Cellular Starlink expands to support IoT devices
me.pcmag.com
me.pcmag.com
Now, maybe all of this is already such a trivial amount of bandwidth that it's barely a rounding error to save it - but the possibilities it opens up for telemetry in remote regions are fascinating.
https://www.ecoflow.com/au/blog/how-much-power-does-starlink...
Not sure why this is news. Starlink is known to be rolling out mobile support to certain regions. Due to spectrum licencing this is working with local telcos not a Starlink retailed service.
It's less likely they use this in their mobile coverage, but for their own terminals this is absolutely a thing.
https://people.engineering.osu.edu/media/document/2022-10-12...
The SVs (space segment/satellites) in LEO (low-earth orbit) are going to be moving across the sky quite quickly relative to each GT (ground terminal). This is going to be inducing a pretty significant Doppler shift on the signals. Most of the linked paper is focusing on doing ground-based positioning, using the Starlink constellation as a GNSS-type source and talks specifically about how the Doppler shift at the ground is significant enough that not only does the carrier frequency need to track the Doppler shift but also that the baseband signal will be compressed/dilated.
For the SV, though, the same effect is going to happen. The GT is going to be transmitting back to the SV and the SV's going to need to do Doppler compensation in order to successfully decode the OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) signals from the GT. Throughout a pass, each GT is going to have a different Doppler signature based on its position on the ground relative to the SV. The SVs also need to know their positions in orbit with a high degree of accuracy, especially if they've turned on the SV-to-SV laser-based communication (not sure on that). By taking the SV's known trajectory and the per-GT Doppler measurements and making a couple of assumptions (e.g. GTs are stationary), I'm 99% sure you could solve a maximum-likelihood position for each of the GTs. I think you could do it with a single SV but if you have multiple SVs collaborating on it I suspect you could get a quite accurate solution very quickly.
Edit: one other thought I had while writing that up. If they designed the constellation to work this way, I also think it would be possible for the GTs to pre-compensate for the Doppler shift before transmitting, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone actually doing that. The tradeoff there is GT transmit complexity vs SV receive complexity. I would love if someone pointed out an example of a system that actually does this, but I've only ever worked with systems that just use something like a PLL/Costas loop to track the Doppler shift without needing to estimate it directly. If they did do pre-correction it would definitely make it harder for the SVs to estimate the GT positions. It would make the GTs significantly more complex though and I would seriously doubt that Starlink would go through that effort to make the GTs more expensive and eliminate the ability to identify where they are on the ground.
Anyway thanks. That definitely answers my question. If anything I'd expect GT location data to be more accurate than the terrestrial cell network, at least if the operator bothers to derive it.
Direct-to-Cell probably can't resolve smaller than the cell. I found mixed results if they use the 25 mi cells or if they use the whole dish, hundreds of miles.
I don't know if they actually do this, I guess not. And it would not be simple to do. But I'm sure it can be done. There's enough information available.
But this is a different service.
I don't deny that American tech is almost ubiquitously monitored by the NSA. It's just that Starlink isn't particularly special, your iPhone and your car are both likely "DOD fronts" too, if you define it so flippantly.
Swarm's network was very incomplete, there were hours of no coverage at all. I think that they just bought it to remove a potential competitor.
The founder of SWARM.
[1] https://www.starlink.com/business/direct-to-cell ("Empowering Mobile and IoT Connectivity" section)
Swarm has transformed to Starlink DTC.
The satellite designer is the same person.
I believe the old spectrum is used for TT&C/PNT
The European honey bee is not a native species in New Zealand or Australia. Well meaning naive people think hosting bees is a great idea. The reality is it robs the native insect population of a food source.
Native pollinators have different life cycles and different plants they evolved to get food from. Honeybees, likewise, will only visit some flowering plants. That may increase competition for scarce resources, or it may not.
You are correct that honeybees are non-native, and that honeybees do draw a few lbs of nectar and pollen every day from the environment (up to a 3 mile radius from their hive), but it's unclear how much of that nectar and pollen is surplus from the plants or removed such that local bees experience pressure.
It is similarly naive to view the introduction of a species through the lens of pollen quantity being 'surplus' or 'enough'. The presence of rival pollinators affects native insects whether or not there is a shortage of food - for example by discouraging presence, by occupying nesting sites, by altering endemic predation webs, and similar.
Come to think of it how cheap are LoRaWAN radios these days? That's another option.
Amazon sidewalk is a much bigger threat in this regard. I'm really glad we don't have this in Europe.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
Ps in order to be an effective Faraday cage it must also be grounded and no gaps in the metal may be larger than the wavelength that needs to be blocked. Which is only a couple centimetres (or around an inch or so) for the highest ones
The mesh does have many openings, but they are around the size you mention, so it should be ok-ish.
Otoh, there's like doors and windows. I believe a partial faraday cage still significantly reduces signal strength though. It'a difficult to use cell networks in my parents' stucco house, but step outside and it's fine. But stucco is also very similar to concrete, so that could be it, too.