" the wheels are falling off of satellite TV"

[navychop]

Not having to run a single wire to a single house...anywhere in the world. They catch up to AT&T's 100+ years in a single day.

First customer = billions.
Second to 100 millionth = pennies

Not in a single day, but in about five years. And more than pennies, but the general point is well made. Ground stations will not be trivial. They still need millions of customers. I'm guessing breakeven, even under the wildest rosey estimates, will be 5-10 million, probably more like the latter.

But there is a wild card. What if there is a special service also, perhaps available only to government, that might bring in some fat cash? What if the US military bought a few thousand stations for land, air and sea? They certainly are looking at commercial aircraft for comms and customer entertainment.

 

[navychop]

I'll bow to your superior orbital knowledge, but do look up the US KH-11 spy satellites... Hint: They're in LEO's. And Iridium currently covers the entire earth with voice and data communications with just 66 active LEO sats, but they do run in a higher LEO plane than the SpaceX sats will with significantly higher latency.

The Iridium orbits are a great example, traversing the world. And their antennas are probably a good estimate of what ground stations are planned to be like.

 

[navychop]

Haven't they said they were covering the world? That would require polar orbits. Yes, overkill in AK but that beats zero coverage.

There is no reason to expect all the satellites will be in one or the other. It would make sense to use both.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of hemispheric antenna. We sure aren't going to see home based mechanical tracking antennas.

 

[eddie willers]

I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of hemispheric antenna. We sure aren't going to see home based mechanical tracking antennas.

If they have to roll out vans to install antennas, you can forget all my rosy predictions. It needs to be not much harder than hanging a wire outside a window.

Back in the early 90s, my old college roommate worked for his brother's very successful consumer electronics rep firm and they were excited about a satellite TV service they had signed up with (I think Alphastar) that was suppose to have a flat antenna the size of a napkin! That certainly didn't happen.

All stories I have read also state that new software will also have to be developed (need to have clean handoffs between all those sats and for the service to be seamless). For Musk (or others) to succeed they can't just be better than Exede or Hughesnet, they either need to be better or greatly cheaper than Comcast etc.

And I think they know this.

 

[navychop]

I would think they'd not only ALLOW, but would ENCOURAGE self installs. No problem for most rural folk, and even for urbanites. No aiming. Just more or less level.

The s/w will be a superset of cell s/w. Handoffs are understood. Just amp it up!

 

[patmurphey]

Haven't they said they were covering the world? That would require polar orbits. Yes, overkill in AK but that beats zero coverage...

Thousands of satellites in polar orbits? I'd like to see that traffic jam.

 

[ncted]

Both SpaceX and OneWeb say the latency will be 25ms. I don't play videogames so I don't really know what that means, but the commenters on at ars technica seem to think that is pretty good.

It is good if it is really that low. My old company had Fiber service between Miami and Fort Worth which used to be about that. I get 3-10ms on speed tests on my AT&T Fiber internet.

 

[NYDutch]

I would think they'd not only ALLOW, but would ENCOURAGE self installs. No problem for most rural folk, and even for urbanites. No aiming. Just more or less level.

The s/w will be a superset of cell s/w. Handoffs are understood. Just amp it up!

Yes, and Musk said the end user equipment would be about the size of a laptop computer. If Iridium can mange satellite data with handheld units like their "GO" 4.5"x3"x1.25" satellite WiFi hotspot, I don't expect Musk's LEO system will need a whole lot more. Iridium also has a nice little omni-directional external antenna available as an accessory for when the GO is used indoors. The only drawbacks to the Iridium system are high latency, low speeds, high prices, and limited capacity. Other than that, they're perfect...

 

[KAB]

The truth is consumers don't really like 3d that much..it was over exposed in movie theaters...it would have been great for sports tho

R.I.P. 3D...again!

 

[ncted]

R.I.P. 3D...again!

Yeah, 3D is a fad that keeps coming back, yet somehow never catching on the way the people selling it want it to.

 

[navychop]

Talkies are a fad, too!

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Color TV just might catch on.

 

[Pepper]

As usual, nobody considers the logical reasoning and just make fun. Don't know why I would expect anything different.

 

[sam_gordon]

As usual, nobody considers the logical reasoning and just make fun. Don't know why I would expect anything different.

I don't think you're looking at the right logical reasoning...
1) Glasses. Needing to put on something else in order to watch 3D? And how many do you keep? One for everyone in the household? What if you have guests?
2) Costs. Before you even get to buying the content, you've got to get the TV (and those extra glasses).
3) Quality. Just because something is made and produced in 3D doesn't mean it SHOULD. I'd say about 1/2 of the things I watch in 3D aren't really worth it. Also, what are the viewing angles on a TV? Can you be more over to the side (depending on how people have their living rooms set up affects it).
4) NOW let's get to how the content is put out.

 

[ncted]

As usual, nobody considers the logical reasoning and just make fun. Don't know why I would expect anything different.

I was in no way making fun of 3D. I was, however, being cynical about it. My BIL loves it, and it sucks for him that it is dying.

 

[KAB]

As usual, nobody considers the logical reasoning and just make fun. Don't know why I would expect anything different.

Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

 

[navychop]

Somebody, somewhere, gets up from the FOOT of the bed.

Oh WAIT! That's me! We used an RV for a while where three sides were walls- you had to get in and out at the foot. Making that bad boy was a bit tough.

This off topic interlude has been brought to you by
GO NAVY!

 

[odbrv]

3D is not dead. In 2017 13 major movies were filmed in 3d and another 27 filmed in 2D were released in a rendered 3D version. Since 2005 over 550 movies have a 3D version. See List of 3D films (2005 onwards) - Wikipedia . My wife and I enjoy the depth of view of 3D films. The passive system glasses are the same that are used in movie theaters and are light weight. When you buy a 3D movie, you get 4 options( the 3D disc, a BluRay disc , a DVD disc, and a streaming code). I have a deal with 4 friends and we share the cost. So I get the 3D movie at a great price.

 

[comfortably_numb]

My BIL loves it

BIL? Brother in law?

 

[MikeD-C05]

For home viewing 3d never caught on . At the theater 3d has come around like three times. At the theater it can be widely seen and appreciated. At home not so much. My old 2012 3 d tv is in my 17 year old sons room . It’s 50” and he prefers watching tv on his small phone . He plays video games on the tv ,but won’t use the 3 d feature.