[Starlink] "Interesting set of developments with Starlink. Musk says they will support "international aid orgs" in Gaza, Israel now says they will use "all available means" to stop SpaceX from doing so.

Mon Oct 30 09:30:46 EDT 2023

Le 30/10/2023 à 13:47, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
> On 31/10/2023 1:03 am, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:
>> It is indeed interesting.
>>
>> Le 30/10/2023 à 06:56, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
>> >
>> > The main problem as it stands with Gaza would be to get Starlink
>> > equipment in for the international organisations to use. Coverage
>> > wouldn't be an issue, but power and bandwidth would be.
>> >
>> I agree with these points.
>>
>> But it is more difficult than that.
>>
>> Indeed, if they can get starlink receivers in the place, then there is
>> need of power to power it.  Maybe it is not easy to find electricity.
> I gather that Gazans are used to unreliable power, so many have solar 
> or generators. Of course, generators need fuel, which is in short supply.
>>
>> The bandwidth problem - I dont know precisely what is it in this
>> context.  Maybe it's that there would be too many wifi users on a
>> starlink DISHY.
>
> It's that Starlink can only support so many Dishys per area on the 
> ground. Handwaving explanation: Think of each satellite as having a 
> number of slots on each frequency channel during which it can 
> communicate with ONE Dishy on the ground that the satellite can see in 
> that particular area. Once a Dishy takes that slot, no other Dishy in 
> the area can, because that would cause interference. Now scale that by 
> the number of Starlink satellites that can be seen from the area, and 
> you have a fairly rough idea of how many slots there are available in 
> total for that area. Dishys will on average grab multiple slots, 
> though, with each slot worth a few Mb/s only. More Dishys therefore 
> doesn't mean more capacity. Now we know that Starlink is running out 
> of capacity as is in areas with medium population densities, such as 
> the Ahr valley in Germany, which suffered a flash flood a couple of 
> years ago that took out all terrestrial comms infrastructure:
>
>
> If a place like this can overload Starlink with a population in the 
> low 10,000's, then a densely populated place like Gaza with (like now) 
> enhanced needs would be running out of capacity in no time. The entire 
> Gaza Strip is only about 3 Starlink cells in size, and has over 2 
> million people in it. Most of whom have family outside Gaza that 
> they'd like to keep updated on a very regular basis.
>

Thanks for the figure!  It gives me a sense of dimension (5km the edge 
of that hexagon).  I thought it was much larger.

>>
>> There are more problems: I think I heard Israel opposes this idea of
>> delivery of starlink in that place.  The question is _how_ they'd like
>> to oppose.  Is it verbal opposition, is it opposition of delivery of
>> starlink DISHYs to the aream or is it jamming, or is it something else.
>> For the latter two, there is legislation in place that would guide the
>> way in which they could oppose, but that legislation is fragile.  For
>> example, is there frequency allocation authority in that area, I'm 
>> not sure.
>
> How they would oppose is a good question - I'm sure the Russians would 
> like to know, too.
>
 From the public announcements, Russia opposed it (starlink) verbally, only.

I dont think (I did not hear about?) Russia jamming starlink sats.

Russia verbally  once threatened verbally harder the starlink sats, but 
Mr. Musk responded publicly that there are thousands of them up there, 
so it would be hard to imagine putting them all down.  He even said he 
could easily put even more up there.

I did hear about Russia complaining about others jamming their sats.  
Russia persons called the jamming of their sats to be potentially cases 
of war, but they did not repeat that statement later, or I did not 
hear.  I am not sure what in the current legislation made them think so, 
but I would like to know.

I also heard about the VIASAT KA-SAT attack early in the Ukraine 
invasion (it was an attack via Internet, not jamming).

> Sure, you can try to keep Dishys out, but given that roaming access 
> has been available in the wider region for a while (cue Turkey 
> earthquake), I would be surprised if there weren't already numerous 
> Dishys in Gaza.
>

> Frequency allocation authority ... sounds a bit like Israel having the 
> authority to tell Hamas where to park its cars.
>
Ideally, one would have a government organisation in the area. That 
gov't would have a frequency allocation subsidiary.  That subsidiary 
would allow, or not allow, starlink to emit in the area.

> As Starlink isn't officially available in Israel yet and it's a small 
> market, the regulatory leverage of the Israeli government against 
> SpaceX is probably low.
>
I did not know Starlink is not available in Israel.

The question would be who has authority over the frequencies above the 
disputed territories.  And it is that authority that would allow, or 
disallow, the use of starlink frequencies (somewhere at 10-15GHz IIRC).  
All Starlink would need to do is request access to that spectrum.

>
> Jamming isn't really all that easy (again, ask Russia): To jam 
> Starlink successfully in an area, you'd have to jam the satellites 
> (probably about a dozen most of the time, and changing all the time) 
> from the ground in the same area as the Dishys using them.
>
I am interested in the legislation part of that, not the technical.

>> smartphones to connect to these regular base stations.
> Simple. You set a password on the Dishy's WiFi router and give it to 
> legit users only.

It might be that straightforward, I agree.

Other configurations might be possible too, where passwords on WiFi 
might not be enough.

Alex

>>
>> Alex
>>
>> > It's a pretty dire situation. Palestinian friends of ours have had
>> > extended family killed, the wife's mother is currently visiting here
>> > and can't go back obviously - plus her apartment got flattened in her
>> > absence early on. Then our friend's teenage kids from his previous
>> > marriage got buried under rubble when their mother's place got
>> > flattened, and that was just up to last week. I really need to ask him
>> > what's happened since. They came here because they were sick of Hamas.
>> >
>> > On the ham radio side, I helped a bit with band watch for MARS
>> > (military affiliated amateur radio system) during the first Gulf War
>> > when the local US garrison (Old Ironsides) got sent from Germany to
>> > Saudi Arabia. A lot of them found out the hard way that if you have a
>> > bank account in Germany and you're on deployment, your significant
>> > other doesn't automatically get access to it like apparently they do
>> > in the US, and the army didn't exactly think that it was their
>> > problem, either. Got to listen to a lot of that. First world problems
>> > compared to Gaza, though.
>> >
>> > On 30/10/2023 5:32 pm, Joe Hamelin via Starlink wrote:
>> >> The US did shut down ham radio during WW2.
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 9:27 AM Dave Taht via Starlink
>> >> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I think that the internet should stay up, connecting people to
>> >> people,
>> >> through all the conflicts we may ever have. The mails kept running -
>> >> although censored - all through world war two - the red cross,
>> >> allowed
>> >> by all sides, to keep it's relief missions running, the churches
>> >> (mostly) doing their job to console the weary...
>> >>
>> >> Many other orgs, like the ITU, and the IETF, are committed to the
>> >> continued free exchange of information, no matter what.
>> >>
>> >> https://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/default.aspx
>> >>
>> >> I am happy to see a worldwide ISP committed to the same principles.
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 9:07 AM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via
>> >> Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > ➔➔https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1718638348812595660
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
>> >> > living as The Truth is True
>> >> >
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > Starlink mailing list
>> >> > Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> >> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Oct 30:
>> >> https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html
>> >> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Starlink mailing list
>> >> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> --
>> >> Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, 360-474-7474
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> Starlink mailing list
>> >> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>> >>
>> > --
>> > ****************************************************************
>> > Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>> >
>> > School of Computer Science
>> >
>> > Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>> >
>> > The University of Auckland
>> > u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz
>> > http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>> > ****************************************************************
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Starlink mailing list
>> > Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
> -- 
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz  
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink