Lynk Global (formerly Ubiquitilink)

[Danderman]

Using differential precession rates to assemble a constellation is a lot harder in practice than it seems.

For a small constellation, the planes are far apart.

For a large constellation, some number of spares must also be included in the mix. Also, there is the problem that some satellites have larger propulsion requirements than those launched directly  into the desired plane.

Satellite constellations operating higher than 1000 km have more "room" to work with in terms of differential altitudes than those operating below 500 km. We have never seen a structured constellation with large numbers of satellites below 500 km to date, so we have not yet seen a solution to some of these practical issues.

[Danderman]

UBL has a payload attached to NG-11, which will fly until December.

[Danderman]

The company has changed its name to Lynk Global, or "Lynk".

[niwax]

The company has changed its name to Lynk Global, or "Lynk".

I've been waiting for this ever since I first saw the name, it's hardly unique in the networking/communication space.

[Asteroza]

The company has changed its name to Lynk Global, or "Lynk".

I've been waiting for this ever since I first saw the name, it's hardly unique in the networking/communication space.

Note Ubiquitilink's new homepage is NOT https://lynk.global but rather https://lynk.world/

[su27k]

An article about Lynk and its competitors: Your Phone May Soon Receive 4G Service ... From Space!

[Danderman]

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/18/21184126/lynk-mega-constellation-text-message-android-smartphone-cell-towers-space

Lynk has tested its cell tower in space.

[Tulse]

Can Lynk handle more than just texting? While all the media material talks about "connecting" to cell phones, I haven't seen anything about actual voice service. Doing data/text is still impressive, but it's probably not what most people think of when you say your cell phone will get service from a satellite.

[Asteroza]

Can Lynk handle more than just texting? While all the media material talks about "connecting" to cell phones, I haven't seen anything about actual voice service. Doing data/text is still impressive, but it's probably not what most people think of when you say your cell phone will get service from a satellite.

Presumably they can, provided they have enough coverage in space and ground station connectivity. Their initial constellation only provides hourly coverage, so async stuff like text messages (and small data bursts like IoT telemetry beacons) are more suitable in that scenario.

Interesting that they are now looking at 55kg sats.

[TrevorMonty]

Even a limited txt messaging capability would be useful. Better than carry dedicated satellite phone and cheaper if only paying buy txt. Would ideal for hiking in remote places, or as alternative to global roaming.

This would allow them to start small and expand as demand grows till they can provide voice coverage.

[gongora]

Lynk has filed FCC permits for a (6U?) test sat "Lynk the World" that will be deployed from NG-13 after it leaves ISS.

[john smith 19]

Even a limited txt messaging capability would be useful. Better than carry dedicated satellite phone and cheaper if only paying buy txt. Would ideal for hiking in remote places, or as alternative to global roaming.

This would allow them to start small and expand as demand grows till they can provide voice coverage.

That was the pitch of Orbcomm and Geostar.

When went Ch11 like every other LEO/MEO constellation comm sat service provider.

People have been trying this stuff since the mid 90's (the first 2 Orbcomm satellites launched on OSC Pegasus in 1995). 25 years of watching the economics of those fleets seems to taught very few people very few lessons. 

[Asteroza]

Even a limited txt messaging capability would be useful. Better than carry dedicated satellite phone and cheaper if only paying buy txt. Would ideal for hiking in remote places, or as alternative to global roaming.

This would allow them to start small and expand as demand grows till they can provide voice coverage.

That was the pitch of Orbcomm and Geostar.

When went Ch11 like every other LEO/MEO constellation comm sat service provider.

People have been trying this stuff since the mid 90's (the first 2 Orbcomm satellites launched on OSC Pegasus in 1995). 25 years of watching the economics of those fleets seems to taught very few people very few lessons. 

The one lesson Lynk has learned is custom terminals are like a dead albatross around a constellation's neck, thus the effort in getting relatively unmodified smartphones to work with it. You do not want to put up barriers to people trying to throw money at you.

[john smith 19]

The one lesson Lynk has learned is custom terminals are like a dead albatross around a constellation's neck, thus the effort in getting relatively unmodified smartphones to work with it. You do not want to put up barriers to people trying to throw money at you.

The classic in this regard was the inability of iridium terminals to not work indoors.  .

What has changed is the ability to set up picocell base stations and therefor (in principal) shift the issue to a small wireless unit that can interface to unmodified cell phones.

Not sure how Lynk will actually proceed but it's an option that didn't exist in the 90's.

[Danderman]

The one lesson Lynk has learned is custom terminals are like a dead albatross around a constellation's neck, thus the effort in getting relatively unmodified smartphones to work with it. You do not want to put up barriers to people trying to throw money at you.

The classic in this regard was the inability of iridium terminals to not work indoors.  .

What has changed is the ability to set up picocell base stations and therefor (in principal) shift the issue to a small wireless unit that can interface to unmodified cell phones.

Not sure how Lynk will actually proceed but it's an option that didn't exist in the 90's.

Another name for picocell base stations is “custom terminal”.

[Danderman]

Even a limited txt messaging capability would be useful. Better than carry dedicated satellite phone and cheaper if only paying buy txt. Would ideal for hiking in remote places, or as alternative to global roaming.

This would allow them to start small and expand as demand grows till they can provide voice coverage.

That was the pitch of Orbcomm and Geostar.

When went Ch11 like every other LEO/MEO constellation comm sat service provider.

People have been trying this stuff since the mid 90's (the first 2 Orbcomm satellites launched on OSC Pegasus in 1995). 25 years of watching the economics of those fleets seems to taught very few people very few lessons. 

Every failed LEO constellation required the customer to buy some custom equipment.

[john smith 19]

Every failed LEO constellation required the customer to buy some custom equipment.

Quite true.

The (possible) attraction of the picocell is that it lets multiple uses share the specialist equipment and continue to use their personal mobiles.

Wheather that's enough to justify using Lynk Globals system (or starlink, or anyone else's) system only time will tell.

Keep in mind cell phone reception is radically more developed now than in the mid 90's. Sat phones to talk to geo comm sats have shown to be workable.

One market that's substantial but difficult to serve is the US. Lots of folk with poor broadband provided by cable companies with a virtual monopoly on the service who have actively tried to stifle competition by resident owned broadband suppliers and a very cooper"cooperative"  chairman of the FCC in Pai.

[Asteroza]

Every failed LEO constellation required the customer to buy some custom equipment.

Quite true.

The (possible) attraction of the picocell is that it lets multiple uses share the specialist equipment and continue to use their personal mobiles.

Wheather that's enough to justify using Lynk Globals system (or starlink, or anyone else's) system only time will tell.

Keep in mind cell phone reception is radically more developed now than in the mid 90's. Sat phones to talk to geo comm sats have shown to be workable.

One market that's substantial but difficult to serve is the US. Lots of folk with poor broadband provided by cable companies with a virtual monopoly on the service who have actively tried to stifle competition by resident owned broadband suppliers and a very cooper"cooperative"  chairman of the FCC in Pai.

The picocell thing is in a weird situation though. We have seen limited picocell deployments by broadband providers partially or wholly owned by a parent cellular provider, typically by direct integration of the picocell hardware with the home router/modem/wifi AP that most people lease from their provider. So end users are invisibly subsidizing the cost of custom terminals. The hard issue of 5G deployments being so capital intensive could be partially mitigated by burdening broadband users to pay for the 5G picocells directly via modem integration (unbeknownst to them though). The primary aim of adding wireless hardware of any kind at first was large federated wifi deployments, as it's an easy sell to get a home user to lease a modem with wifi capabilities (they need a home wifi AP anyways, and having multiple SSID's on an AP is peanuts in costs). Stepping up to cellular picocells is a harder sell though, unless you actively allow home users to prioritize their smartphones on the picocell (which most seem to allow?)

Then there is the reverse situation starting to show up, where getting fixed line broadband is such a hassle (particularly high speed broadband greater than 90's era DSL), so the cellular carriers are turning things around and selling externally powered "mobile routers" that operate as home wifi AP's. The interesting assumption there is home user devices have mostly migrated to wifi rather than wired ethernet (more people own wifi equipped laptops than wired desktops, watching Netflix on smartphones and tablets via wifi, portable game devices are all wifi). Those semi-fixed mobile routers also tend to use other cellular frequencies, as not being actively mobile allows for certain optimizations from a cellular provider perspective (no tower handoffs normally)(some interesting reuse of existing legacy WiMAX frequencies). A case could be made that a cellular provider trying to roll out 5G/high end 4G LTE that is trying to go to war against fixed line broadband providers outside of their own partnership group may have an interest in having secondary backhaul capabilities wherever they have poor coverage. Similar to picocell routers, the customer is asked to place the box by a window so it can see the sky (rather than a tower). The price of the equipment is a little eyewatering though (you would need a fairly high end wifi chip to cover WiFi6, a 5G modem, and the satcomm chip/antenna, plus ancillaries like GPS and maybe bluetooth)(you could cover a lot with a single recent high end Qualcomm smartphone chip except for the satcomm)(one could make the argument that an externally powered home access box that is not size/battery constrained would be perfect for a high end SDR chip that covers all your transmitting and receiving needs coupled with a diode moderated phased array antenna, something like a high end fractenna)

[gongora]

Lynk isn't going to compete in the broadband market.  They're not doing 5G.  I'm not sure why picocells are being discussed.

[TrevorMonty]

Recent podcast by founder of Lynk Global.
https://www.thespaceshow.com/show/14-aug-2020/broadcast-3557-charles-miller

Currently have few satellites in operation. Initial services are txt with limited service eg once hour. For texting in remote locations better than nothing. Can be used for remote monitoring of equipment and broadcasting emergency messages eg hurricane is coming.

For data an voice calls early satellites will relay via ground stations which Lynk currently lease. Satellites will need to see phone and ground station at same time, calls will be limited to few minutes. More satellites more call & data windows there will be. With inter satellite datalinks better coverage. Not mentioned but using Starlink or Oneweb as backbone could remove need for ground stations and give satellites permanent ground link.

Looked at using off shelf satellite buses but came to conclusion that it will be cheaper to build inhouse for volumes they need ie 1000s. No mention of mass but I think its in 10s of kgs. Sats need propulsion for low orbit station keep so can make use of F9 cheap rideshare, just need larger fuel tanks.

Will work with current phones but new phones optimised for Lynk network would give better performance, in discussions with phone manufacturers about this. Would  make these phones more attractive to high users of Lynk.

Service is offered as roaming package through existing cell provider. Billed to user by their existing provider. Lynk only deal with cell providers not phone owners.