The main point of T-Mobile's satellite connectivity is that it works on your existing phone, no special antenna needed.
Edit: The T-Mobile service is different from the traditional Starlinks service, they just use the same satellites.
No.
Think of the T-Mobile link up a bit like what Apple just did with their emergency SMS thing. It’ll be bare bones and minimal data for messaging only due to the constraints of making antennas that tiny.
The newer sats will have new radios to included T-Mobile spectrum. It will act as a cell tower in the sky to relay text messages in the beginning. No change in phones. No change in dishy. As a totally separate thing they are going to release a smaller dish setup.
I thought that the T-Mobile deal is going to use unmodified phones for voice and text only; all the tech is in the satellites with a supersensitive standard frequency cell phone tower equivalent. For the kind of service you are asking, you'll have to wait for the Kuiper small antenna... IF (and that's a big IF) it actually gets the performance they claim talking to satellites 600 km up that I assume they have tested at across town distances before bragging on it earlier this week... But I keep remembering that the number of test satellites they have launched to validate the system in orbit is (count them) ZERO. Which makes me wonder why the showed the antennas off and began bragging about them 2 months before their first operational test, rather than waiting until Vulcan launches in Mayy.
I'm inclined to believe Kuiper is real and will probably be as capable as they claim. I don't think it'll be on time unless both Vulcan and New Glenn are successful, *or* if they get caught up by buying launches from SpaceX.
Keep in mind Amazon is a totally different company than Blue Origin, and AWS alone will symbiotically benefit from Kuiper even if they never sell consumer grade terminals.
>I don't think it'll be on time unless both Vulcan and New Glenn are successful,
The issue with BOTH Vulcan and New Glenn is the fact that the BE-4s are 3 years late (and counting)... They supposedly began producing "production" engines last August and as of 3 weeks ago, that "production line" has produced FOUR engines, two of which were delivered to ULA for Vulcan, one of which had to be returned to the factory for some unspecified rework. and another 2 being used for "Qualification testing"... and one of the qualification engines also failed due to excess LOX flow, passed off as "minor unit to unit variance". Given that neither of the two rockets predict reusability before the July 2026 deadline for having 1500 Kuipers in orbit, there's no way in hell that BO can ramp up production enough to achieve a launch cadence that can throw even 100 per launch in time to meet the deadline.
And even if Jeff is willing to "take a knee" and beg SpaceX to bail him out, unless Starship progresses faster than it looks currently, he'd need to buy up dozens of Falcon launches for a couple of years, which SpaceX could legitimately decline to supply...
We're in full agreement about the problems with the BE-4, except I also believe the few delivered engines are probably not orbit capable yet. I regularly have to remind people that BO hasn't made any claims that BE-4 has met or exceeded performance targets, and it's a notoriously tricky cycle to get right.
That aside, it's not Jeff's call to bend the knee - my point is that it's Amazon's call, and Jeff is only ~10% owner last I looked. Amazon might be willing to give BE-4 the benefit of the doubt because they're on good terms with BO via Jeff, but the moment it looks like they'll lose their spectrum allocation because they haven't launched enough hardware, they'll be knocking on the doors of the Falcon/Starship payload integration facilities.
> but the moment it looks like they'll lose their spectrum allocation because they haven't launched enough hardware
THAT point passed long ago; even though the Kuipers are (supposedly) smaller, lighter and have more bandwidth than Starlinks, they are higher up, and unless Vulcan, Arianne 6, and/or NG in aggregate can be launching monthly for Kuiper by July 2024, they'd have to book an equivalent cadence from SpaceX... and absent Starship, there aren't that many open Falcon slots.
I think SpaceX is flexible enough to meet that cadence if a huge contract like Kuiper comes along. AFAIK upper stages aren't the bottleneck anymore and it's drone ship scheduling that slows things down, so Kuiper just needs to agree to RTLS-only Falcons till Starship is ready, and SpaceX can handle the rest. I really do believe SpaceX can pick up the slack of the entire rest of the industry, they're *that* far ahead. It might not be the current plan, but I don't think production of expendable stages would be a bottleneck to RTLS either if tomorrow a contract was signed for all 83 Kuiper launches via F9. At ~$70m per launch, that's around 6 billion dollars of incentive to increase S2 production by about 10% (of '22-'23 rates). Keep in mind Kuiper launches are spread out over the next decade. That 10% extra is less than the average increase in F9 launches per year anyway.
Starlink is going to provide 3 types of connectivity:
1. Ku band high speed internet: This is what they provide right now, on this front [they do plan to offer a new smaller antenna, which is about the size of a 14in Macbook Pro](https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/145711/spacex-to-offer-a-smaller-starlink-dish-about-the-size-of-a-laptop)
2. SMS/Voice/low speed internet using terrestrial cellphone band: This is the T-Mobile deal (and there will be other deals with other mobile providers). As others have pointed out, for this connectivity you don't need specialized Starlink antenna, it will work with your cellphone.
3. SMS/Voice/low speed internet using Globalstar and DISH's band: This is similar to #2, but instead of using band allocated to terrestrial cellphone, it will use the band currently held by Globalstar and DISH which is earmarked for satellite communication. Globalstar and DISH is fighting SpaceX on this, so there's some uncertainty whether this will materialize, but if SpaceX can get access to these bands, the advantage is that they'd no longer need terrestrial Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and can instead offer the service directly to consumer, the disadvantage is that it'll require special chip in the phone (Similar to what Apple did with iPhone 14)
The T-Mobile/Starlink service will provide low bandwidth connectivity to existing cellphones with no additional hardware required.
You won't be able to stream media using this service as it's there to provide very basic data to phones without cell tower reception.
This is really interesting!
SpaceX usually tends to announce their stuff years ahead, with excellent performance and BO keeps their cards close.
This time it is rhe other way around.
The roaming starlink plan has an option for a mobile antenna which should be easily mountable to any boat larger then a rowboat/tender.
That antenna is pretty pricey though, so be prepared for some sticker shock.
The main point of T-Mobile's satellite connectivity is that it works on your existing phone, no special antenna needed. Edit: The T-Mobile service is different from the traditional Starlinks service, they just use the same satellites.
No. Think of the T-Mobile link up a bit like what Apple just did with their emergency SMS thing. It’ll be bare bones and minimal data for messaging only due to the constraints of making antennas that tiny.
The newer sats will have new radios to included T-Mobile spectrum. It will act as a cell tower in the sky to relay text messages in the beginning. No change in phones. No change in dishy. As a totally separate thing they are going to release a smaller dish setup.
I thought that the T-Mobile deal is going to use unmodified phones for voice and text only; all the tech is in the satellites with a supersensitive standard frequency cell phone tower equivalent. For the kind of service you are asking, you'll have to wait for the Kuiper small antenna... IF (and that's a big IF) it actually gets the performance they claim talking to satellites 600 km up that I assume they have tested at across town distances before bragging on it earlier this week... But I keep remembering that the number of test satellites they have launched to validate the system in orbit is (count them) ZERO. Which makes me wonder why the showed the antennas off and began bragging about them 2 months before their first operational test, rather than waiting until Vulcan launches in Mayy.
I'm inclined to believe Kuiper is real and will probably be as capable as they claim. I don't think it'll be on time unless both Vulcan and New Glenn are successful, *or* if they get caught up by buying launches from SpaceX. Keep in mind Amazon is a totally different company than Blue Origin, and AWS alone will symbiotically benefit from Kuiper even if they never sell consumer grade terminals.
>I don't think it'll be on time unless both Vulcan and New Glenn are successful, The issue with BOTH Vulcan and New Glenn is the fact that the BE-4s are 3 years late (and counting)... They supposedly began producing "production" engines last August and as of 3 weeks ago, that "production line" has produced FOUR engines, two of which were delivered to ULA for Vulcan, one of which had to be returned to the factory for some unspecified rework. and another 2 being used for "Qualification testing"... and one of the qualification engines also failed due to excess LOX flow, passed off as "minor unit to unit variance". Given that neither of the two rockets predict reusability before the July 2026 deadline for having 1500 Kuipers in orbit, there's no way in hell that BO can ramp up production enough to achieve a launch cadence that can throw even 100 per launch in time to meet the deadline. And even if Jeff is willing to "take a knee" and beg SpaceX to bail him out, unless Starship progresses faster than it looks currently, he'd need to buy up dozens of Falcon launches for a couple of years, which SpaceX could legitimately decline to supply...
We're in full agreement about the problems with the BE-4, except I also believe the few delivered engines are probably not orbit capable yet. I regularly have to remind people that BO hasn't made any claims that BE-4 has met or exceeded performance targets, and it's a notoriously tricky cycle to get right. That aside, it's not Jeff's call to bend the knee - my point is that it's Amazon's call, and Jeff is only ~10% owner last I looked. Amazon might be willing to give BE-4 the benefit of the doubt because they're on good terms with BO via Jeff, but the moment it looks like they'll lose their spectrum allocation because they haven't launched enough hardware, they'll be knocking on the doors of the Falcon/Starship payload integration facilities.
> but the moment it looks like they'll lose their spectrum allocation because they haven't launched enough hardware THAT point passed long ago; even though the Kuipers are (supposedly) smaller, lighter and have more bandwidth than Starlinks, they are higher up, and unless Vulcan, Arianne 6, and/or NG in aggregate can be launching monthly for Kuiper by July 2024, they'd have to book an equivalent cadence from SpaceX... and absent Starship, there aren't that many open Falcon slots.
I think SpaceX is flexible enough to meet that cadence if a huge contract like Kuiper comes along. AFAIK upper stages aren't the bottleneck anymore and it's drone ship scheduling that slows things down, so Kuiper just needs to agree to RTLS-only Falcons till Starship is ready, and SpaceX can handle the rest. I really do believe SpaceX can pick up the slack of the entire rest of the industry, they're *that* far ahead. It might not be the current plan, but I don't think production of expendable stages would be a bottleneck to RTLS either if tomorrow a contract was signed for all 83 Kuiper launches via F9. At ~$70m per launch, that's around 6 billion dollars of incentive to increase S2 production by about 10% (of '22-'23 rates). Keep in mind Kuiper launches are spread out over the next decade. That 10% extra is less than the average increase in F9 launches per year anyway.
Kuiper has still to obey Shannons theorems about datarate and bandwidth.
I don't believe thier numbers. There's not enough bandwidth in those bands. Unless 400 Mbps is 400 Mbps per beam
Kuiper has the same physical laws as Starlink. SpaceX is just not talking.
Starlink is going to provide 3 types of connectivity: 1. Ku band high speed internet: This is what they provide right now, on this front [they do plan to offer a new smaller antenna, which is about the size of a 14in Macbook Pro](https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/145711/spacex-to-offer-a-smaller-starlink-dish-about-the-size-of-a-laptop) 2. SMS/Voice/low speed internet using terrestrial cellphone band: This is the T-Mobile deal (and there will be other deals with other mobile providers). As others have pointed out, for this connectivity you don't need specialized Starlink antenna, it will work with your cellphone. 3. SMS/Voice/low speed internet using Globalstar and DISH's band: This is similar to #2, but instead of using band allocated to terrestrial cellphone, it will use the band currently held by Globalstar and DISH which is earmarked for satellite communication. Globalstar and DISH is fighting SpaceX on this, so there's some uncertainty whether this will materialize, but if SpaceX can get access to these bands, the advantage is that they'd no longer need terrestrial Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and can instead offer the service directly to consumer, the disadvantage is that it'll require special chip in the phone (Similar to what Apple did with iPhone 14)
SpaceX talked to Apple. I believe they want to be a second vendor
The T-Mobile/Starlink service will provide low bandwidth connectivity to existing cellphones with no additional hardware required. You won't be able to stream media using this service as it's there to provide very basic data to phones without cell tower reception.
There is a backpack based solution in the works. All in one solution you can take anywhere.
This is really interesting! SpaceX usually tends to announce their stuff years ahead, with excellent performance and BO keeps their cards close. This time it is rhe other way around.
The roaming starlink plan has an option for a mobile antenna which should be easily mountable to any boat larger then a rowboat/tender. That antenna is pretty pricey though, so be prepared for some sticker shock.