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SpaceX Starlink Pilot Program for Union County


Rally Pat
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This is awesome! Anyone who knows me know I follow space exploration like crazy and I watch every single SpaceX and Starlink launch. This internet service and ones that operate on the same concept of many low earth orbit satellites are literally going to change humanity.

 

The goal is high speed (100ish-200ish mbit right now, eventually 1gbps or faster) low latency (30ish ms right now, aiming for single digit once the full satellite constellation is deployed and functional) literally anywhere on earth with a clear view of the sky. Its in public beta right now, and everyone in it is saying its life changing. Its fast enough to game on, several videos floating around out there of people playing CS:GO and CoD Warzone on it.

 

They are launching a pilot in Union county, but IDK what the criteria to get in is or if they have already selected people or not. If you live that way and have crappy or no access to internet, I suggest trying to figure out how to get in!

 

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If by change Humanity, you mean trashing the field of astronomy and making it exceptionally harder in the future to launch anything else into space, then yes. But at least we will be able to quickly communicate amongst ourselves that we are essentially trapping ourselves onto our slowly dying planet.
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I've been following a few people with early access and it looks alright so far. Cloudy weather dips speeds. Once it gets saturated with more users though, I imagine it'll quickly be disregarded for any wired connection. It's a solution for rural communities absolutely, not at all for cities.

 

One day when streaming 8k becomes the norm, good luck. You can lay fiber and upgrade equipment on each end of it and get higher speeds. Have fun upgrading a satellite.

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If by change Humanity, you mean trashing the field of astronomy and making it exceptionally harder in the future to launch anything else into space, then yes. But at least we will be able to quickly communicate amongst ourselves that we are essentially trapping ourselves onto our slowly dying planet.

 

The astronomy stuff early on was true. The satellites were too bright. They addressed it and now you should only be able to see them when they are in transit for their final orbits. I fail to see how it makes things harder to launch things in to space, we know where the satellites are at all times and if they suffer problems they deorbit themselves. Even if they completely die they will slowly deorbit over time passively.

 

There has been way too much astronomer fear mongering going on. Ignorance of the tech is not an excuse to panic. Just like that one picture that an astronomer took and was passing around, all the freaking out people either ignored or left out the fact that the guy who took that picture adjusted his camera to specific settings to capture the Starlink satellites.

 

We are talking about providing the whole of human knowledge to every square inch of the earth that can see sky. That’s worth it.

Edited by Rally Pat
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I've been following a few people with early access and it looks alright so far. Cloudy weather dips speeds. Once it gets saturated with more users though, I imagine it'll quickly be disregarded for any wired connection. It's a solution for rural communities absolutely, not at all for cities.

 

One day when streaming 8k becomes the norm, good luck. You can lay fiber and upgrade equipment on each end of it and get higher speeds. Have fun upgrading a satellite.

 

The satellites upgrade by being deorbited and replaced. They have already been upgrading the satellites all along, and will continue to do so. It’s not a solution for cities YET. I’m willing to put money down that it will be down the road.

 

Also the coming generation of satellites will communicate optically via laser, and light travels faster in a vacuum making it faster than fiber in theory.

 

SpaceX isn’t dumb, they already have plans for all this stuff.

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I've been following a few people with early access and it looks alright so far. Cloudy weather dips speeds. Once it gets saturated with more users though, I imagine it'll quickly be disregarded for any wired connection.

 

If you have names or IG accounts of those people, I would like to follow them too as a SpaceX enthusiast and Network Engineer.

 

Oh and to your comment about the saturation, they have been simulating way more customers along with the real life beta users during the test going on right now. They basically send fake traffic back and forth at the level of a “saturated” connection.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is huge for some of my coworkers, I actually imagine that's part of the reason the pilot is happening in Union county. Work from home and remote school plus poor internet for some of them is a daily struggle right now. 2 or 4 video chat's happening at the same time doesn't work, at all. Good internet for entertainment via streaming video or video games will just be icing on the cake.

 

Though it seems like there is already 100 pre-selected test sites, 90 houses and 10 small businesses.

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-ohio

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  • 1 month later...
Nvm

 

I believe this limit is only for now because they don't have enough satellites up to cover the planet so they are probably orbiting them so that they can cover only specific areas with a quality connection.

 

It also gives some insight into how the billing will probably work. Plans that are fixed to a cell will probably be cheaper than roaming plans just because they can.

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They have said this is just temporary during the beta period, I’ve read they will remove the geolocks and the end of 2021.

 

Hope so, I would love to take starlink with me to 3rd world countries where it is hard to get cell service or internet in the bush.

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