[Starlink] Starlink Roaming

[David Lang]

On Mon, 21 Feb 2022, Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
> On 2022-02-21 at 13:52, David Lang wrote:
>> 
>> They told me that I could try it, and it may work, may be degraded a 
>> bit, or may not work at all. They do plan to add roaming capabilities in 
>> the future (my guess is that the laser satellites will enable a lot more 
>> flexibility)
>
> Isn't that a very optimistic assessment? :-)
>
> Laser links are great for remote locations with very few users, but how 
> could they relieve overbooking of Starlink in areas with too many users?
>
> The laser links can reduce the required density of ground stations, but 
> they don't add capacity to the network. Any ground station not built 
> thanks to laser links adds load to other ground stations - and, maybe 
> more importantly, adds load to the satellite that does eventually 
> connect to a ground station.
>
> Can laser links really help on a large scale, or are they just a small 
> help here and there?

My thinking is that the laser links will make it possible to route the traffic 
from wherever I am to the appropriate ground station that I'm registered with as 
opposed to the current bent-pipe approach where, if I move to far from my 
registered location, I need to talk to a different ground station.

Currently there are two limits in any area for coverage:

1. satellite bandwidth
2. ground station bandwidth

laser links will significantly reduce the effect of the second one.

We know that they can do mobile dishes (they are testing it currently on Elon's 
gulfstream, FAR more mobile that I will ever be :-) )

David Lang