I have repeated these answers for a lot of folks over the past few years. So wanted to put these out there.
Why is @trans_celestial building a space network when there already are other major constellations being announced and launched?
Why is @trans_celestial building a space network when there already are other major constellations being announced and launched?
1/ Yep there are two main constellation plans which I term "realistic" at the moment - SpaceX's Starlink and OneWeb
2/ Starlink's launched 60 (congrats!) are NOT final design. they are also just uplink/downlink. no mesh or inter satellite connectivity yet (& no plans when they can realistically achieve that, let alone with lasers). so technically not a constellation.
3/ But I think that SpaceX & OneWeb can pull some or all of it off - they both have raised around $1B+ (oneweb clocking in $2B now) for their constellations already & should, in theory, can have capable folks to build it 🤓
4/ But our approach is different from them :) #lasercomms 🦈
5/ Their constellations are what I call - "WiFi terminals from space" #LayPersonDescription i.e. they broadcast signal directly from space. so need a phased array antenna (no plans on that yet!) on the ground, above your house/office to receive the data 📡
6/ Anyone in LEO can hit the latencies being thrown around - not a big deal. Bandwidth & spectrum on the other hand is. 📻
7/ Rough estimates clock both these constellations to be able to do max 10s of Mbps to barely early 100s of Mbps. This is not future-proof and scalable in terms of addressing data demands globally #DoYouEvenStreamBro 🏋️♀️🏋️♂️
8/ To put things in context, in the last 2 years more data has been generated than all of human history combined! 💪💪
9/ At @trans_celestial our concept is more closely following the model of the subsea cables - giant bandwidth pipes coming to population centers and then using #WiFi/#4G/#5G for local distribution. 🗼🌊
10/ In the final constellation, our single downlinks will start with 10-20Gbps, scaling up to 100Gbps soon. Per satellite per link. No reason why at some point in the future we can't match what's offered in undersea cables. Total initial stable capacity of network to be ~ 70Tbps
11/ This in-turn translates to the lowest cost/bit achievable - an important core telecom metric! This allows us to pass on that cost savings to users globally.
12/ A quick analogy of this is when I was growing up back in India, the state owned telco would pull high speed fiber on the main roads but to our houses #LastMileConnectivity, they would use copper wires. Totally killing the high speed connectivity benefits!
13/ RF & Microwave (the technology used in most satellites today) is more than 100years old and has reached a limit on how much data they can support. They are ideal for short local broadcast distribution like homes or cities but not through thousands of KMs in space! 〰️〰️
14/ Lasers via Fiber already handles 95% of our data. It's time it brings connectivity to the remaining 50% of the world via our #SpaceLaserNetwork . Bonus, we'll extend the connectivity to Moon & Mars by dropping links to bases there & offering local broadcast access.
15/ All of this and no fighting over spectrum licensing 😎
16/ Plus, we are more #telco friendly since we will enable the local telco in key countries rather than go against them. Starlink and Oneweb will be in direct competition - which in the long run will result in tons of issues for them from a distribution & regulatory standpoint.
17/ Having said all that, to have constellations like these alive raising funds signals the fact that the next revolution in #telecom is coming from #space. Plus, the world is big enough for more than 1 player to offer telecom services from space and still help enable the future
18/ What a time for space and sci-fi geeks to be alive 😄😄
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