Starlink's speed tests may look impressive, but experts say SpaceX's satellite-internet project is unlikely to win any federal subsidies

[jim bell]

 On Wednesday, September 2, 2020, 03:38:55 AM PDT, grarpamp <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
 
 
 On 9/2/20, jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>    On Tuesday, September 1, 2020, 11:05:10 PM PDT, grarpamp
> <grarpamp at gmail.com> wrote:
>  On 8/28/20, jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> "Starlink's speed tests may look impressive, but experts say SpaceX's
>> satellite-internet project is unlikely to win any federal subsidies
>> "https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-beta-speedtest-results-bandwidth-ping-latency-fcc-rdof-2020-8
>> Jim Bell's comment:
>> I doubt SpaceX NEEDS any Federal subsidies for Starlink.  If it is a
>> working
>> system (and these reports seem to show that it works well) then it will
>> provide competition to the incumbent wire- or fiber Internet services we
>> have been locked into for too long.
>
>>If they accepted an assortment of major cryptocurrencies such as
> Bitcoin, Bitcoin_Cash, Monero, Zcash, etc
> and enabled fully prepaid service and user owned prepaid hardware,
> they might get a lot more customers around the world from those.
> More customers = less subsidies. And accepting cryptocurrency
> is a big marketing win that matches Starlink's tech image.
>
>> I'm hoping that Starlink management will become rather UNcooperative with
> the various nations in which their customers reside.  Unlike fiber-line
> internet, which must "play nice" with the tyrant-in-chief for fear he will
> cut them off, in principle Starlink could smuggle in their "UFO on a stick"
> devices, which could be hidden and thus operate "unauthorized".
> I talk to a person who communicates with Philipines and Cambodia, and
> apparently those governments will simply turn off the Internet in those
> countries.  I have also read that India is rather quick on the 'off switch'
> in neighborhoods.  Why India shuts down the internet more than any other democracy

>India, China, Pakistan, everywhere really, it's growing as a potential
and active tool in sick minds of Govt and political censors of
internet freedom for humanity worldwide, it's sad.

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Why India shuts down the internet more than any other democracy

India shut down the internet 93 times this year, and a blackout in Kashmir is the world's longest.
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THAT'S why I think that Starlink is such an opportune service, particularly if it is in the hands of an 'independent' mind, like Musk.   He has put himself in a very useful position to promote freedom.   IF he chooses to do so.  That's why people such as ourselves should remind him that we know what position he has put himself in!

>And with Starlink service and hardware fully prepaid via crypto,
there's no reason,
and nothing, to turn off or shut down (beyond the boring DoS etc which Starlink
already handles as any other ISP does... customer's node gets blocked
at the headend after some number of abuses). Nasty oppressive countries aren't
going to be able to land-jam Starlink users that have their narrow
directional shielded
>dishes pointed up, 

Yes, the small-dish "UFO on a stick" (or a mechanically-modified 'guerilla' equivalent:  Why put it on a stick?  So it will be closer to the satellites?!?) is going to be very hard to jam.  It's potentially findable, but many only-somewhat-oppressive governments are likely to not attempt to extensively root them out.   Where governments currently cut off the Internet to its citizens, it's probably mostly because they CAN do that without much more effort than merely a call to the local fiber-internet manager. ("Shut 'er down, Ahmad!!!")
Also, such jamming would run very afoul of International radio agreements.      https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/servlets/purl/20945052

>and can't launch wide coverage jamsats pointed down withoutjamming everyone including the respective Govt and Govt Approved Users
themselves.
Starlink needs to accept cryptocurrency so that abusive Govt's can't censor its
citizens offline by ordering banks to block their bankcard payments to Starlink,
and then murdering their citizens by their associated name / address /
phone / ID / email / credit checks
(none of which *ever* need to be collected by Starlink in fully prepaid mode).
Prepaid hardware can be delivered, or smuggled, in to freedom repressed users.
And the Starlink RF and protocol specs could be fully opened so that such
users and communities in need could even use gnuradio SDR as their land
>node if they can't get a sexy box labelled "Starlink" shipped in past their
>censorius customs units, building inspectors, thought police, etc.

I'd like to see a photograph of the internal electronics of the "UFO-on-a-stick".    It's probably just a simple phased-array "radar" unit that has been re-purposed for communication purposes.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array         It might be that the stock package isn't really necessary:   A thin cover, a flat sheet of thin polyethylene.  (Polyethylene has good microwave-transmission characteristics).  
A few months ago, we were discussing the "Walabot"   Walabot DIY: The Only Visual Stud Finder
It seems it is based on a phased-array as well.  https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/teardown-tuesday-walabot-diy-in-wall-imager-by-vayyar/   
I can't quite make out the numbers on the chips, but this sure looks straightforward!   Reminds me a little of a PCB for an IR remote-control!  Mostly PCB, just a few chips.  
Making "a radar unit" and "making a data-communications unit" are probably close enough to use the same chips.

>> I wonder if a small village could share a single Starlink device, running a
> WiFi router for local distribution.

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Teardown Tuesday: Walabot In-Wall Imaging Sensor by Vayyar - News

In this teardown, we take apart Vayyar's Walabot DIY In-Wall Imager to see what we can find.
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>Yes, it's just a standard LAN connection like any other access port.
All the One-Laptop-Per-Child's, internet cafe's, farms, etc can link up to that.
Villages will pool funds to prepay for the next 1/3/6-month or years service
just like any other prepaid user would, no prepay no service, no big deal...
prepaid is already a simple, easy, popular, and well known service
model worldwide.
Eventually many such shared users will become individual subscribers when they
>outgrow what one node can supply, and tire of the travel needed to get
>to the node.

>Starlink can have a big win and leg up on the competition
by servicing these all these features and needs.

And this might also be an opportunity for a "really rich person" (which I hope to be, one day!) to subsidize the Internet service for the people of a nation which is controlled by  an "unsympathetic" government.  
              Jim Bell





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Phased array

Phased arrays were invented for use in military radar systems, to steer a beam of radio waves quickly across the...
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