1335 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

Yes.

[Mike K.]

^ This Ontario cancelation is an excellent example of emotions controlling political agendas.

This last week or two have been the most embarrassing time for Canada that I can remember.

 

Way too much emotion, not enough charisma.

 

Doug Ford is all over the place. I can't take anything come out of Ontario seriously any more.

[LJ]

screenshot-x_com-2025_02_10-08_19_36.png

Hmm, I'm not sure it is free until July, I think it starts in July, at least that is the message I got when I registered.

[Victoria Watcher]

BREAKING: SpaceX has announced that @Starlink now has over 5 million customers, up from 4.6 million in December 2024 and 3 million in May 2024. Starlink added on average 6,780 new customers per day in the last 2 months.

 

[LJ]

Hmm, I'm not sure it is free until July, I think it starts in July, at least that is the message I got when I registered.

It is free until July and then you can, if you wish start paying for it. I have it now.

It is only useful if you often go out of cell coverage from any provider. If you can roam on another provider you won't be able to use Starlink. 

Not much use for me, I am very seldom outside cell coverage and I get free roaming.

[Blair M.]

I think cell-to-satellite is primarily a replacement for folks who've been regularly using something like an In-Reach or Spot device (or a Sat Phone), or who semi-regularly travel the many tens of thousands of miles of backcountry roads and campsites in the U.S. and Canada.

Those would be hunters, overland campers, hikers, climbers, fishermen, etc. 

 

There are also lots of folks in Canada and the U.S. who have homes in completely rural areas lacking any form of wireless connectivity at all, and who will see benefit from this new technology. Think a farmer working his distant back 40 all day, completely outside of cell coverage and away from the land line inside his house. 

 

For the average person though, who has only ever owned a cell phone, and who has never (or rarely) experienced lack of coverage when trying to establish connectivity, cell-to-satellite won't make much difference at all, except perhaps in that rare and unpredictable emergency (which IMO is a strong reason to indeed make use of the technology).

 

I've been handling my communication needs in the backcountry to date with a Garmin In-Reach, but now have moved to a Starlink Mini with my iPhone cell-to-sat as a back-up. It gives me 100% secure connectivity at all times wherever I wind up camping, areas that put me out of cell coverage about 70% of the time. 

Edited by Blair M., 02 March 2025 - 07:00 AM.

[Blair M.]

I just did a drive up to Port Renfrew with my StarLink (Mini) active on my truck the entire way up and back.

 

The StarLink app offers a "statistics" window, and it logged my entire drive, the there and back uptime connectivity to the internet was 98.7%.

It you think about some of the "tree tunnels" and areas where the road is pretty tight to the hills, that's a pretty impressive stat.

If you already have a web page loaded into your device when the StarLink experiences a disconnect, the 1.3% downtime resulting in a loss of connectivity goes completely unnoticed.

 

The old days of having to physically align your StarLink pointing north are long gone. There are so many StarLink satellites currently, there is always one directly overhead (at least at our latitude).

The mount on my truck has the StarLink facing directly upwards permanently.

My daughter was with me, and I pointed out Tatoosh Island to her, so she wanted to know more about it, did a Google search, and watched a couple of YouTube videos about Tatoosh as we were in transit with Tatoosh in view.

 

It's quite a sizeable shift in the paradigm of having essentially 100% connectivity while traveling in backcountry, and having unlimited access to information while underway.

[Victoria Watcher]

Ya, it's quite something.  They will soon have 6 million subscribers.

 

136 more satellites launched/launching this month (March).

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 March 2025 - 04:54 AM.

[Blair M.]

There must be a healthy number of those 6 million subscribers here in the Pacific Northwest, as the 200 kilometre wide Interstate #5 corridor from Bellingham all the way down to Salem, Oregon is currently waitlisted, with new StarLink subscriptions not available for potential customers.

If you already subscribe to a StarLink travel plan, you maintain access even though you're traveling through a waitlisted area (although I suspect it may slow down a bit in some of those areas).

 

In Western Canada, all the way to up to the Arctic Ocean and over into Alaska, there are only two (roughly 400 square kilometre) spots where StarLink doesn't work (by design), one is the White Lake Astronomical Observatory here in B.C., and the other is the Jim Creek Station military facility near Arlington Washington.

 

Here in B.C., we have massive swaths of the Province without any cell connectivity at all. Almost all of Highway #20, Highway #3 in Manning Park, Highway #3 again from Princeton to Keremeos, huge stretches of Highway #5 and Highway #16.

 

Using something like WhatsApp, combined with StarLInk, you can make and receive voice or video calls in any of the zero cell connectivity areas above.

It really is quite something.

Edited by Blair M., 24 March 2025 - 05:27 AM.

[Mike K.]

That’s super, Blair.

Note that Highway 14 was shut down at around 3PM on Sunday, and just reopened, due to downed hydro lines east of Shirley. Now the Circle Route just east of Renfrew is shut down due to flooding at Fairy Lake.

I heard another hydro pole has come down, this time near Renfrew.

Having connectivity when you’re out on those backroads is a game changer.

[Blair M.]

Having connectivity when you’re out on those backroads is a game changer.

It definitely is Mike.

We did our trip up on sunny Saturday, but getting stuck somewhere between Jordon River and Port Renfrew - or Port Renfrew and Cowichan Lake would be an entirely different scenario with 100% internet access. 

 

For everything from mindless entertainment while waiting for the road to open, or dealing with communications during a real emergency - it's is one of the few pieces of available technology that truly qualifies as a game changer.

[lanforod]

The real game changer is when smartphones and satellite comms merge seamlessly with no need for the dish. We’re at the cusp of that now.

[Victoria Watcher]

The real game changer is when smartphones and satellite comms merge seamlessly with no need for the dish. We’re at the cusp of that now.

 

I'm not sure with LEO satellites we can quite get there.

 

LEO are still 1,200 miles over the earth.  The average cell phone base tower only covers 4 or 5 miles radius.

 

So I think we might always require larger dishes or antennae if we want to contact those satellites and communicate significant data.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 24 March 2025 - 12:30 PM.

[lanforod]

Starlink runs much lower than that. I’m not sure how they do the connectivity now, but it is already possible. Streaming YouTube may be a ways off, I dunno.

[Victoria Watcher]

Starlink runs much lower than that. I’m not sure how they do the connectivity now, but it is already possible. Streaming YouTube may be a ways off, I dunno.

 

 

My bad.

 

 

Starlink satellites operate in a low Earth orbit below 600 km altitude. Atmospheric drag at these altitudes will deorbit a satellite naturally in 5 years or less, depending on the altitude and satellite design, should one fail on orbit.

 

 

 

 

Still.

[lanforod]

Like I said, it’s already here: https://www.starlink.../direct-to-cell

[Victoria Watcher]

Like I said, it’s already here: https://www.starlink.../direct-to-cell

 

It is, but that's not exactly streaming video.   It's extremely limited.

[Blair M.]

With my Starlink, we were streaming 4K YouTube videos, without any buffering, and while underway at speeds up to 80kmh, and driving on a heavily tree'd road.

 

My iPhone 16 Cell to Satellite service requires me to be stationary, and to carefully position, point, and hold my phone steady in the direction the screen directs me to in order to first achieve, and then to maintain connectivity.

Even then, I often have to physically move locations in order to achieve initial connectivity between my iPhone and a satellite. 

 

Cell to Satellite does make a good safety back-up to Starlink when you're off-grid, and it's considered mandatory to have some sort of back-up as you venture further away from civilization.

And Cell to Satellite services are certainly making services like Garmin In-Reach obsolete, but Cell to Satellite isn't even close to Starlink, nor will it be anytime soon.

Edited by Blair M., 24 March 2025 - 02:07 PM.

[Mike K.]

The tricky thing with cellphones is the batteries dry up so quickly. You wouldn't want to find yourself needing to secure a signal and communicate when your battery is not nearly full, which after a day or two of camping or hiking might not be the case if you're listening to music and snapping photos, etc.

[lanforod]

Yeah I’m talking about the use case of offgrid comms when needed. It’ll be pretty viable soon. Streaming video may be a ways out yet heh. Some physics problems there.