These imbalances are only going to get bigger, so we need a way for a retail broadband provider like Verizon to have a big pipe for downstream traffic without having to care whether the traffic is coming from Netflix or Google or NSF. It all comes down the same pipe. Netflix shouldn't have to care whether their subscribers are on Verizon or Comcast. It all goes up one big pipe.The SpaceX constellation offers the promise of a future in which content services can reach ISPs without their lawyers ever meeting each other, which sounds like a future worth building.
Quote from: butters on 01/30/2015 07:00 amThese imbalances are only going to get bigger, so we need a way for a retail broadband provider like Verizon to have a big pipe for downstream traffic without having to care whether the traffic is coming from Netflix or Google or NSF. It all comes down the same pipe. Netflix shouldn't have to care whether their subscribers are on Verizon or Comcast. It all goes up one big pipe.The SpaceX constellation offers the promise of a future in which content services can reach ISPs without their lawyers ever meeting each other, which sounds like a future worth building.[Jim] NO! WRONG![/Jim] [Polite Jim 3000] The exact opposite is true. [/Polite Jim 3000] Here's why this is a teachable moment:Satellite constellations and ANY form of wireless communications are bandwidth limited by the spectrum bandwidth they choose to use. Wired communications are not limited because you can lay more "pipe" as needed.These proposed constellations offer another diverse path of service delivery (which is a great thing to be sure!!!), but they do not alleviate imbalances in the delivery system- in fact they are far far far worse because the pipe has a finite size limit. Every wireless carrier's worst nightmare is a service that consumers all want hogging up their precious radio waves (e.g. Netflix). I know this as I was the product manager for a 5-state ISP that sold service across POTS, coax, fiber, and wireless mediums. Delivery medium bandwidth is truly the only limiting factor in experiencing the whole richness of Internet services.Net Neutrality embraces this problem by stating through regulation "Tough toenails ISP, you're going to deliver the packets anyway." The ISP wants consumers OR producers to pay for the proportionate amount of bandwidth being consumed instead of both parties paying a flat rate. Someone (consumer, or producer) has to pay for consuming it, and with satellites, the problem is much more relevant because spectrum is the limiting factor.We see similar behavior in the electric and telco industries with "universal access" fees and services that bring power and phones dozens of miles off of a main trunk to serve one or two people paying $30 a month for the service. The telephone company would never build out to those remote people if they weren't forced to do so.What Netflix did with Verizon is preempt the Net Neutrality fight by going ahead and paying upfront for the out-sized bandwidth their streaming service consumes on behalf of their customers. We will see more of these sorts of agreements because consumers want services like Netflix from a wireless carrier (of any sort). Ultimately wireless bandwidth is a limited commodity. Because I spent so much time on the inside, I tend to embrace their move not as a threat to Net Neutrality, but as a vehicle to save it from itself as bandwidth demands increase- but that's OT. BTW, to give you a sense of scale, on a good night, Netflix streaming alone now accounts for nearly half of the downstream bandwidth consumed in the U.S. during evening hours! A few new satellites overhead isn't going to budge that needle.
With tightly focused beams, the spectrum limit is really not a huge problem. This is completely different than omnidirectional broadcasting.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/02/2015 11:44 pmWith tightly focused beams, the spectrum limit is really not a huge problem. This is completely different than omnidirectional broadcasting.And you've just revealed how little you know about spectrum and wireless communications...
I know quite a bit about spectrum and wireless communications and don't know what you're talking about. Robotbeat is right.
OK. Regardless of your Wikepedia reference, I still can't see how your missing something so simple. The reason you use what you're calling sector antennas isn't just because of their gain. It's because you're splitting the coverage areas, allowing frequencies to be reused multiple times, since the antennas are covering different areas. It works with satellite spotbeams and multiple directional cell site antennas. You can use 36 10 degree wide antennas on a tower and use the same frequency on every other one, giving you 18 times as many channels as you would with a single omni. Same with spot beams. You'd never use the same frequency on adjacent ones, but if the beams are tight enough, you can reuse the frequency on beams that have a certain degree of seperation. The higher gain you migh get with directional antennas is a whole different benefit.
Quote from: Nomadd on 02/03/2015 07:21 pmOK. Regardless of your Wikepedia reference, I still can't see how your missing something so simple. The reason you use what you're calling sector antennas isn't just because of their gain. It's because you're splitting the coverage areas, allowing frequencies to be reused multiple times, since the antennas are covering different areas. It works with satellite spotbeams and multiple directional cell site antennas. You can use 36 10 degree wide antennas on a tower and use the same frequency on every other one, giving you 18 times as many channels as you would with a single omni. Same with spot beams. You'd never use the same frequency on adjacent ones, but if the beams are tight enough, you can reuse the frequency on beams that have a certain degree of seperation. The higher gain you migh get with directional antennas is a whole different benefit.Because, omni or sectored, they are still frequency limited- which was my singular and only point. I happen to think they will deploy it exactly as you're describing, and I've said so in numerous posts. The operator will have a certain finite amount of spectrum they can use and no more. It's a physically limiting resource, and there's not enough to make a dent in "replacing fiber" as some have bandied about. They are many orders of magnitude different in scale. It's like telling me that adding highway lanes to one highway will somehow replace all other highways.What you're describing above makes more-efficient use of the available spectrum- and I agree with it- but it doesn't add anything beyond the finite bands that the operator will license. And for anyone not exactly following why we're talking about this, the discussion fundamentally affects what the satellite architecture will be...
I have tried to follow this discussion, but find it hard as a non-laymen to understand MOST of what you are talking about. So from a "Homer Simpson's" point of view, here is what I think you are saying...You have a Constellation of satellites at equal distances in planes around the planet, at a given altitude.That are stationary withing their planes of reference...But the planes move in and orchestrated movement around the planet,While the planet moves beneath them/Now each satellite talks to each other within the planes and across planes, and to the planet as ground receiving stations come within reach...due to atmospheric interference and cosmic interference in spacethere are instances where transmission over lap is necessary to increase reliability of signal packet flow... and there is the problem that your all trying to come up with a solution for.... ummmmmmmm am I closer than 10 miles from the ASDS or in some other parallel universe smoking some quality stuff...Gramps
In the 90s Xerox Park looked at the problem from this perspective.(1 world with X bits of data bandwidth) / Number of people = bits per person.This of course implied 2 things:1) more bandwidth = a few more bits per person2) Cellularization gives a lot more bits per person by dividing N people by M cells
Beamforming gives a vast improvement in power use efficiency over a dumb-antenna, but it's no where near the pencil-thin beams which ground units would be required to have in order to talk to the satellite so that everyone on the ground can be served (remember; New York will look like a dot to the satellite) without overlap. Even then, all those beams (even lasers) would converge on a single point (the satellite) so the amount of spectrum channels available at that spot is still the critical limitation.
With a SpaceX internet why would new observational and scientific sats in orbit around the Earth need custom electronics equipment to talk to the Earth? They could just be designed to become web-nodes on the SpaceX internet.
