See posts #73 and #74.

Yes, I see, thanks. I also found another write-up and looking at both, they seem to be addressing the USA initially so that's going to be at least a year or so away from France. The main challenge is getting a wide clear view of the northern sky...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/09/spac...hnologies.html

SpaceX is buying satellite data start-up Swarm, in a rare acquisition by Elon Musk’s space company

SpaceX is acquiring satellite data start-up Swarm Technologies, in a rare deal by Elon Musk’s space company that expands the team — and possibly the technological capabilities — of its growing Starlink internet service.

Swarm, which has 120 of its tiny SpaceBEE satellites in orbit, reached an agreement with SpaceX on July 16 to merge, according to an Aug. 6 filing with the Federal Communications Commission.

The company will become “a direct wholly-owned subsidiary of SpaceX upon consummation of the Proposed Transaction,” Swarm wrote in the filing…..

The deal marks an uncommon acquisition for SpaceX, which tends to design and build systems in-house. But FCC licenses can be difficult and time-consuming to get approved, and Swarm will transfer control of of its satellite and ground station licenses to SpaceX as part of the deal, according to the filing.…..

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Mountain View, California, Swarm has been building a constellation of 150 satellites. Its SpaceBEEs are “the smallest commercially operational satellites in space,” the company says – at 11 centimeters by 11 centimeters by 2.8 centimeters, the satellites are about the size of a small notebook.

Swarm’s satellites communicate with its antennas on the ground, with a Swarm “Tile” that can be embedded into a circuit board, to connect Internet of Things, or IoT, devices to a global communications network. A Swarm Tile is priced at $119, and its larger standalone “Eval Kit” is $499, with the company charges a $5 a month subscription fee to use the network.

The company offers services for a wide variety of IoT uses, including agriculture, maritime, energy, environmental, and transportation sectors.….

https://swarm.space/

Kit arrived today and temporarily installed on the ground rather than rooftop. 80 down and 14 up. Amazing to watch Youtube and Netflix in HD

Better than most people get in a city centre.

I'm very close to a green, fibre optic distribution box and I get 70 down and 16 up. Out in the countryside too. Starlink is very impressive.

I’m intrigued by their purchase of swarm - their tiles can cheaply be embedded in products and contain GPS.

No reason why one can’t be embedded in every car, truck, container, boats, drones or other mobile device on the planet. With GPS they could easily be used for things such as road pricing or remote control. Imagine if every airliner was automatically sending its location every 30 seconds.

Their current business plan includes. 75 data packets per month for free - but that’s just business, not technology.

Each Falcon 9 Starlink launch carries around 66 satellites at 260kg each. A Swarm SpaceBee satellite weighs 400 grams and is just 11x11x3 cm in size with up to 24 flat packed into a single deployer. How many could they deploy in a single dedicated launch?

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/spacebee-10.htm

https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/1351...-a-faster-rate

SpaceX Aims to Use Starship to Deploy Starlink Satellites at a Faster Rate

I'm not sure if it's a new or old dish but I suspect it's an 'old' one. It came direct from Starlink in California. Initial installation was simple, I just put the tripod on a convenient roof plugged everything in. On wifi I was getting 60/20 and on ethernet, 190/40 - result! After that, it was time to install properly so I used an old satellite dish wall support and attached the pipe adaptor I had purchased with the kit. Again, technically very simple but you need to think out two things. The dish location and the wiring route. Firstly, the dish should have a clear view of the Northern sky (in Northern Hemisphere) with no obstructions around it and secondly, the dish has 30 metres of cable which can't be cut or extended so if some extension is needed, you have to extend the ethernet to router cable from the power block. As I live in a typical Charentaise Longère in France, I knew wherever I placed the supplied router, it wouldn't be able to cover the house so initially, I just wired through to the study which is about in the middle of the property. The cable has a sealed suppressor or fuse near the end so, if you have to run through walls or doors, you'll need to make a hole of at least 1.5cm. The router does not seem to give a strong wifi signal. My PC was about 5m away and had trouble connecting at 5GHz so I was getting quite 'slow' speeds of 20mbps at 2.4GHz. Connected by ethernet cable, the PC was achieving 150+. My phone, when next to the router was fine.

However, as previously mentioned, I knew I would not be able to get proper coverage with just the router so I had already purchased a Google Mesh system. With four strategically placed Nest routers, I now have 80-90+mbps download speeds throughout and around the property on Wifi. The system easily handles all our devices as well as a gate bell/camera which is about 25 metres from the house. In terms of service availability and latency, I have seen a few outages but they haven't lasted very long. A slight concern for some rural users (who the system is actually aimed at) is they must have a clear view of the sky with no obstructions such as trees - so go high or be ready with the chainsaw. Latency seems to average 38-48 which is fine for us. I've read a number of comparisons of fibre and Starlink speeds but I'd stress again that Starlink is aimed at users who can't get fast broadband or fibre because of their location. Overall, we have a system that at the moment, is 40 times faster than the ADSL broadband we had. With more satellites and faster interlinking of them, the service will only get quicker.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...ynne-shotwell/

SpaceX President reveals 600,000 global Starlink internet preorders

https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22...jeff-bezos-fcc

Amazon, fighting SpaceX’s Starlink plans, says Elon Musk’s companies don’t care about rules

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/s...coverage-boost

STARLINK: SPACEX'S NEXT LAUNCH WILL BRING A HUGE UPGRADE TO THE SERVICE

On Wednesday, Teslarati reported that SpaceX will likely host its second Starlink launch from the west coast of the U.S. as soon as Sunday, October 17. The mission is expected to launch 51 Starlink satellites, complete with optical interlinks that will enable the satellites to bring internet access to Earth’s poles.

It’s another moment of expansion for SpaceX’s under-construction internet constellation, designed to bring high speed and low latency access to almost anywhere in the world. The company first started signing up beta testers in mid-2020, and early reports suggested that users are receiving up to 150 megabits per second.

For the long term, SpaceX has plans for much faster access. A January 2021 presentation suggested the company’s long-term ambition is to provide speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second......

https://www.businessinsider.com/spac...ansion-2021-11

SpaceX's Starlink is planning to roll out 200,000 user terminals in India

SpaceX's satellite internet network, Starlink, wants to roll out 200,000 user terminals in India in an effort to expand its service in Asia, according to a company presentation.

Starlink has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in India called Starlink Satellite Communications Private, the company's India director, Sanjay Bhargava, wrote in a LinkedIn post Monday. Bhargava, a former PayPal executive, said in the post that the subsidiary can now apply for licenses and open bank accounts.

The subsidiary has a "stretch goal" to deploy 200,000 Starlink user terminals in more than 160,000 rural districts in India by December 2022, per a company presentation that Bhargava shared on LinkedIn last week…..

Starlink is also in talks with two telecommunications companies in the Philippines, where it also wants to launch its satellite service, Bloomberg first reported on Friday.

There are currently more than 1,650 Starlink satellites in orbit. The company's goal is to have 42,000 by mid-2027 in order to create an internet service which stretches across the world.

I am all for bringing the internet to the rest of the world but seeing these satellites in the night sky is sometimes annoying...I agree with earlier post that some sort of regulation is surely needed now

With Starlink being extensively used by Ukrainian armed forces, publishing how to hack and infiltrate not only the terminal but also, possibibly, the network behind doesn’t seem the wisest of moves…

https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/...ack_black_hat/

Starlink satellite dish cracked on stage at Black Hat

https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-fa...k-launch-plan/

TAMPA, Fla. — SpaceX has decided to use a mix of Falcon 9 and Starship rockets to launch the 30,000 satellites in its proposed second-generation Starlink broadband constellation.

Launching some of the satellites with SpaceX’s “tested and dependable Falcon 9” will accelerate the constellation’s deployment to improve Starlink services. SpaceX director of satellite policy David Goldman wrote in an Aug. 19 letter to the Federal Communications Commission.

Goldman did not say when SpaceX could start launching the second-generation constellation, which remains subject to FCC approval….

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, has said full-sized second-generation Starlinks are seven meters long and weigh about five times more than its first generation at around 1,250 kilograms.

Goldman said SpaceX remains committed to deploying all of its 29,988 proposed second-generation satellites — at altitudes of between 340 and 614 kilometers across nine inclined orbits — whether they are launched with Falcon 9 or Starship.

“Specifically, SpaceX plans to launch satellites for its Gen2 constellation beginning with its three 500-kilometer shells, followed by satellites in its lower-altitude shells,” he said.…

SpaceX has launched more than 3,100 satellites for Starlink’s current generation with Falcon 9, usually in batches of around 50 per mission. According to astronomer and spaceflight analyst Jonathan McDowell, more than 2,800 are currently working in LEO…..

SpaceX currently has permission to deploy 4,408 satellites in LEO for a network that uses Ku-band spectrum to connect users from around 550 kilometers above the Earth.

A separate FCC authorization also gives SpaceX permission to launch 7,500 V-band satellites, which Starlink’s first generation needs to reach a total of around 12,000 satellites for global services.

Geez, thats a lot of potential junk up there in the future if anything untoward happens on-orbit or de-orbiting fails.

Last night’s SpaceX launch of Starlink internet satellites seen over Brooklyn