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I'm not sure that's revolutionary outside of very rural areas or in a desert.

Smart phones and set-top boxes etc can already access the internet without satellites, and often with much better latency.

What would satellites add for urban or sub-urban applications?

I do appreciate the extra competition that satellite internet brings. Especially in parts of the world with suppressed competition (like the US..) this could have huge practical effects without having to be a big deal in any technical sense.




Smart phones use 4G networks. And now there is another alternative.

Cellular networks have limited coverage. Imagine tracking a truck traveling across the US, or a ferry, across the English channel. Currently, that's not possible with 4G. But with a satellite driven internet system, it very well could be.

As for urban and sub-urban applications, not much.


I don't think it is possible or planned to use StarLink directly from a mobile phone.

You will need a ground station to communicate that isn't going to fit in a pocket.


True, for now. There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick.

Maybe we will not see such miniaturization, but I can safely assume that a small backpack size device should be light and last long enough for meaningful high speed internet with StarLink.


> There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick.

And that was already advanced. Portable phones used to be so unwieldy, car phones used to be a thing!


I live 12km from the centre of Edinburgh in an area that is rural but not "very rural" and all we can get is 22 Mbps down and 1 up.

Edit: I've spent a lot of time trying to find alternatives - none are really practical at this time. Starlink looks pretty exciting to me.

Edit 2: We have fantastic line of sight to Edinburgh and you'd think that would give us more options, apparently not...




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