FemtoStar: Taking Aim for the Stars
pine64.org
pine64.org
Is the FemtoStar Credit Token a cryptocurrency?
No, at least not by any usual definition of the term. While they are
a digital system used to pay for service, and while they do make use
of cryptographic signatures for security, FemtoStar Credit Tokens are
not transacted on a blockchain, cannot be mined, and are not intended
for use as anything other than payment for FemtoStar service. While
third-party users are free to buy and sell Credit Tokens at any
price they are able to, their value in FemtoStar service is fixed.
> Starlink is designed to provide consumer broadband services to large, fixed terminals (in the satellite industry, this is known as Fixed Satellite Service).
1. I'm sure they'll make a smaller Dishy exactly as soon as they figure out how. 2. Fixed location is a beta restriction to make writing the software easier. Walk before you run.
> While there has been talk of limited use of Starlink for point-to-point connectivity, such as for high-speed securities trading, [...] it is not a part of their consumer-facing services, nor is it known to be possible with their consumer hardware.
Satellite-to-satellite links have nothing to do with the ground equipment, and the ground equipment won't even know.
> Starlink terminals are uniquely identified on the network, and can be easily geolocated by the network
Silly concept. Of course "the network" needs to know 1) which satellite is overhead 2) where to aim the response beam, from that satellite.
FemtoStar Project lead here. We're very aware of how impressive of a system Starlink is, and our intention is anything but to ignore it.
The key point, to that FAQ item, is that FemtoStar and Starlink are not directly comparable products because FemtoStar is MSS and Starlink is FSS, which results in a swath of differences beyond the basic "Starlink is faster".
FemtoStar, as well as offerings like Inmarsat BGAN, Iridium Certus, etc are MSS offerings. If you want to compare MSS, compare between these.
Starlink, as well as offerings like HughesNet and other VSAT providers, are FSS offerings. If you want to compare FSS, compare between these.
If you compare FemtoStar to Starlink on speed alone, Starlink wins just as HughesNet wins if you compare it to BGAN on speed alone. That doesn't mean any of these are bad products, just that different classes of terminal are for different jobs. Antenna size is directly related to attainable data rate, and just as scaling up the FemtoStar terminal would get you faster speeds on FemtoStar, scaling down the Starlink terminal would get you slower speeds on Starlink. There's a reason MSS companies usually offer a range of terminal sizes - not everyone needs the same combination of performance and portability. Starlink may indeed introduce a smaller, lower-speed terminal in order to enter the MSS market (though they do not currently have MSS licenses in any country we are aware of, only FSS and FSS with ESIM licenses), but Starlink as it stands is FSS.
To your second point, inter-satelite links (ISLs) and point-to-point connectivity are not the same thing. Starlink has ISLs on a handful of satellites (in-plane links only, no crosslinks yet) which it plans to use for point-to-point connectivity, but this is not part of their consumer offering. FemtoStar actually doesn't have ISLs at all, but it will support point-to-point connections for all users on all terminals as the standard service.
In Starlink's case, yes, their network uses the user's location in order to do that. In FemtoStar's case, however, a high degree of geolocation-resistance is actually attainable using a combination of terminal-side geolocation mitigations and larger-than-usual transmit beams on the satellite. The terminal provides a very rough point for beam pointing on the satellite, but the provided point is randomly selected and can be hundreds of kilometers from where the user actually is.
Please let us know if you have any more questions! - The FemtoStar Project
> but this is not part of their consumer offering
It's beta! They'll use inter-satellites links once they know how to do it well enough. You, once again, seem to pretend that Starlink will never do something, just because the beta doesn't currently do it that way.
Anyway, please adjust your spin to explaining more about why your approach to privacy, or whatever, is great -- and spend less time spreading FUD about your competition. That'll help your project come across as much more credible.
It isn't us calling Starlink fixed - FSS and MSS, and FSS with ESIM (Earth Station in Motion) are legally defined and separate categories with separate licenses and separate rules, and Starlink is FSS - those are the licenses they hold and those are the bands their hardware is designed for. FSS terminals ARE allowed to move (this is what an ESIM is and I imagine is the "large-ish vehicles" you're talking about). As for on aircraft, I believe that was an experimental license but also aeronautical satcom licensing is sometimes an substantially separate situation legally.
We are not the ones calling Starlink Fixed Satellite Service - SpaceX and the FCC are. Literally any one of their FCC filings will include the phrase "fixed satellite service" or "FSS" somewhere, because that's what they are and that's the license they have.
WRT ISLs, I repeat, ISLs and point-to-point connectivity are not the same thing at all. ISLs are where satellites communicate with eachother directly. Point-to-point connectivity has nothing to do with ISLs (though it can use them if the network has them) and is a matter of terminal-to-terminal links without use of a dedicated feeder link or official ground station. Starlink does not need ISLs to do point-to-point, and FemtoStar (which will not have ISLs at all) can do point-to-point just fine without them.
We're fully aware Starlink is a beta, and to be fair to them, even in beta they're much closer to done than we are. We also know they totally COULD do MSS if they decided to get into that market. However, we also know that the core offering of Starlink is internet service via official ground stations, and that they haven't made any moves towards MSS so far - only FSS with ESIM licenses. There are many positive terms with which SpaceX could be described, but without a doubt "open" is not one of them, and that seems to hold true for Starlink no matter how high-tech it may be.
I really struggle to see a situation where someone considering Starlink would consider FemtoStar a valid alternative, or where someone considering FemtoStar would consider Starlink a valid alternative. The terminal size, the network architecture, the privacy properties, the openness, the performance, the licensed service type, there's way too many major differences in design goals and priorities to make an apples-to-apples comparison.
The idea sounds cool although it's not clear how much IoT users care about openness and privacy. Starlink is also going to set a pretty low price ceiling on midband services.
FemtoStar is perfectly usable as a traditional satellite communications system, but we're specifically interested serving a group of people who have not previously been satcom customers - that is, users more focused on FOSS and privacy, who, we hope, might see FemtoStar more as an improvement on the privacy concerns and proprietary software of terrestrial and satellite networks alike than as a spec-for-spec competitor with other FSS or MSS options.
We have found that the idea of 100%-FOSS, privacy-respecting, low-cost, medium-speed internet access even in the middle of nowhere, plus an open platform for custom services is appealing to a lot of people.
While in-depth details seem light, is the absence of such criticism a positive indication regarding the integrity of its base security and privacy principles?
Also launching satellites with LoRaWAN on them doesn't look so hard any more. I was looking into it the other month and you can get prototype kits with the correct transmitters very cheaply.
I should also clarify, Pine is a partner of the FemtoStar Project, but both are independent from each other and it's certainly not as if Pine is going it alone (in fact, the space segment is the job of the FemtoStar Project itself, not Pine). We currently have development funding from NLnet and focusing on developing the hardware this year while seeking funding for launch.
- The FemtoStar Project
I found a reddit AMA from one year ago at https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/gfw3ab/were_the_de...
They want to do it with MSS on the Ka-Band.
With the low number of satellites and the low orbit (400-700km) you'll need an unobstructed horizon. It could be great at sea!
Edit: I originally had a question here wondering how they expect to get the radio frequency licenses...
- The FemtoStar Project
See our response to another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27228546
Is any of the software or hardware publicly visible at this point? I ain't seeing any links to source code repos on FemtoStar's website, for example.
We're looking to open up our repos as designs begin to stabilize this over the next month or two. We want to make sure anything we publish is in a state where, even if incomplete, code can at least be successfully built and worked on the general public and hardware designs are stable. To be clear, it will still be alpha/beta versions, but as various parts of the project reach the stage where they are not likely to be redesigned entirely and can be made to work without too much difficulty, we'll be releasing designs and source for them then. Stay tuned - for a lot of hardware this should be soon.
I can't stress how much I hope this succeeds.