Space internet with Android 14! (Satellite connectivity)

[wanderingfool2]

38 minutes ago, Sauron said:

According to verizon the cost of a 5g tower is somewhere in the 20 to 30k range and I assume older tech like 4g is only going to be cheaper. More expensive installations probably include multiple service types but that's not really necessary if you just want to get coverage somewhere (it's not like starlink satellites include GSM). As for the area covered, while the theoretical area is greater the number of possible concurrent users is not. Plus again the cost of maintenance (in the satellites' case this just means complete replacement, unlike a cell tower). Oh, and rocket emissions are not negligible.

That number though likely isn't thought out for areas where there isn't current coverage.  You have to fight environmental constraints and other similar things.  I've seen quotes for cable pulls that ran into millions because the work had to be underground without disturbing what's above ground.  The areas without cell coverage are areas are already areas that likely doesn't justify adding in the towers (or are crazy expensive).

 

Yea, rocket costs aren't negligible, but it's in general difficult to assess the cost of a rocket launch.  I think SpaceX charges $62 million per launch, but the operating cost is quite a bit lower than that.  With some speculating the cost of launch is sub $30 million, can't say much on the accuracy of that number though.  They launch around 50 per launch, so that puts costs at about a million per sat.

 

Do you have any sources of the 20 - 30k?  If we are talking about cell towers, all I can see is average cost being 250k in the USA; with that said, there are the micro-tower concepts which do cost less money and are more necessary for things such as 5g due to the frequency it runs at.

 

56 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I wouldn't be too sure, you can't just add network technology designed to work over a few dozen km and expect it to work over hundreds of km. If starlink is getting cellular service it must be through voip using their existing network.

In general though, it's antenna would likely be able to communicate on that frequency (or rather adding the frequency itself doesn't really cost much all things considered).  The sat. itself also is dealing to a bunch of traffic already, so I'd doubt adding cellular capability would be that much of an issue.  The biggest thing is being able to capture the signal, which with the size of the V2 antenna that might be why it's coming to that instead of V1 sats (where V1 likely doesn't have the size needed for reliable connections).  I wouldn't be surprised if they have run a very mini-test though with a V1 sat to see what type of signal they could read.

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They launch around 50 per launch, so that puts costs at about a million per sat.

Even with the 250k figure that's 4 times the cost of a tower, maintenance (i.e. full replacement every few years) and environmental impact notwithstanding.

11 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Do you have any sources of the 20 - 30k?

Here's a source with a slightly higher figure, which also argues that other methods would be better and cheaper than 5G, including direct fiber rollouts.

 

I'm assuming your 250k figure comes from here but consider that many of these costs come from paying for the land and grants which could be solved by government facilitations, hence why in western europe the average estimate is roughly half of what it is in the US and is also significantly lower in other places around the world.

 

Space in... space... is currently free because it's still a wild west situation where regulation hasn't yet been necessary, but if carriers start filling it with satellites I wouldn't bar the possibility that orbit allotments will need to be established to prevent disaster and excessive clutter.

[wanderingfool2]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Space in... space... is currently free because it's still a wild west situation where regulation hasn't yet been necessary, but if carriers start filling it with satellites I wouldn't bar the possibility that orbit allotments will need to be established to prevent disaster and excessive clutter.

...you do know that it's not the wild west.  SpaceX's Starlink had to get approval from the FCC.  They operate at specific trajectories because they have to, it's a requirement of their license.  Similar to how Amazon has their own set of orbits for their sats (they applied I think at the same time, but Amazon hasn't launched any).  They also have to file things like the EOL plans I believe now.

 

Actually Amazon petitioned against allocating the current run to Starlink, because they are worried it would interfere with their sats (the ones they haven't launched).  [The claim was finally denied, after lawsuit after lawsuit]

 

13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Even with the 250k figure that's 4 times the cost of a tower, maintenance (i.e. full replacement every few years) and environmental impact notwithstanding.

That does assume average tower cost at 250k, and that the tower wouldn't be replaced with a single sat. (one that would already be in orbit anyways)...remember, the V2 sats that will support this have the main purpose to support starlink...so for them it's just taking in extra money, while unlikely adding extra costs (all extra costs would be nominal at best)...as the antenna will already exist, the hardware mostly would exist.

 

So that million dollar sat to launch might actually considerably less.

 

16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Here's a source with a slightly higher figure, which also argues that other methods would be better and cheaper than 5G, including direct fiber rollouts.

 

I'm assuming your 250k figure comes from here but consider that many of these costs come from paying for the land and grants which could be solved by government facilitations, hence why in western europe the average estimate is roughly half of what it is in the US and is also significantly lower in other places around the world.

Well Western Europe also has the population density which greatly improves things.  In the US/Canada as well though, carriers still have to pay rent effectively to the government for cell towers.  Actually in some cases it could be as much as $10k a year per tower.  That adds up quite quickly if you try covering all dead zones.

 

Thanks for the link   The $30-$50k cost from what I can gather is the literal cost of the tower.  Doesn't include the fact that install costs/cable/power runs to the rural area will be astronomical.  e.g. to power those towers, you would need a power line.  They say $5/foot for a fibre cable, but electrical wiring can apparently run $10/foot (when considering burying).  The deadzones likely won't have power for 10's of km...in some areas even 100km.  So that would be 3 million just for the wiring. (ignoring the environmental permits and such)

 

I also did get my 250k figure from there because it was convenient...but at the same time, I also know the expenses of trying to get cables/basis internet to an area that currently doesn't have it (and is in a protected area).  Like I'm not kidding when I say I've seen a quote for a million dollar job, where I know for a fact there is a SAC box capable of a fibre connection within 100m.

 

In general, if the beta version manages to work, it's going to become the cost effective way to cover the dead zones...as then the sats. themselves will mostly be covered by starlink customers (with a large chunk coming from corporate uses planes trains and automobiles)

[Sauron]

11 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

That does assume average tower cost at 250k, and that the tower wouldn't be replaced with a single sat. (one that would already be in orbit anyways)...remember, the V2 sats that will support this have the main purpose to support starlink...so for them it's just taking in extra money, while unlikely adding extra costs (all extra costs would be nominal at best)...as the antenna will already exist, the hardware mostly would exist.

I'm considering whether the original launch was worth it to begin with, not whether adding functionality to it would be. Now that it's there you might as well use it, too bad it means once again delegating crucial infrastructure to the private sector using inefficient methods to control the market and get more profit.

15 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They say $5/foot for a fibre cable, but electrical wiring can apparently run $10/foot (when considering burying).  The deadzones likely won't have power for 10's of km...in some areas even 100km.  So that would be 3 million just for the wiring. (ignoring the environmental permits and such)

If there is a house there must be electrical power. Wouldn't do you much good to have satellite internet if you live in a place with no electricity. If you're lost in the middle of the desert sure, having some sort of sat connectivity would help in a place where regular infrastructure makes no sense - but as I said, this is an extreme edge case that only requires minimal bandwidth and can already be covered by existing geostationary satellites.

20 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

(and is in a protected area)

Again this can be solved with minimal political will. It just won't be so long as giant companies lobby to prevent it so they can sell you their space solution.

22 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

the sats. themselves will mostly be covered by starlink customers

Kind of irrelevant to the point considering you also pay for cabled internet and regular cellular networks... except in theory you should be able to pay less. People living in crowded areas would be the source of most of the income which could then be used to take the relative hit on less profitable areas, as it already is in places where coverage has been extended to critical areas.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

Well Western Europe also has the population density which greatly improves things.  In the US/Canada as well though, carriers still have to pay rent effectively to the government for cell towers.  Actually in some cases it could be as much as $10k a year per tower.  That adds up quite quickly if you try covering all dead zones.

 

Thanks for the link   The $30-$50k cost from what I can gather is the literal cost of the tower.  Doesn't include the fact that install costs/cable/power runs to the rural area will be astronomical.  e.g. to power those towers, you would need a power line.  They say $5/foot for a fibre cable, but electrical wiring can apparently run $10/foot (when considering burying).  The deadzones likely won't have power for 10's of km...in some areas even 100km.  So that would be 3 million just for the wiring. (ignoring the environmental permits and such)

 

Case in point

Rogers (top), Telus(bottom)

Massive dead zone through a provincial park between Hope and Princeton. It's been like this since the end of 2G coverage. That grey line is "NO COVERAGE WHATSOEVER", I won't even show Bell's cover, it's literately nothing. And this is highway 3, a major Canadian highway.

 

If you have a an accident along highway 3, and you survive, you're going to be walking quite a ways assuming you didn't fly off the highway into the valley. So any kind of emergency support would be welcome. I wish I knew the reasoning why both Telus and Rogers have absolutely no coverage along the highway.

https://www.manningpark.com/cell-service-coverage-comes-to-highway-3/

Quote

(2018)

Cell Service Coverage Comes to Highway #3

Cell service has recently been activated between Hope and Princeton on Highway #3, effective early this summer.

With new Telus cellular micro-cells installed in Sunshine Valley, Manning Park and the East Gate community, the cell service provides short-range cellular coverage along the highway from Hope-Princeton.

That's what those tiny strips of coverage are. Maybe there is a politico-environmental concern for the discouragement of cell phones in the area, but I think at this point in time, it's inexcusable for any paved road to not have cellular access, and it further hinders adoption of automated driving.

 

 

[Dracarris]

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

If you have a an accident along highway 3, and you survive, you're going to be walking quite a ways assuming you didn't fly off the highway into the valley. So any kind of emergency support would be welcome.

Don't you have some kind of fixed emergency phones? Like these at German (or European in general) highways:

[Donut417]

12 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Don't you have some kind of fixed emergency phones? Like these at German (or European in general) highways:

Hmmmmm….. A great idea that will never be adopted in America. 

[BabaGanuche]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Hmmmmm….. A great idea that will never be adopted in America. 

They used to exist in the US but they have been removed since everyone has a cell phone.

[Dracarris]

31 minutes ago, BabaGanuche said:

They used to exist in the US but they have been removed since everyone has a cell phone.

With no coverage whatsoever in great ranges of the country? Great.

[BabaGanuche]

2 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

With no coverage whatsoever in great ranges of the country? Great.

No, the one I am taking about were in the city/suburbs. I am not commenting on any that may or may not exist in the middle of nowhere, just that they did exist in some places.

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

If there is a house there must be electrical power. Wouldn't do you much good to have satellite internet if you live in a place with no electricity. If you're lost in the middle of the desert sure, having some sort of sat connectivity would help in a place where regular infrastructure makes no sense - but as I said, this is an extreme edge case that only requires minimal bandwidth and can already be covered by existing geostationary satellites.

Without adding in a larger antenna for output, geostationary satellites are unlikely to work.  There is simply too much room between land and sat. at that stage.  Like we are talking 35,000 km vs 600 km.  Even the starlink sats are going to have a huge antenna, and they admit it's going to be a challenging thing to do without hardware changes.  So really you do need a LEO in order to achieve this, even Apples solution with special hardware is going to require the LEO sats.

 

There are plenty of places that run off grid, and have no cell service (except via sat) already.  They generally get their energy from things such as solar etc. 

 

There are also plenty of roadways that are in lets say mountainous areas where signal doesn't exist (and realistically you can't cover it all with a single tower, you would need tons of them places along it).  People along there who get into an accident rely on passer by to get help.  There are also plenty of wilderness areas that people go to hike on that has no cell coverage.

 

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

Again this can be solved with minimal political will. It just won't be so long as giant companies lobby to prevent it so they can sell you their space solution.

No it can't.  It's a protected area for a reason.  The law spells it out quite clearly, you need to do an environmental assessment, to which you can have opposition which launches legal challenges, then you have to deal with indigenous rights (needing permission there).  So to build in a protected zone, will never be cheap even with political will...because the laws were built to prevent companies from doing exactly that (from lobbying/bribing their way to be approved).

 

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

Kind of irrelevant to the point considering you also pay for cabled internet and regular cellular networks... except in theory you should be able to pay less. People living in crowded areas would be the source of most of the income which could then be used to take the relative hit on less profitable areas, as it already is in places where coverage has been extended to critical areas.

It's not irrelevant.  You have sats. that exist in orbit already.  If by adding a few extra dollars in components you can turn them also into these, why not?  The whole thing is that the more the sat can do while maintaining it's same build/launch cost the better.  The cost then gets distributed amoungst many projects.

 

Things such as Starlink aren't designed to target the crowded areas.  They are meant to target areas where customers are being asked to drop like $10k for a fibre drop, or continue with 1.5 mbps adsl speeds.  Those would be the normal users paying a hundred a month...then you get the high end customers who pay the $5k/month for things like sats on their boat (think cruise ships etc); where there would be thousands of potential clients.  That means sat launches are being paid for by all of those customers.  Airlines are also signing deals.  So very quickly you get lots of clients who are utilizing it for sat. internet.

 

So adding phone support to the hardware makes sense because you will already have the sats. in space, which makes it very relevant because the companies aren't talking about $1 mill per sat anymore, instead it's just working out a deal where they pay their fair share (so likely targeted well below the cost of deploying all the cell towers)

 

[Sauron]

13 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Without adding in a larger antenna for output, geostationary satellites are unlikely to work.  There is simply too much room between land and sat. at that stage.  Like we are talking 35,000 km vs 600 km.  Even the starlink sats are going to have a huge antenna, and they admit it's going to be a challenging thing to do without hardware changes.  So really you do need a LEO in order to achieve this, even Apples solution with special hardware is going to require the LEO sats.

 

There are plenty of places that run off grid, and have no cell service (except via sat) already.

I don't get it, you simultaneously say that it's impossible to achieve via geostationary satellites and also admit that it already happens. Satellite phones are not new. You need low orbit for (relatively) low latency but that's not necessary for emergency phone calls.

13 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They generally get their energy from things such as solar etc. 

And so would any antenna infrastructure or fiber hub placed nearby. You argued that extending power cabling to those areas would be a huge cost but that's simply not true, or rather it's not a cost associated directly with land infrastructure.

14 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The law spells it out quite clearly, you need to do an environmental assessment, to which you can have opposition which launches legal challenges

Do I need to explain to you that politicians in government have the power to change laws? Given how other countries have both environmentally protected zones and dramatically cheaper rollout costs I'm certain the process could be streamlined in the US as well.

14 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

then you have to deal with indigenous rights (needing permission there).

That's fine, if people living there don't want a connection then surely it won't bother them when there isn't any...

 

14 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You have sats. that exist in orbit already.  If by adding a few extra dollars in components you can turn them also into these, why not?

I already said I don't have a problem with just using the existing space trash to do this as well, I have a problem with the orginal idea and the further launch of these satellites.

[wanderingfool2]

21 minutes ago, Sauron said:

don't get it, you simultaneously say that it's impossible to achieve via geostationary satellites and also admit that it already happens. Satellite phones are not new. You need low orbit for (relatively) low latency but that's not necessary for emergency phone calls.

What I said isn't contradictory.  You have sat. phones, but most have a large antenna in order to properly communicate with geostationary sats.  What is being proposed by t-mobile and starlink is utilizing current sized antenna.  What is being proposed by Apple, from what I can gather, they are just simply expanding the frequency bands to include that of satellite (and maybe a smaller customized antenna).  Signal strength is going to be the big make or break when it comes to these things, and as can be seen with modern sat. phones that do connect to geo-sats, they do require a special antenna.

 

It's why I said without adding a larger antenna for output.

 

27 minutes ago, Sauron said:

And so would any antenna infrastructure or fiber hub placed nearby. You argued that extending power cabling to those areas would be a huge cost but that's simply not true, or rather it's not a cost associated directly with land infrastructure.

You are talking about area's without coverage.  Yes, cabling costs become a huge cost...even if you start talking about solar and such, you still need to get the cabling there for the i/o.

 

In no way is just blanketing all current dead zones with cell towers going to feasible when compared to using sats. for coverage.

 

30 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Do I need to explain to you that politicians in government have the power to change laws? Given how other countries have both environmentally protected zones and dramatically cheaper rollout costs I'm certain the process could be streamlined in the US as well.

Quite frankly, no they can't just be changed...not like what you are saying.  Changing those laws will automatically get challenged in court (Think Indigenous rights groups).  You have plenty of obstacles in the way of allowing cell towers to go up in protected lands.  You need to really look up population density.  Most of Europe is significantly more dense than the US.

 

35 minutes ago, Sauron said:

That's fine, if people living there don't want a connection then surely it won't bother them when there isn't any...

It can prevent installs in areas that would benefit (and the people who say no aren't the ones being affected).  This is a whole talk of using it in emergency situation and such.  Protected lands will always be difficult to cover with standard cell towers because quite simply, ignoring environmental laws, indigenous rights group can stop them for the most part (because it means effectively building a tower in protected lands).

 

It's not really that hard of a concept, some areas just can't be blanked with cell service because it will have too large of an environmental impact in the area or just simply cost too much.

 

41 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I already said I don't have a problem with just using the existing space trash to do this as well, I have a problem with the orginal idea and the further launch of these satellites.

The satellites are going to be launched whether you like it or not...and you spouting Kessler syndrome and talking about it being a wild west situation tells me you are arguing against something you are ill-informed about.  Again, it's not the wild west, Starlink has to file with the FCC in regards to where the sat orbits are and the quantities in a given orbit.  They have to have a decommission strategy and maintain within their orbits.  The new sats. without using extra propellent their orbits decay within 5 years.  So the Kessler syndrome isn't really catastrophic (as even in the worst case scenario, you now have debris in a given orbit but can easily avoid it...and within 5 years that debris is gone).  The same can't be said for the higher level orbits though, that have decade and longer orbit decays.

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

That's fine, if people living there don't want a connection then surely it won't bother them when there isn't any...

Or just deploy the cables along the already existing roads, above or underground doesn't matter.

[SansVarnic]

On 9/4/2022 at 9:30 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Frequency is only part of it, you cannot defy the laws of physics where distance directly correlates to attenuation of the signal.  The further you want it to go, the more power you need at both ends.  Otherwise you could just stick cell towers on the top of mountains and have blanket coverage.

This is achievable with less than 2w pending on the wave being used. HAM radio is a very good demonstration of this.