Starlink internet satellites keep emergency workers online amid wildfires
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
Ziply is the entity known as Northwest Fiber which recently acquired all of the WA, OR, ID ILEC assets of Frontier. The territory which are formerly GTE.
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/13109751475332710...
Quite honestly it looks to me like a PR stunt. Ziply was already offering a free hotspot of wifi services from the location before somebody showed up and took a photo of the starlink CPE.
The location of Malden works for them because with the current bent pipe satellite architecture, and starlink earth stations in Redmond, North Bend and Brewster, the beta-test CPEs are simultaneously in view of satellites that can also see the earth stations. Activating a temporary CPE in Malden is no different than the same equipment that's been in field beta test with spacex's redmond based employees around WA state for several months now.
And it's at a sufficiently high latitude that the partially-complete satellite network density, at any given point in time, is denser above Malden than above a place several degrees latitude further south.
it's a stunt when it's done to trigger the photo-op, rather than the other way around.
Starlink needs somewhere to send packets to eventually, ideally without wasting bandwidth and latency by bouncing off ground relays, so it makes sense that they would setup a ground station at the closest place with intact high-speed internet during disaster recovery efforts.
the beta-test starlink earth stations look like this: https://imgur.com/a/mg3cq9R#RssFOnG
The one in Boca Chica, TX is the same radomes, unknown exact dish/electronics configuration inside, mounted on steel pedestals on concrete foundations. But otherwise the same.
More base stations and particularly base stations close to the disaster increase the portion of time that any given satellite has a link to both the end user and a base station. Particularly during this early stage when they have a limited number of pre existing base stations and limited satellite coverage that is very important for connectivity.
Considering the high complexity of field-deploying a ground station during an emergency when several nearby ground stations are available, it's difficult to imagine why they would ever do this. Licensing for ground stations is more complex which generally prevents installing one on short notice, and because the "teleport" link requires higher total bandwidth than the consumer links it typically uses larger antennas, higher power levels, and often even a completely different band and encoding both for higher throughput and to simplify managing interference with the consumer-facing antennas.
That said, my assumption would be that Starlink offered to provide redundancy for the WiFi at this site, so while the Starlink service in the photo is not necessarily in use it does serve a function by providing some reassurance in case the telco experiences infrastructure problems subsequent to the fire (not unlikely because fire recovery involves heavy equipment, tends to destabilize hillsides, etc).
This becomes less of a problem as you gain more satellites, but right now with the limited rollout I'm pretty sure it is significant.
Base stations that have identical radios to user antennas (which have a general fcc license) probably don't require further licensing. They would be limited bandwidth but that's a lot better than nothing, especially during a disaster.
Combining these, and considering that they are operating multiple ground stations within Washington, I don't think inter-satellite relay is a factor at all right now.
I think you meant to contradict me, so I think my comment is being misunderstood, which might explain the downvotes too... I just can't figure out how your are misreading it.
If you look around in a place like that you'll see fun things like 1RU rackmount DS3-to-DS1 mux devices connected to legacy TDM transport gear, for SS7/PSTN links, 911 and such.
These kids are very literally being left behind due to the covid lockdowns. They can't do online school because they can't get internet access. It's unbelievably tragic and heartbreaking.
Many of them are in medium sized cities surrounded by rural areas, or already in fairly sparsely populated areas colocated with long haul fiber ILAs and well positioned to serve very rural areas.
For instance there's one in Idaho that's adjacent to some intercity fiber (from where they're almost certainly buying a transport circuit to get to Seattle) which will have simultaneous visibility of satellites serving a vast area that has no WISPs and is presently dependent on consumer grade geostationary VSAT stuff.
The problem right now is sufficient density of satellites for seamless handover coverage to a CPE (make-before-break). Which would be the same problem if you were trying to serve a suburb of Seattle or a very rural area in Montana.
I rate it as highly unlikely that at the point in time when an ordinary consumer with a visa card can sign up for starlink service, they only offer it in major metro areas. The siting choices for the earth stations say otherwise.
Technological and economic limitations in Starlink, at least with the first/second generation of stuff mean that it's not competition for the sort of wireline services you can get in the suburb of a major metro area. If I were in Kirkland, WA and could get 500 to 1000 Mbps Comcast service, or gigabit GPON from Centurylink(Lumen), I'd certainly sign up for that before Starlink. You'd be looking at something that may top out at max speeds of 150-200Mbps down and 40-80 Mbps upstream (Starlink) vs a copper coaxial or fiber last mile setup that can do 800 down, and 300-600 Mbps up.
For instance: https://www.ynnetworks.com/
One of my personal pet peeves with the FCC and the federal government's methods of subsidizing rural Internet, is that it's a horribly moribund process. The USF (universal service fund) was created a long time ago to put a tiny tax on every wireline dialtone phone service in the USA and apply it as a subsidy to last-mile copper phone operators mandated to serve very rural areas. Something like that could be applied to greatly increased rural broadband subsidies in general, which would benefit not just tribal areas but everywhere with a low density of people per square km.
Anyway, maybe Starlink will leapfrog this dream.
[0]: Kind of like https://gotenna.com/ but with an open protocol and static nodes.
Edit: sounds like it's half a meter, so no :-) "If you're accepted for the beta, you can expect to get a user terminal with a flat disc antenna, which measures 0.48 meters in diameter. Musk describes these as looking like a "little UFO on a stick." Your terminal's antennas will self-direct itself for the best satellite signals." [https://www.zdnet.com/article/spacex-starlink-internet-prepa...]
Sounds like it would be man-portable. So yes, if it's important enough to your mission. Push a stick into the ground, mount the disk on top and connect to your rugged hardware.
The idea of a portable starlink terminal that might cost under $5000 is revolutionary.
much smaller foldable things already exist that can talk to the Inmarsat I-4/I-5 networks, but again, very costly in dolllars per megabyte of data transferred.
But yes, you're talking $3 a megabyte on that.
Starlink's actual usuable bandwidth and cost is still a question, but if it does turn out to be an order of magnitude cheaper and faster than a bgan it will be revolutionary. I'm glad I don't own shares in companies like Inmarsat.
(And that's without the massive improvement in latency - a bgan in background mode is typically a 1000-1200ms RTT. In the per-minute guarenteed mode it's 600ms)
It will be quite some time before Starlink is usable in the middle of the Pacific ocean. I don't think it will kill Inmarsat immediately for maritime and aviation applications. But I am also glad I don't own an of their stock (I also own no stock in any geostationary satellite owner/operator).
Disclosure: I intend to own StarLink stock when available.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-space-lasers-first...
You're right about GEO market -- it's more than just IP. We have an old UKI doing probably it's last event this weekend (delayed due to covid). The replacement doesn't have a dish. Started decommissioning a truck with a vsat today -- replacement is 4g/5g only. The traditional non-IP market is shrinking even without starlink.
The biggest risk to starlink I suspect would be Musk dying. He seems to have the ability to defy naysayers and change industries.
OTOH, there's a good chance that the many engineers and scientists at SpaceX, working under Gwynne Shotwell, will deliver something viable.
Stop giving Musk credit for the things he didn't do. His death won't affect the viability of Starlink, and if anything, it would likely improve the final product. SpaceX's successes and failures are generally inversely proportional to the attention Musks puts into running the company; i.e., SpaceX's success is inversely proportional to his micromanaging and meddling.
SpaceX would be great for recreational sailors, cruisers and liveaboards. That's market of less than a million clients (if that), compared to billions in rural population. It's not even clear current gen antenna would work on small craft.
Not a consumer friendly portable thing, however
https://tyconsystems.com/products/tycon-power/poe-injectors/...
but otoh it does talk to a spaceship :)
sun radiation is 1kw/m^2 wifi is like 20mw
so: 1000 watts vs .020 watts
or sun = 1,000,000 milliwatts, wifi hotspot is 20 milliwatts
if you're talking about the signal from the satellite, that is probably a lot smaller.
For comparison a gps satellite has a 50 watt transmitter and is 12000 miles away.
Other CEOs do not talk like this. :)
5-10 minute connection times, that's a bit concerning. Due to a lack of coverage, or signal to noise issues?
It would still be nice to see some readings over time; how stable are these numbers?
By comparison, Hall emphasized that it took him between five and 10 minutes to set up and connect a Starlink terminal. And a single person can set up one of the devices: “It doesn’t require a truck and a trailer and a whole lot of other additional equipment,” Hall said.
“I have spent the better part of four or five hours with some satellite equipment trying to get a good [connection]. So, to me, it’s amazing,” Hall added.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/washington-emergency-respond...
But are utterly convinced their options are amazing.
> “I have never set up any tactical satellite equipment that has been as quick to set up, and anywhere near as reliable” as Starlink, Richard Hall, the emergency telecommunications leader of the Washington State Military Department’s IT division, told CNBC in an interview Monday.
> The company has confirmed that it’s been conducting a private beta test of Starlink with employees, but Hall said Washington’s emergency division use case “grew organically out of previously unrelated talks.” When Washington’s wildfires became increasingly severe in August, with catastrophic damage, Hall saw Starlink as a new solution for areas where the damage meant “there is no other available data connection.”
> “I even did setup to allow kids to do some of their initial schooling too, because they were pressing forward with some limited presence slowly. We covered a whole lot of bases,” Hall said. “Starlink changes the game as far as what’s available.”
Clearly all a PR stunt by Evil genius Elon Musk who never does anything other then spend his time planning the next big PR move to confuse the masses.
Edit: I wrote a response but Hacker News does not allow it, basic point is, provide evidence that it is a PR stunt if that is your claim. The person interviewed seem to have credibility. Seems like interpretation in bad faith to me. Not question your technical knowledge.
And I don't dislike Starlink. I actually think it's amazing tech. I'm criticizing the specific PR stunt of putting a starlink CPE at an exising ILEC CO, not what Starlink is.
Starlink, when ready for ordinary end user production use, will be an amazing improvement over cheap ($110-200/mo) consumer grade VSAT terminals. The physics and economics of launching 4000-6200 kg geostationary telecom satellites and their extremely limited aggregate capacity means that a consumer grade VSAT must be oversubscribed at a 32:1 ratio or worse. Resulting in terrible things like 60GB/month data quotas for end users. It's overall a miserable experience. Starlink has the potential to entirely disrupt and kill what I call the 'shitty VSAT' market.
Above the 'shitty VSAT' market there's a whole category of serious two way satellite technology that the ordinary consumer will never see. And things like o3b and starlink also have the potential to improve that. You would visibly cringe if you saw the monthly $ per MHz transponder costs for Ku spot beam capacity over eastern Africa. The dollars per Mbps ratio is ridiculously bad. In order to achieve any reasonable bps/Hz modulation density you can easily spend $100k to erect a pair of 4.5m size earth stations for a dedicated 1:1, SCPC link. And that's before you're looking at anywhere from $5000 to $30,000/month paid for transponder capacity, depending on how much data you're trying to move, and how asymmetric it is.
There's a reason why every telecom/ISP in every developing nation is trying their hardest to connect to the nearest submarine cable landing station and not remain reliant upon monthly C or Ku band transponder leases.
It's not just cost, it's also the latency. While it's apparent you know this, most commenters might not realize the game changing difference with Starlink.
Starlink latency can be as low as 15ms to the nearest POP. The minimum latency for any geostationary satellite to the nearest pop is 528ms RTT. That's speed of light, going 28k miles 4x, assuming you and the POP are on the equator directly below the satellite.
Back in Satellite Controller school in 2003 we were taught geostationary is 28,500 miles. So even since then I've been using that as my reference point.
In reality, it's about 35,786km, or 22,236 miles[0].
That means the minimum RTT time is 479ms, given the perfect scenario I previously laid out and zero equipment delay. Which isn't a thing.
Then again, the mythical perfectly spherical radiation pattern dipole antenna that we base all dBi off of isn't a thing either.
This is getting better as the years go on and modem manufacturers are able to throw additional CPU and FPGA resources at FEC processing, without increasing their cost to build a modem a great deal.
Equator is 6,378km from the centre of the earth, so GEO is 42,164km, or 26,200 miles, so not sure where 28,500 came from.
> Then again, the mythical perfectly spherical radiation pattern dipole antenna that we base all dBi off of isn't a thing either.
It got knocked over by a spherical cow.
(I did have a colleague lose a satellite connection in Libya once which he blamed on a herd of cows. I think he aiming fairly low on the horizon to the east, with the disk near ground level, so I give him the benefit of the doubt)
By comparison, my office in Sydney is currently 276ms rtt from London.
Actually, GEO satellites have quite a bit of aggregate capacity (1 Tbps and going up) and more capacity where it matters (over land, and specifically, population centers) than LEO constellations, and therefore have better bandwidth economics. They also last ~3x as long, which brings the $/Mbps down more.
60 GB/month caps are not really a thing anymore, unless you're still using HughesNet.
Latency will be dealt with using hybrid modems that can use LEO/DSL/4G for latency-sensitive applications and GEO for large amounts of cheap bits. Hughes, to their credit, has had such a solution available since 2007, last I checked.
the aggregate capacity of a 180 million dollar (construction plus launch cost) 6000 kg geostationary telecom satellite is less than two strands of fiber and a set of modern 100/200/400GbE coherent DWDM system line terminals.
saying that the throughput of all of the ka-band spot beams on a satellite is 1Tbps is both double-counting math for the capacity in both directions, and does not reflect the actual capability of the satellite. maybe if every single ground station was something large enough and with enough link budget to operate at 16APSK and better modulations. not a realistic figure if you're talking about low-cost, sub $1500 hardware, consumer grade ku and ka band vsats.
for a randomly chosen rural zip code in WA state, hughesnet is offering a 50GB quota/month for $150/month. so yes, 60GB transfer limits and things are still a real thing. and during peak evening hours TDMA contention means that latency will be 1150ms+, or worse.
the unavoidable economics of consumer grade small VSAT require serious oversubscription. Dedicated 1:1 satellite capacity starts from $1500/Mbps and up, and requires a serious VSAT terminal, not a hughesnet/viasat/wildblue type toy.
as to your last paragraph, if you have a proper 4G/LTE network in your area, just use that. There's verizon and at&t resellers with plans available that have quotas close to 200GB/month for a reasonable price now. why you would want a hybrid cheap vsat and 4G LTE setup, as a consumer, I don't know.
Not sure how that's relevant. In any case, the total cost of a GEO is closer to double that.
> saying that the throughput of all of the ka-band spot beams on a satellite is 1Tbps is both double-counting math for the capacity in both directions, and does not reflect the actual capability of the satellite.
This is not correct.
> maybe if every single ground station was something large enough and with enough link budget to operate at 16APSK and better modulations. not a realistic figure if you're talking about low-cost, sub $1500 hardware, consumer grade ku and ka band vsats.
I'm not sure if you're talking about the ground stations that connect to fiber backhaul, here, or to the CPE terminals. In any case, ground station capacity is not an issue, and neither is CPE terminal capacity.
> for a randomly chosen rural zip code in WA state, hughesnet is offering a 50GB quota/month for $150/month. so yes, 60GB transfer limits and things are still a real thing. and during peak evening hours TDMA contention means that latency will be 1150ms+, or worse.
Yup, that's what I said: "... unless you're still using HughesNet."
> the unavoidable economics of consumer grade small VSAT require serious oversubscription. Dedicated 1:1 satellite capacity starts from $1500/Mbps and up, and requires a serious VSAT terminal, not a hughesnet/viasat/wildblue type toy.
Again, not sure how this is relevant. Every residential (and even many business) connectivity option is oversubscribed.
If you're saying that satellite cannot compete with fiber or cable, then you'd get no argument from me. If you're saying that satellite is a shitty option, well, I think you'd find that some people disagree with you on that.
That's not to say there isn't room for improvement, but providers know this and are working on it.
because consumer grade CPE terminals need to be so small (because of hardware cost and economics), link budgets suck and less complex modulations must be used. As compared to serious 1.8 meter and larger VSATs. Show me a consumer grade VSAT that's using 16APSK/32APSK and the correspondingly higher bps/Hz efficiency that can be achieved with big, expensive satellite earth station gear used for dedicated 1:1 links.
the aggregate throughput of a geostationary satellite is greatly reduced if you start using tons of tiny VSATs on it. Go look at how much actual capacity is available in a 15 MHz chunk of Ku transponder capacity (even with a 51dBm EIRP hot spot beam), used with an iDirect evolution series linecard at the hub end, that is populated by a bunch of cheap 1.2 meter compression molded fiberglass dishes with 3W/4W class BUCs on them. How many Mbps is that? Not a lot.
> Every residential (and even many business) connectivity option is oversubscribed.
the aggregate throughput capacity of a single CMTS port on a DOCSIS3 or DOCSIS3.1 network segment is equivalent to a significant portion of the entire capacity of a geostationary satellite serving consumers. one CMTS port can serve hundreds of (yes, oversubscribed) 200 to 1000 Mbps class residential end users. One 10GbE circuit feeding a 2U rackmount sized GPON OLT can serve a ridiculous number of end user customers. It's oversubscribed but not in such a way that individual users see latency increases during peak hours (unless somebody has really fucked up their network). With the CMTS example we're talking about things that regularly achieve 1024QAM to 4096QAM modulation on copper wireline plant using the RF channels that previously would have been analog TV.
wireline is oversubscribed? yes. I could show you traffic charts from a 175-suite condominium building where every unit is wired with symmetric gigabit 1000BaseT to the home, that has an 80% take rate of subscribers. The whole building has a single 10GbE uplink and everyone is perfectly happy. Because of course not everyone tries to use the whole capacity of anything all the time. But when you start getting into the wildly high oversubscription ratios needed to make geostationary consumer grade VSAT stuff work economically, it becomes a very poor end user experience.
> If you're saying that satellite is a shitty option, well, I think you'd find that some people disagree with you on that.
I'm saying geostationary consumer grade satellite stuff is a shitty option and should always be the choice of last resort when anything else exists, due to its unavoidable poor economics and aggregate capacity.
I have a lot more optimism that starlink will have the real world throughput needed to be a viable option for rural broadband. Because the link budgets are much better with small antennas and small tx poweer electronics, due to the LEO orbit. And the much lower latency. I think people who believe starlink will replace their 800 Mbps comcast DOCSIS3 32x8 connection or GPON last mile gigabit connection are not fully informed. Properly implemented wireline networks will always have a great deal more throughput at a much lower deployment cost. What Starlink will kill is crappy consumer grade VSATs and sub-75Mbps class terrestrial PtMP WISPs.
Not that it matters, but, I could.
> How many Mbps is that? Not a lot.
So, e.g., Viasat offers 100 Mbps service.
> the aggregate throughput capacity of a single CMTS port on a DOCSIS3 or DOCSIS3.1...
Yes, you can get tons of traffic through a coax cable. There's more bandwidth and you can use higher efficiency modulations because the SINR is way better. Not sure how this is relevant, though.
I'll point out, though, that plenty of people see slowdowns on their cable modem networks during peak busy times. Even these networks have their limits.
> ... it becomes a very poor end user experience.
Again, I think some people would disagree with you on that.
> ... real world throughput needed to be a viable option for rural broadband. Because the link budgets are much better with small antennas and small tx poweer electronics, due to the LEO orbit. And the much lower latency.
No doubt about the lower power electronics (vis-a-vis GEO) and the lower latency, but even so, SL's CPE is around $1,000, and the reliability through rain, wind, and snow is unknown. Setting aside the reliability question for now, I think what it really comes down to is the price vs latency trade-off. In order to be profitable, SL will have to be more expensive than traditional GEO solutions because the CPE, the ground network, and the actual constellation all cost more on a $/bit basis than GEO solutions. It will be interesting to see if the lower latency will be enough to draw consumers.
The big X-Factor in all of this is how much more capital Elon can raise. He has an amazing talent for raising money and if retail investors don't care that SL is less cost-effective than other options, then it can go on for a long time.
We've given away space.
Compare this opportunity to the magnitude of life changing innovations the GPS public good brought us.
The space it consumes in space isn't really concerning though. It's a tiny fraction of the potential total satellites. It's in low enough orbit that the satellites deorbit instead of consuming space in space forever. It's a huge economic driver for further access to space for everyone since it finances launch systems.
No one else wants that space right now, so why not let spacex borrow it.
I know radio astronomers who might have a few choice words about that statement
I don't claim that a public satellite network will never happen. However, as an observer, projects that are happening are more interesting to me than projects that aren't happening (yet).
More defeatism.
We should all just roll over and play dead because we are all going to die, no one cares, and there's nothing we can do about it anyway, right?
NO! We all have an effect on everything and every problem is ours to solve.
Even if that means just talking about it. Raising awareness. Creating ideas. Pointing out the flaws in our reasoning and direction. Opportunities for improvement.
Talking about climate change raises awareness. Grassroots initiatives matter. Our voice matters. Talking matters. Writing matters.
Dismissing good ideas with defeatism discourages people from even mentioning ideas that might change or society for the better.
The fear of backlash alone causes damage. It silences good ideas before they even leave the mind.
I don’t think it’s a reason to stop cheering for Starlink, though, because it’s not everything you want? This thread started out as criticism of Starlink.
While I agree the decisions the US government has made about GPS have been exemplary, we should at least consider whether a government owned ISP would look more like GPS or USPS. The gov. isn't always the best when it comes to pricing.
We have already paid much of the costs for starlink.
If we're going to start nationalizing things, why don't we start with those that have received the most government funds.
I see no reason we should let shareholders take excess profit from the American people for doing nothing but negotiating sweetheart deals with the politicians they own.
Shall we add banks and big Pharma to the list?
But seriously I'm not into the capitalist dogma that masks and enables the reality of corporate welfare.
We can give away trillions to the burgeois but merely feeding the proletariat is unamerican?
What giveaway?
EM spectrum is already owned by the public. But it's scarce, so it's tightly regulated, and bands are licensed. This already gives the public the ultimate control over Starlink: governments can, at any time, take away Starlink's ability to operate over their territory.
> Compare this opportunity to the magnitude of life changing innovations the GPS public good brought us.
GPS satellites are a public good. Civilian-use GPS receivers are private products.
And sure, one day maybe it'll make sense for there to be government-operated Internet satellites. But before that happens, it'll first make sense to have the government be the ISP and the cellular telephony provider. If you're worried about private control over the Internet, you're barking at the wrong ISO/OSI layer. The Internet is already a quasi-public-good due to the intersection of laws and Internet's distributed nature. The forces that want to control it are companies like Google and Facebook, that try to make Internet less distributed where it matters. Not Starlink.
> We've given away space.
It's funny to say that when talking about a product whose primary reason for being is to open up space for everyone. It's like everyone forgot that Starlink exists to fund Starship R&D. It's literally trying to give us space, so that we truly have it for the first time ever.
My general point is that the USA needs a free public Internet.
Our politicians have no vision for the future of America. They should have done this. If they want to put up cell towers every where I'm OK with that too.
The world is leaving us in the dust.