With latency as low as 25ms and gigabit speeds, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019 - Sensationalist Headlines

So they're planning to achieve a high bandwidth ultra low latency connection from sat via.... Magic? I use IP over SHF (K/Ku band) SATCOM which is 'Military Grade™' and even then that connection is still relatively slow and high latency. I like Musk, but I'm pretty skeptical about this concept.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;52183379]I want Google fiber in Denver/Aurora SO FUCKING BAD.[/QUOTE] I'd really rather a municipal fiber company but Google is building a big office in Boulder.

[QUOTE=Levelog;52183556]I'd really rather a municipal fiber company but Google is building a big office in Boulder.[/QUOTE] I wonder, where did you hear this? They might be planning a DC there, since CO is a big interconnect for Comcast, and is geographically in a good spot.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;52183672]I wonder, where did you hear this? They might be planning a DC there, since CO is a big interconnect for Comcast, and is geographically in a good spot.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure it's the shit under construction on 28th and Canyon. One of my clients is in the building that Google has a small office in and is leaving soon. Another just left Boulder for longmont because they can't compete for engineers with them and other big guys moving into town. [editline]3rd May 2017[/editline] Level 3 is also headquartered here

[QUOTE=Levelog;52183822]Pretty sure it's the shit under construction on 28th and Canyon. One of my clients is in the building that Google has a small office in and is leaving soon. Another just left Boulder for longmont because they can't compete for engineers with them and other big guys moving into town. [editline]3rd May 2017[/editline] Level 3 is also headquartered here[/QUOTE] Google has an office in Boulder. Pretty sure they work on Google Maps tech. No clue about any of the changes that may/may not be going on. Level 3 is located in the south side of Broomfield. And is currently being bought up by CenturyLink which is a fiber competitor.

[QUOTE=Worstcase;52184107]Google has an office in Boulder. Pretty sure they work on Google Maps tech. No clue about any of the changes that may/may not be going on. Level 3 is located in the south side of Broomfield. And is currently being bought up by CenturyLink which is a fiber competitor.[/QUOTE] It's a super small office really though, I go there once a week.

[QUOTE=Burre.png;52182647]Isn't HughesNet a scam anyway? IIRC, they like to pull the bait & switch method, and they lie about speeds, cost, and an early termination fee that costs hundreds. There's a myriad of other shit they do.[/QUOTE] HughesNet is a fucking joke. People think Comcast is bad but they just don't know the horror that is HughesNet. First off, you have a monthly data cap. You're probably thinking, "Yeah, and so does every other ISP!" But other ISPs don't have a data cap of [I]10 gigabytes per month.[/I] Me and the rest of my family ran through that shit within the first ten or so days AFTER attempting to ration it by not watching HD videos (Hell, videos at all), downloading shit, or anything else of the sort. Oh, but from the hours of 2-8AM they give you an extra 20 "bonus bytes" to use. Thanks, assholes. I'm pretty sure they also block some websites/services because while with HughesNet I couldn't sign into my Steam account through the client. But as soon as we moved to a place in town and got Comcast the problem magically fixed itself. I think the scummiest thing of all though is the fact that they give you way more data in your first month so you think everything is fine. The thing is, once you've been with HughesNet for a month, you sign a verbal contract keeping you with their service for another year or so or until you pay a severance fee. I think we had them for about three months or so until we cut off ties for good.

[QUOTE=Ta16;52183540]So they're planning to achieve a high bandwidth ultra low latency connection from sat via.... Magic? I use IP over SHF (K/Ku band) SATCOM which is 'Military Grade™' and even then that connection is still relatively slow and high latency. I like Musk, but I'm pretty skeptical about this concept.[/QUOTE] The sats will be in LEO rather than GSO that most communication sats are in. They will also act as a mesh network to route data to where it's supposed to go a bit quicker. Reusability is key to making this affordable.

[QUOTE=Aide;52182589]8.6k. Shit I'd run it my self at that cost.[/QUOTE] I think it's because my house is on the backside of 30 acres, and if you look at my address on Google Maps, it give you some weird location on the main road, like half a mile from the actual spot. So the engineers that came to inspect probably didn't realize that they ran cable from the road to within 1000' of my house to service the tree nursery office that is nearby. Basically, Comcast engineers are lazy/useless. I even offered to trench and pipe from pole to house because my friend is the owner of an irrigation company and they could knock that out in a couple of hours for pennies on what Comcast wants. I just need their damn bucket truck... [QUOTE=S31-Syntax;52183146]Having seen and crunched install numbers myself, I can tell you right now that that price is accurate. The only way you're going to mKe that affordable is if you get neighbors in on it too and split the cost.[/QUOTE] I don't have neighbors lol... This is a rural area. The physical design of the roads here make it really hard to justify spreading because there's a ton of dead space. I just hope that WISP and other wireless methods can achieve modern speeds with acceptable latency. It's not worth me gaining speed at the expense of 500ms of added latency.

[QUOTE=Morgen;52184636]The sats will be in LEO rather than GSO that most communication sats are in. They will also act as a mesh network to route data to where it's supposed to go a bit quicker. Reusability is key to making this affordable.[/QUOTE] To put this into perspective, LEO is only a couple hundred miles into space, while current comms and internet satellites are up at 22,000~ miles so they can use 1-2 satellites and get coverage of basically the whole planet. Speed of light + processing overhead means that current sats at GSO have latency measurable in several 1/10ths of a second, while new LEO sats will have latency in the 25-100ms range. The problem is cost because the new system will require probably hundreds of satellites, and it's expensive as shit to build them, let alone actually launch them up. Then, thanks to drag from residual air, the satellites will need to gradually be replaced over time.

[QUOTE=zombini;52185295]To put this into perspective, LEO is only a couple hundred miles into space, while current comms and internet satellites are up at 22,000~ miles so they can use 1-2 satellites and get coverage of basically the whole planet. Speed of light + processing overhead means that current sats at GSO have latency measurable in several 1/10ths of a second, while new LEO sats will have latency in the 25-100ms range. The problem is cost because the new system will require probably hundreds of satellites, and it's expensive as shit to build them, let alone actually launch them up. Then, thanks to drag from residual air, the satellites will need to gradually be replaced over time.[/QUOTE] Several thousand satellites. Reusability on the Falcon 9 is key for the project. SpaceX are also doing a lot of the sat in house to further cut costs.

[QUOTE=Morgen;52185309]Several thousand satellites. Reusability on the Falcon 9 is key for the project. SpaceX are also doing a lot of the sat in house to further cut costs.[/QUOTE] Look, I mean no hate boner against SpaceX. If anything its admirable that they're trying to lower the cost barrier to LEO. However consider that most satellites weigh atleast 1000kg, and its ~$20k/kg to LEO. [URL="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TH2TF9Y/ref=psdc_1288217011_t1_B005NWYQN2"]For that price you could lay down (Disclaimer this is back of the napkin engineering) ~16000 miles (~26000km) of fiber.[/URL] And considering just how often you'd have to replace these satellites (About every 8-10 years or so due to drag), it really tallys up the cost to maintain this infrastructure instead of just doing fiber which will last for decades at the minimum.

[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;52185681]Look, I mean no hate boner against SpaceX. If anything its admirable that they're trying to lower the cost barrier to LEO. However consider that most satellites weigh atleast 1000kg, and its ~$20k/kg to LEO. [URL="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TH2TF9Y/ref=psdc_1288217011_t1_B005NWYQN2"]For that price you could lay down (Disclaimer this is back of the napkin engineering) ~16000 miles (~26000km) of fiber.[/URL] And considering just how often you'd have to replace these satellites (About every 8-10 years or so due to drag), it really tallys up the cost to maintain this infrastructure instead of just doing fiber which will last for decades at the minimum.[/QUOTE] Looking at less than 400 kg per sat. Fairing reuse, and first stage reuse will be implemented fully by then. Second stage reuse looks like it will be in the works as well. Plus the cost of raw fiber isn't the main cost for these things.

[QUOTE=Morgen;52182580]Not for gigabit level speeds on the individual level.[/QUOTE] What? My apartment building uses microwave towers to get online (and it's free so there is that). It is a consistent speed and can support 10 Gbps up/down no problem. It is line of sight though, so as long as there are no fast growing trees (or rogue cranes) everything will be fine.

[QUOTE=jordguitar;52188438]What? My apartment building uses microwave towers to get online (and it's free so there is that). It is a consistent speed and can support 10 Gbps up/down no problem. It is line of sight though, so as long as there are no fast growing trees (or rogue cranes) everything will be fine.[/QUOTE] You can do whatever with LOS. But it's not very realistic for deploying it to every house in a rural area.

[QUOTE=Morgen;52188902]You can do whatever with LOS. But it's not very realistic for deploying it to every house in a rural area.[/QUOTE] It doesn't have to be perfect line of site even. Cambium makes some crazy 900mhz gear that gets decent throughput. And you can still hit pretty high density, towers can cover a 10+ mile radius with the right equipment. That's plenty to cover rural gatherings of homes with direct point to points for lone houses at longer distances.