Re:Starlink Is a Big Deal
by cmarschner on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @03:57PM
(#22185721)
What entity give them this approval? Isn‘t airspace over countries to be approved by these countries? Did countries opt out?
Re:Starlink Is a Big Deal
by garaetjjte on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @05:02PM
(#22186345)
Sovereignty doesn't extend to space. It is one of points of Outer Space Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty
Some countries attempted to claim sovereignty over geostationary orbit, but failed http://djilp.org/the-bogota-declaration-and-the-curious-case...
I don't think there is a treaty about it. These satellites are in space, not in the air. Around 100km usually is used as the boundary or, more practically, as high as your anti-aircraft missiles can go. It does not really make sense to claim everything up in a cone from your country to infinity. Multiple countries claiming different planets at different times would be weird.
SpaceX got approval to launch these satellites from the FCC.
Re:Starlink Is a Big Deal
by unnouinceput on Thursday January 30, 2020 @01:54AM
(#22189452)
Wasn't some time ago a Chinese satellite blown from their orbit by a missile? I think current technology allows you to blow stuff up from sky quite more then just 100 Km.
Re:Starlink Is a Big Deal
by midnightclubbed on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @06:13PM
(#22187066)
I wonder if they will charge less for bandwidth over minimally inhabited regions?
Why? Market forces dictate that they should charge _more_ (likely have less competition there; will also be able to provide better service than in densely-populated areas).
Re:Starlink Is a Big Deal
by ryanmercer on Thursday January 30, 2020 @08:26AM
(#22191134)
I suspect they'll absolutely charge different amounts in different countries but not different pricing inside a single country.
They could sell a certain data speed to areas with low subscriber base though and provide more speed than advertised/agreed upon though.
One way to look at it is up to 42 million 4k streams at the same time. But, a significant fraction of the constellation will be over the ocean or other minimally inhabited regions so something like 25% of total bandwidth is likely utilized at any one time. However, that’s spread around the globe with some areas like Hawaii having much better than average available bandwidth.