90-year-old man spends $10K on ads to tell AT&T CEO about slow internet service
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So I looked back at the original article.
They originally said $1100, but then after I read it they revised the number to $10k.
He was more frustrated than I originally thought!
Do you have a link with more info?
Less path loss means more bits per Hz of bandwidth. Less exotic equipment (no beam-steering). More opportunity for densification to increase capacity. The possibility of wired backhaul.
It's only when population density is low, or fill-in for areas where towers don't quite reach, or for specialized uses (military, redundancy in access, some mobile use cases, some financial use cases with reduced latency) --- that satellite is a clear win.
Starlink can have a plenty big business addressing the most rural and fill-in, though.
Satellite is great for A) where it's not worth putting up towers to reach just a few residents, and B) filling in where there's little holes in tower coverage. (This is what I tried to say in the comment you're replying to).
> The other problems haven't really been an issue for Starlink, even for being in the early phases, it's really just the density issue that bites it.
Capital costs are high per simultaneous user served in an area. Densification is hard. Spectral efficiency is the key figure of merit (how many bits you get to users per limited bit of radio spectrum). That is, the things I mention *are* the reasons for the "density issue".
Giant towers / hillsides for the central point; small towers or rooftops for the other end.
Between two hills over my suburb, you can see 80%+ of houses. If your point is that this doesn't work well for dense cities: you're right, but it breaks down at a higher population density than satellite does.
Relying upon multipath and diffraction can work to get moderate quality LTE service everywhere, but in general this is not what WISPs are doing, because it doesn't work. (And in any case, MIMO + multipath are friends, too, which provides its own densification, and sector antennae are effective, too).
Satellite is great for very low to low population density, and fill-in coverage in medium population densities.
Fixed wireless is good for low to medium population density in most geographies, and fill-in coverage in high population densities.
Wired internet access is good for places with medium to high population density.
Cellular can provide fill-in coverage for medium to high population densities.
The Northeast megalopolis is a larger issue, but again it’s next to the ocean which makes a huge difference. Further including launch costs it’s ~2 million a satellite. Depending on lifespan break even could be below 1,000 customers per satellite which could support a very dense network. Especially if they charge more for aircraft and boat internet access.
PS: Current Satellites are 20GBPs, so if they average ~1000 people per satellite that’s 20 MBps bandwidth per customer. Traditional home internet can be 10x oversubscribed, but assuming they lose a lot of that to low population areas 1-2x ~= 20-40MBPs in high density areas during peak usage periods.
At any time, you can expect there will be dozens of towns of my size in the footprint.
(And, well, most of the time, the entire SF Bay Area, and the Monterey metropolitan area).
Starlink can sell tons of subscriptions, but they can't address suburban connectivity issues.
An alternative analysis, looking at the FCC RDOF areas where funds were awarded to Starlink (completely unserved by broadband-- very low density areas) areas says that Starlink can address around 50% of these households -- not counting any capacity sold to nearby users in cities or towns -- and provide 15mbps peak hour usage-- which is expected to be typical peak hour usage in a few years. https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10208168836021/FBA_LEO_RDOF_Ass...
P.S. I see your edit and that now you're making an economic argument. I totally think Starlink can be profitable. I don't think Starlink can address anything but the least dense areas and occasional fill-in in other areas, but these are still very large potential markets. As to supporting a very dense network... there are reasonable limits on how many satellites we can expect to have overhead.
P.P.S. gbps not GBps. Currently thought to be 10gbps, but also it's thought they will not have much issue reaching to 20gbps.
Overall a 42,000 satellite network could connect something like 1/2 the “1.3 million people in California without access to a wired connection capable of 25 Mbps download speeds.” As I doubt 1/2 those households are going to want to pay 100$/month for internet the 42,000 satellite network should cover California just fine.
PS: Of note their ground receiver can only point to a slice of the sky, but I suspect plenty of people near the ocean will focus on that slice of the sky for better bandwidth.
* A 580 square mile
A 580 mile radius
It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. It's not uniform and satellites in highly inclined orbits spend more time around the poles.
580 miles radius is also far too much. This may -barely- work for the outer shells, but the link budget and rates get worse there, and of course, these outer shell satellites need to be shared over an area enclosing more population.
Of course, link budget, data rates, and spectral efficiency also get worse as the satellites are lower in the sky, too.
Of course, receiving from an arbitrary subset of 60 transmitters occupying the same frequency band with an electrically steered phase array gets pretty hard when there's a big difference in the received power levels between the transmitters, too.
That said, a ground station on the coast connecting to a satellite over the ocean has a huge impact on density calculations as so many people live along coastlines. Especially so when looking at Hawaii and other islands.
However, this is all rough order of magnitude calculations. Starlink’s consolation is optimized for it’s potential customers rather than simply aiming for uniform global coverage. https://i1.wp.com/starnationsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/202...
Allocate 12,000 satellites equally spaced across 72 planes to approximate the Starlink fleet That’s a reasonable criticism for 2028, but not their actual goal.
Assuming a 70% broadband uptake rate of assigned locations Clearly not the goal at 12k total satellites otherwise they would not be aiming for a larger network.
500-km coverage radius Doesn’t seem to be accurate based on other sources, but I would accept an actual source such as a current user.
For RDOF locations, we have uplifted these estimates of peak usage to establish a minimum capacity required of 3.6 Mbps per subscriber That’s not how users behave, normally people use zero, ~maximum, or stream a specific amount of bandwidth. Which responds to the maximum available bandwidth.
Anyway, they control the rate and geographic location of new users and can therefore maintain minimum bandwidth standards by slowing adoption based both their current network and user behavior.
This is difficult, because the earth spins under the orbital planes.
> Assuming a 70% broadband uptake rate of assigned locations Clearly not the goal at 12k total satellites otherwise they would not be aiming for a larger network.
This is the locations that Starlink has bid and received FCC subsidy for to provide connectivity for / receive subsidy for that are completely unserved by broadband.
> 500-km coverage radius Doesn’t seem to be accurate based on other sources, but I would accept an actual source such as a current user.
It's somewhat pessimistic, going all the way down to the elevation limit. tangent(55 degrees) * 550 kilometers = 785.481404 kilometers
At the same time, it's not likely you'll often want to be talking to a satellite at the elevation limit, as it'll be 6-7 dB+ further down even before taking into account the phased array will offer less gain.
> For RDOF locations, we have uplifted these estimates of peak usage to establish a minimum capacity required of 3.6 Mbps per subscriber That’s not how users behave, normally people use zero, ~maximum, or stream a specific amount of bandwidth. Which responds to the maximum available bandwidth.
Forecast average peak hour demand was what was used to size these numbers, which is reasonable. Assuming stochastic demand with the same average makes this worse rather than better.
> Anyway, they control the rate and geographic location of new users and can therefore maintain minimum bandwidth standards by slowing adoption based both their current network and user behavior.
Starlink has committed to provide service to these users as a term for receiving these FCC subsidies.
And they can prioritize them over other US customers. But making the service available doesn’t mean 70% adoption in 6 years. Nor does it mean they need the same satellite density globally to cover their US customers. They can very much prioritize deployment of a larger network before finishing their 12,000 customer network just as some North American customers receive service before global coverage was available.
The numbers also assume 0% uptake among anyone near these people that are not one of these customers. This is probably a little optimistic from a capacity planning perspective.
> just as some North American customers receive service before global coverage was available.
This was a feature of where initial ground stations were located, not of orbital dynamics. A given high inclination short-orbit-period satellite serves all longitudes equally, and the distribution of latitudes it serves is purely a function of its inclination.
a commercially viable "initial" version of Starlink's service for the US would be possible with 400 satellites, while 800 would be enough for "significant" global coverage. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-says-sta...
Meanwhile 1200 was required for “full” global coverage. Polar orbits of course are another option for targeted coverage of high value markets.
This is seriously confused. The Earth turns under that repeating pattern, and the turning of the Earth is asynchronous unless the period of rotation is an integer multiple of the orbital period (which it isn't).
We're in the peak hour right now. This is Starlink. There's no magical favoring of North America (well, except we have a non-operational "train" of new launches overhead). https://imgur.com/a/h94WRsQ
The only thing you can really do is pick your inclination wisely.
It’s also a significant cost saving measure, though a lot of time is wasted in the band over the Southern Hemisphere it’s still a net win due to global population density from Europe, North America, and Asia. Note, the actual effect is more pronounced as lines of longitude vary their width. But I couldn’t find a better projection.
So, you've chosen to just show me an illustration of the sole effect in play, that I've been mentionng to you all day long?
9 hours ago "satellites in highly inclined orbits spend more time around the poles."
5 hours ago "A given high inclination short-orbit-period satellite serves all longitudes equally, and the distribution of latitudes it serves is purely a function of its inclination."
1 hour ago "The only thing you can really do is pick your inclination wisely."
This is not favoring the US. It is favoring things a bit less than 53 degrees North and South (the inclination is 53 degrees). Each satellite spends time up there (down there?) apparently reversing its motion from slightly northwards to slightly southwards, painting a big 'U' in the sky.
And you think this somehow invalidates the data in the study? The study assumed SpaceX's actual constellation dynamics. There's no way to favor North America "more" than the study does.
Not quite I am saying the effect demonstrated is more significant than that was suggesting.
The distance between lines of latitude deceases as you move north. That’s what allows for 24/7/365 coverage in the continental US before the Equator.
Anyway it’s also not just about time spent near though not reaching the poles. The effect is also significant at 30 degrees North vs the Equator and thus the entire continual US benefits.
PS: As to 52 degrees North, much like over the ocean satellites can reach further south than just the area beneath them. Which is why the constitution reaches further north than seems optimal at first glance.
> PS: As to 52 degrees North, much like over the ocean satellites can reach further south than just the area beneath them. Which is why the constitution reaches further north than seems optimal at first glance.
FFS, broski. Do you read? "It is favoring things a bit less than 53 degrees North and South (the inclination is 53 degrees)"
> The distance between lines of latitude deceases as you move north. That’s what allows for 24/7/365 coverage in the continental US before the Equator.
How does that work? Do you mean longitude? You seemingly use latitude and longitude interchangeably in our conversation. Satellites spend more time at their northern/southern extrema, because ... sine and cosine spend more time near 1 than near 0. And, of course, yes, there's less total land area far north than near the equator.
Your diagram has the actual footprints drawn and they're appropriately elongated when the satellite is north or south. There's no further magical effect based on map projection. The study I cited appropriately adjusts for satellite coverage density but you somehow suggested SpaceX could further concentrate satellites over CONUS beyond the study's analysis, which is how we got onto this entire track. They can't, can they?
Actually being awake helps.
I am not making a time argument alone, it’s very important but not the only effect. Lines of longitude converge at the poles. the same effect means lines of latitude get shorter as you move north from 40,000 at the equator, to ever shorter distances moving north until it’s a point at the North Pole.
As the coverage area is a sphere in reality, it should look stretched east/west on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection as you move north. That pushes full 24/7 coverage slightly south on a 400 satellite constellation. But still enough to cover the continental US at 400 satellite while having gaps at the equator. This is intended behavior as it increases redundancy over the US and population density and incomes are lower at the equator.
As to the US vs North America again I was trying to say different things. The equator pass through South America therefore all of North America benefits. However, only the continental US benefits enough for a 400 satellite network vs 1200 to provide 24/7 coverage.
You mean a circle projected onto a sphere. Or the intersection of a cone with a sphere's surface. Or I don't even know what you mean.
Latitude and longitude are just a crummy coordinate system.
The reason why a given point has more satellite coverage is simply because the circles are on the northern and southern extents of the satellite's movement more of the time. It really is that simple. You're scrunching yourself all up with map projections, etc. If you want, we can go all the way through the spherical trig and derive the exact distribution.
Or you can just eyeball a crummy desmos notebook of the 1D version of the problem: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/u2s44maasf
> it should look stretched east/west on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercator_projection
Jeez dude. Just no. Yes, it would be sqooshed on e.g. an equirectangular projection, but not a Mercator. You linked the Wikipedia article. It's right there at the top of the page.
"As in all cylindrical projections, parallels and meridians on the Mercator are straight and perpendicular to each other. In accomplishing this, the unavoidable east–west stretching of the map, which increases as distance away from the equator increases, is accompanied in the Mercator projection by a corresponding north–south stretching, so that at every point location the east–west scale is the same as the north–south scale, making it a conformal map projection."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissot%27s_indicatrix
That's why the satellite footprints on the Mercator projection map that you shared are (correctly) drawn as circles that are getting bigger in apparent size, instead of ellipses.
At the school that I now teach at part-time, we explain this in 5th grade.
> As to the US vs North America again I was trying to say different things. The equator pass through South America therefore all of North America benefits. However, only the continental US benefits enough for a 400 satellite network vs 1200 to provide 24/7 coverage.
OK, which is already modelled in the study that you were responding to. But you implied that Starlink could further move satellites towards CONUS beyond what's modelled. And now you're handwaving about orbital dynamics when I've been mentioning that inclination improves coverage at the northern and southern extremes since the beginning of our conversation. What are you looking to accomplish, exactly? At some point you're just embarrassing yourself.
I was part of a team retained by Starlink doing early feasibility study of optical satellite to satellite links, deriving control system pointing requirements based on relative movement between SV's in various choices of inclined orbit. It's somewhat cringe that you keep trying to explain (wrongly) to me how this works.
P.S. There's one minor effect we've not discussed. It doesn't increase coverage, but it makes individual satellite passes longer. The Earth rotates in the same direction as the satellite is apparently moving near its northern/southern extremes, which lengthens satellite pass times.
> That is, the things I mention are the reasons for the "density issue".
The things you mentioned were path loss, no need for beam stearing, possibility of wired backhaul, and density. I'm just saying the only one of those that actually matters is density, the others are really non problems as the equipment already exists, is reasonably priced, and works fine.
Starlink uptime where I am-- SF Bay Area-- with a 35 degree elevation cutoff is 80%. 25 degree elevation cutoff is 98-99%. To get 99.5% you need to get down to 15 degrees presently.
Yes, this will improve, but for an area to share their bandwidth over multiple satellites, there'll need to be multiple satellites in the cone that that area can talk to.
> The things you mentioned were path loss,
Less path loss for a given power == more bits/Hz == more people served from one transceiver with a certain amount of bandwidth. AKA density
> no need for beam stearing
OK. That's a terminal cost issue, and isn't density. Though it's closely related to allowing the towers to have narrower coverage (e.g. sector antennae) and thus improves density.
> possibility of wired backhaul
Ground station uplink bandwidth is often limiting for Starlink. Allowing more bandwidth to the transceiver == density.
> density
Allowing densification by putting up more towers where needed == density.
> , is reasonably priced,
Right now, Starlink terminal BOM costs are likely around $2k. This can be expected to improve in the future, but electrically steered phased arrays with tons of phases are still a somewhat exotic technology. C.f. high end fixed wireless CPE selling for $200 at qty 1 retail (they, also, can be expected to improve in cost and bandwidth in the future).
I will give a list of facts about Starlink as it currently stands, not my personal speculation or speculation from others rather knowledge from currently working with operational Starlink and many fixed wireless providers in a large enterprise network:
- Path loss is not a driving factor in the density problem (more details on why in another section but it boils down to the bandwidth losses by this are not what's causing the density squeeze). The path loss is also very different than the path loss to a terrestrial tower as there is a lot more at play than distance (atmospheric density, atmospheric composition, frequency, frequency interaction with molecules in the atmosphere, power limits for interference being different for ground<->horizontal vs ground<->up) so you can't just think "more distance therefore path loss is a bigger problem than it is for fixed wireless" either.
- The cost for the service is $499 + $99 * month for a real world expected rate of 100 Mbps/20 Mbps @ 1 TB/month soft cap w/o throttling. This pricing beats >95% of fixed wireless offerings, Verizon's 5G demo cities probably being the exception. Pricing is not a problem even if there is fancy tech involved on the user terminal.
- Ground station bandwidth hasn't been a problem for Starlink, let alone an oft problem as you confidently claim. They also continue to be turned up at the same rate as new satellites go active so no need to speculate their either.
- It's quite easy to add both more towers and satellites but neither is actually a realistic solution to their respective spectral density problem as for towers density comes to the point the cost savings of using towers for the last mile in the first place go out the window and for satellites the spectral density problem is on the ground. Remember it's not going to be a fully shared collision domain like Wi-Fi where you just spread the same frequency to everyone attached in a sector.
- Both can be expected to improve drastically in the future. Starlink is barely deployed enough to function at all at the best geographical locations, many of the assigned frequencies aren't in use, satellite<->satellite still hasn't been deployed, the lower shell hasn't even been started, only a handful of ground stations are up. Similarly 5G (or the latest 4G) is still early in deployment in the US, good & cheap 5G hardware is just really becoming available at scale, network deployments are really kicking into gear.
Lay pipe later once the city is forced to cough up a license to dig.
They're 340 miles up, and traveling 17,000mph (I think?)
wonder how many satellites will be in view, for how long.
Google Fiber still isn't available anywhere near me.
Thankfully Comcast has Gigabit service but the upstream is capped at 25mbps. I enjoyed the symmetrical gigabit at my last place.
For $2000 and $300 a month Comcast will give you 2.5 gigabit connection with SFP+ and a 1 gig failover.
Time to make some friends with your neighbours.
Honestly, I’d consider paying $10k for fiber internet run to my (relatively) rural house.
You'd think with all the invasive tracking FB would be able to optimize conversion rates and ad spend for their customers even a little bit but I guess they don't really care about optimized spending.
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The GDPR went into effect almost three years ago. I guess we’re not that important to news10.com.
If you must fail, please fail-open then.
And if you decide to fail-close, don’t lie: We’re unimportant to you so you decided to fail-close, and you’re not “working” on anything. You think it’s ok and it can be left like this.
archive.org to the rescue..
https://web.archive.org/web/20210213184821/https://www.news1...