Prospects for oceanic internet access in a year or two?

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

That's the plan, but not yet the reality. There is currently no inter-satellite usable (testing is in the works) connection in the Starlink system. Until there is, you and and a ground station have to be in view of the same satellite.

That is the plan and they successfully tested the links a few months back. Having communication links has been part of the plan since the beginning and it seems to be working.



Later,
Dan

[Dsanduril]

It is the plan, and it has been tested/is being tested, at least between a small number of satellites, but as noted in the other article it has to be cost effective...

Oct 9, 2020

PARIS — SpaceX told international regulators that the company does not view inter-satellite links as essential for its Starlink broadband constellation even though network performance over the oceans or other unpopulated geographies would improve with them.

Adding hardware to permit Starlink satellites to relay traffic between them in a mesh design would change the satellites’ overall mass and volume, possibly making it more difficult to continue with the card-deck stacking and release that allows the company to launch 60 at a time on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Imho there is nothing there that says offshore will be serviced. To me the service would be worth my buck if it covers all ocean areas at least within the 50N-50S belt.

Space-X drone ships are used inshore Florida waters and bay of Mexico I think. And a 'near-global' coverage may mean just that - great coverage over land and marginal over oceans. See present Globalstar (Spot, etc.) shortcomings.

Barnakiel, I agree with you that $99/mo for continuous coverage in the mid-latitudes would be worth it. And I think that will happen. They're certainly planning to service ships & planes, so I think they'll definitely have transoceanic coverage.

This is the whole reason they've now got sat-to-sat com lasers. Yes, it will be a bit late in coming, as the first 700-ish birds didn't have this capability, & there has to be a critical mass of laser-capable birds up before they can have a good mesh. But with 120-ish new birds going up every month, I fully expect them to have a working mesh between 50N-50S in the next year.

Look at Iridium - they've had a working sat-sat mesh with only 66 satellites for years. Yes, the current StarLink system more closely resembles GlobalStar, but many of those were early pre-laser birds.

BTW, part of their US license says that they have to cover Alaska, which effectively means close to polar orbits. Musk has agreed to this, but plans to only cover the higher latitudes as a later phase, presumably once he can see the system becoming profitable (& he's expecting $30B/yr from StarLink).

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

It is the plan, and it has been tested/is being tested, at least between a small number of satellites, but as noted in the other article it has to be cost effective...

Dsanduril, I agree that it has to be cost effective. That's a different point for each of us, as we're all on different budgets. $99/mo ($1,200/yr) is at the far edge for us, comparable to the $1,500/yr price of the GO/PredictWind deal (which is more than we want to spend). But StarLink should offer much better performance.

I'm encouraged that others are getting into the game, as that should drive prices down. Bezos is late to the table, probably because of delays in developing his Glenn rocket, but he's still saying he's in, with a very similar system to StarLink. OneWeb is apparently still keeping their birds in orbit, despite declaring bankruptcy, & will hopefully remain a player. Hopefully Iridium will also drop their prices to stay competitive. Competition is always good for us consumers.

I'm not sure where you got that quote, but it doesn't look like it came from StarLink. Note the "possibly" before "making it more difficult" which makes it just someone's opinion.

As you say, sat-to-sat laser coms have been part of StarLink's plan from the beginning. I was surprised (& disappointed) that they launched their first birds without this capability, but I guess they wanted to test other parts of the system (at considerable expense!) They've now launched at least 2 rockets with the newer birds (launches are coming so fast it's hard for me to keep up) so I think they've proven that they can, & that the stacks still work on a Falcon 9.

Fingers crossed...