[Starlink] Starlink for Tonga?

[David Lang]

On Tue, 8 Feb 2022, Dave Taht wrote:

> What I don't quite understand is why a full-fledged ground station is
> needed to get dropped.  (in a day after they have laser links)
>
> A simple dishy can do 300mbit down and over 20Mbit up. using a 32k
> codec that's quite a few voice calls, or cleared transactions.
>
> The difference between zero and some connectivity is quite a lot.

They don't have enough laser equipped satellites to provide coverage yet (Elon 
commented that providing coverage is quite hard because of the lack of enough 
laser satellites right now). They don't currently do dishy-to-dishy 
communications.

So, long term you are right, a new ground station there wouldn't be needed (and 
adds additional load to the Fiji underwater links, not desirable in the long 
term), but in the short term, it's what's needed to provide service in the area.

David Lang