Starlink Direct to Cell

Re:Starlink Direct to Cell by toomuchtodo on Wednesday October 11, 2023 @03:24PM (#37849104)

Not a misunderstanding, mostly rumors [1]. When Loon shut down [2], they made a non-assertion pledge for roughly 200 patents originated during the project's lifetime [3]. Part of the platform was an LTE stack [4], and those patents aren't in the non-assertion pledge. The interesting bit is:

> To support ongoing innovation in the High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) communications industry, Loon transferred a number of stratospheric ballooning and networking patents to partners working in similar fields.

Hard to say for certain of course without any public records with regards to an IP transaction or patent/FCC filings. Google and Fidelity invested $1B in SpaceX previously (2015), which leads us to the thesis that Loon died because of Starlink.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37806035

[2] https://x.company/projects/loon/

[3] https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Loon...

[3] https://thenextweb.com/news/google-celebrates-project-loons-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Starlink Direct to Cell by mlindner on Wednesday October 11, 2023 @03:28PM (#37849171)

I think believing random comments off of hacker news without verification or source makes questionable sense. The name "X" isn't unique (which is part of the problem with it) as you're exactly discovering.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Starlink Direct to Cell by toomuchtodo on Wednesday October 11, 2023 @03:34PM (#37849226)

Respectfully, I am not confusing Twitter (X) with Google's Moonshot company (also X). Of course, don't believe random internet comments with validation for any purpose beyond discussion. It is entirely possible nothing from Loon made it into Starlink satellites, and all the IP went to Aalyria (a StarLink competitor).

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/google-spinoff-aalyr...

https://www.aalyria.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]