IF it works…
It is going to be very compressed video and audio and browsing will be akin to dial-up. Game changer none the less
How do you know this?
https://www.androidauthority.com/t-mobile-starlink-satellite-connectivity-3207661/
In a tweet following the launch event, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk revealed that Starlink V2 satellites will reach 2 to 4 Mb/s per cell zone. That’s enough for texting and perhaps voice calls, but not much else. Remember, this bandwidth will have to be shared by all users in the cell zone.
Ahhhh the worst of both worlds.
Howso? Do you think cell phones with this feature will only be able to communicate with Starlink satellites?
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