Nokia, AST SpaceMobile Join Forces For Broadband From Space (bloomberg.com) 29
Nokia Oyj will provide equipment to connect AST SpaceMobile Inc. satellites to the global telecommunications network, creating a crucial link in a planned space-based broadband network designed to work with standard mobile phones, the companies said in a statement Thursday. Bloomberg reports: In addition to AirScale base stations, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia will provide its NetAct network management systems and technical support, the companies said. Terms of the five-year deal with Austin, Texas-based AST SpaceMobile weren't disclosed. AST's BlueWalker 3 test satellite, an array of antennas that measures 693 square feet (64 square meters), is planned for launch in early to mid-September. Eventually the network will consist of 168 satellites, the company told investors in a March 31 filing.
With BlueWalker 3 aloft, AST plans to conduct testing on five continents in coordination with mobile network operators such as Vodafone Group Plc, Rakuten Mobile and Orange SA. AST and Nokia said the network is intended to offer connections to people and places without digital services. "Connectivity should be considered an essential service like water, electricity or gas," said Tommi Uitto, Nokia's president of mobile services. "Everyone should be able to have access to universal broadband services that will ensure that no one is left behind." Unlike the offerings from Elon Musk's SpaceX or OneWeb and Eutelsat, which recently announced plans to merge in the hopes of becoming a stronger competitor, is that SpaceMobile's service is designed to connect to "standard, unmodified cellular phones without the requirement of special software, ground terminals or hardware," says the company in its annual filing.
With BlueWalker 3 aloft, AST plans to conduct testing on five continents in coordination with mobile network operators such as Vodafone Group Plc, Rakuten Mobile and Orange SA. AST and Nokia said the network is intended to offer connections to people and places without digital services. "Connectivity should be considered an essential service like water, electricity or gas," said Tommi Uitto, Nokia's president of mobile services. "Everyone should be able to have access to universal broadband services that will ensure that no one is left behind." Unlike the offerings from Elon Musk's SpaceX or OneWeb and Eutelsat, which recently announced plans to merge in the hopes of becoming a stronger competitor, is that SpaceMobile's service is designed to connect to "standard, unmodified cellular phones without the requirement of special software, ground terminals or hardware," says the company in its annual filing.
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I can't get most of the article as it's behind a paywall, but second paragraph talks about "base stations" as a part of the deal.
This would suggest that the main difference between normal cellular broadband and this is that basestations are fed from the satellite rather than typical fibreoptics. I'm guessing you still need base stations normally in every location where there is service, so this offers no advantages in terms of coverage.
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The article isn't paywalled for me, maybe it's only people in the US who have to pay... Anyway, they say you don't need a base station, a standard cell phone will communicate directly with the satellite.
I guess that's why they need such a large array of antennas.
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I would be interested in understanding how that would be possible, considering TX power limitations on phone antennas. Even for military grade intelligence pods and units of the kind you mount on dedicated military intelligence aircraft, there are meaningful range limitations. Satellite would be well outside those.
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That's why you need a very large, sensitive antenna.
You can do this kind of thing today with LoRa radios running from battery and a cube sat. The main issue is that it's one way, the satellite can only receive from the devices on the ground and needs a different backhaul.
That's why they have a big set of multiple antennas. They can them use beamforming to send a reasonable power signal back down to the phone. Reception is just a case of having enough sensitivity and noise rejection.
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Technically speaking, TX from satellite to phone is going to be the easier part. Just pump up TX on your antennae and you're good. The only limitation is power output that you can generate on the satellite itself.
RX from the ground is the part that is going to be hard, because of severe limitations on TX power of phone antennae, combined with saturated spectrum where base stations are meant to transmit at high higher while receiving very low power from phones.
Even military intelligence used to struggle with
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Technically speaking, TX from satellite to phone is going to be the easier part. Just pump up TX on your antennae and you're good. The only limitation is power output that you can generate on the satellite itself.
Only if you don't care about interfering with every other cell in the coverage area.
Do you know why they call the system cellular? It's because it uses geographic isolation, where each cell serves an area but the signal fall off is enough to avoid interfering with neighbours. It's a bit more complicated than that, they use different frequencies for neighbours so it's more like not interfering with the neighbour's neighbour, but the point is that for the satellite to integrate into that system it will need t
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I suspect you vastly underestimate the amount of noise in RF you get from solar interference on top of underestimating impact of distance.
As for "interfering with things on the ground", you also seem to be wildly overestimating amount of power available to a satellite and again underestimating distance involved over amount of power available to a ground station and distance involved.
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64 sq meters (25'x25', size of the floor I'm sitting in right now) doesn't seem like a very large antennae for picking up signals 250-300 miles away. With only 20 sats on orbit I believe others are right in that the stats will be talking to base stations that the cell phones will communicate with.
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I don't think it's supposed to focus the signal like a dish. It's that size because it has lots of mini-antennas that beamform a signal back to the handset. As well as allowing for a lower energy signal due to it being more focused, it allows for more clients to be serviced at one time.
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Nope, no paywall. Must be something wrong on your end.
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If you load without scripts you get the first two paragraphs for free, and everything else interesting is in the third paragraph. To wit,
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Slashdot summaries are complete and utter bullshit much of the time for purpose of generating clicks, which needs reading original text and its sources to be confirmed.
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"This would suggest that the main difference between normal cellular broadband and this is that basestations are fed from the satellite rather than typical fibreoptics."
Since they plan to send 20 satellites only, that's the only way.
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I don't get your attack on Luckyo
He's been fellating Russia with all his might of late.
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i hope... (Score:1)
that in the middle of all this competition someone can explain why we need about 1 satellite per 1000 people on the planet to make this work...
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(Don't take this post seriously, I'm just being silly)
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What would make a lot more sense is if the satellites themselves were anti-satellite weapons. Imagine a HERF attack mounted by thousands of transmitters in synch.
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Problem with HERFs is power dissipation over distance. And in space, distances are tremendous.