On Tue, 22 Feb 2022, Mike Puchol wrote: > Actually, laser links would make gateway connectivity *worse*. If we take the scenario attached, one gateway is suddenly having to serve traffic from all UTs that were not previously under coverage. but if you can easily route traffic to a ground station that's further away and not currently saturated... > Eventually they will go for optical gateways, it¢s the only way to get enough capacity to the constellation, specially the 30k satellite version. optical is much more affected by weather than RF, so it's a trade-off (but with laser satellites, they can route around some weather to more distant ground stations David Lang > > > Best, > > Mike > On Feb 22, 2022, 05:17 +0300, David Lang , wrote: >> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> Starlink mailing list >> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink >