Mike
The article is super light on technical detail but I think what
they're saying is:
The 12ghz spectrum has been allocated to satellite services which have
very low power signals at the receiver. Both SpaceX and Dish have
bands within 12ghz. Dish has asked for permission to use its 12ghz
spectrum for 5G which has a relatively high power terrestrial signal.
SpaceX is calling foul: the spectrum was allocated to low power
satellite signals and high power signals don't play well near low
power signals... particularly when a bunch of the transmitters are
cheap consumer equipment that may bleed some of that power into
adjacent spectrum.
Now someone with more knowledge please tell me how close I got.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
Pretty much, with the addition that 10900 MHz to 12700 MHz has for a very long time been historically reserved for Ku-band one-way and two-way satellite data services talking to geostationary satellites.
The only thing that SpaceX is doing new here is talking to moving LEO satellites with their phased array terminals.
Adding a terrestrial transmitter source mounted on towers and with CPEs that stomps on the same frequencies as the last 20 years of existing two way VSAT terminals throughout the US seems like a bad idea. Even if you ignore the existence of Starlink, there’s a myriad of low bandwidth but critical SCADA systems out there and remote locations on ku-band two way geostationary terminals right now.
It appears that Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke@gmail.com> said:
Adding a terrestrial transmitter source mounted on towers and with CPEs
that stomps on the same frequencies as the last 20 years of existing two
way VSAT terminals throughout the US seems like a bad idea. Even if you
ignore the existence of Starlink, there's a myriad of low bandwidth but
critical SCADA systems out there and remote locations on ku-band two way
geostationary terminals right now.
I think the original thought was that the satellite service would be used in
rural areas and 5G in cities so there'd be geographic separation, but Starlink
is selling service all over the place.
I use Comcast Business for my primary at home, but it is so bad that I was forced to get Starlink as backup. I am not in a city, but close enough that there would be issues.
The term "5G" among technical circles started vague, became better defined over the course of several years, and is becoming vague again. This nuance was never well understood in the public eye, nor by mass publications like CNN. This is a battle for 12GHz, not 5G.
Chris
The term "5G" among technical circles started vague, became better defined over the course of several years, and is becoming vague again. This nuance was never well understood in the public eye, nor by mass publications like CNN. This is a battle for 12GHz, not 5G.
I second that. I will try to use that last sentence if I have to get
involved that fight. Elsewhere, though, I do wish that starlink would
adopt
an fq_codel derived algorithm on the dishy and headends to smooth out
the wildly variable latencies some.
It's a battle to use 12Ghz for 5G cell phone tech instead of the
satellite tech it was allocated for. You could drop the 5G from that
sentence and still be correct but nobody has proposed using 4G or
earlier cell phone tech in the 12Ghz spectrum.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
But is what Starlink saying true or not?
It would be a pity to not have an alternative to incumbent telephants.
Mike
It’s not entirely clear, without knowing the technical details of the Starlink modulation scheme whether or not they could successfully share the 12Ghz spectrum.
I have no reason to disbelieve their claims.
Frankly, I really don’t think that Dish’s idea of providing 5G mobile service from satellites is a particularly good or beneficial one and granting them 12Ghz spectrum for this purpose is probably not really in the public interest.
OTOH, I think Starlink is most definitely an interesting product that does provide a clear path to reasonable alternatives to the incumbent telephants.
However, Dish isn’t exactly a traditional elephant, either.
Owen
Exactly. Why would they lie?
Hi Owen,
Did I misunderstand? I thought Dish/AT&T's plan was to use 12ghz for
-terrestrial- cell phone service, not satellite phone service. Towers
on the ground, not in the sky.
Towers in the sky are neither new nor controversial. Iridium, for
example, was based on the 2G GSM protocols modified for the bandwidth
and distances involved.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
The term "5G" among technical circles started vague, became better defined over the course of several years, and is becoming vague again. This nuance was never well understood in the public eye, nor by mass publications like CNN. This is a battle for 12GHz, not 5G.
But is what Starlink saying true or not?
It would be a pity to not have an alternative to incumbent telephants.
Mike
It’s not entirely clear, without knowing the technical details of the Starlink modulation scheme whether or not they could successfully share the 12Ghz spectrum.
I have no reason to disbelieve their claims.
Frankly, I really don’t think that Dish’s idea of providing 5G mobile service from satellites is a particularly good or beneficial one and granting them 12Ghz spectrum for this purpose is probably not really in the public interest.
I thought they were land based? What I read is that being land based means that they can transmit at much higher power.
OTOH, I think Starlink is most definitely an interesting product that does provide a clear path to reasonable alternatives to the incumbent telephants.
Especially when you factor in mobility when they get there. No more roaming fees, all over the world.
Mike
The term “5G” among technical circles started vague, became better defined over the course of several years, and is becoming vague again. This nuance was never well understood in the public eye, nor by mass publications like CNN. This is a battle for 12GHz, not 5G.
But is what Starlink saying true or not?
It would be a pity to not have an alternative to incumbent telephants.
Mike
It’s not entirely clear, without knowing the technical details of the Starlink modulation scheme whether or not they could successfully share the 12Ghz spectrum.
I have no reason to disbelieve their claims.
Frankly, I really don’t think that Dish’s idea of providing 5G mobile service from satellites is a particularly good or beneficial one and granting them 12Ghz spectrum for this purpose is probably not really in the public interest.
I thought they were land based? What I read is that being land based means that they can transmit at much higher power.
I wasn’t aware that Dish had terrestrial facilities. I had forgotten their absorption into AT&T.
So I retract my comments in that regard… They are a traditional telephant and I think that terrestrial 5G on 12Ghz is even less useful.
OTOH, I think Starlink is most definitely an interesting product that does provide a clear path to reasonable alternatives to the incumbent telephants.
Especially when you factor in mobility when they get there. No more roaming fees, all over the world.
Yep… Probably one of the reasons DishT&T is trying to fight so hard to cause them grief.
Owen
It’s DirecTV that became part of AT&T, but now they’re separated again.
Dish Network is building a nation-wide terrestrial mobile network. Supposed to be the new #4 provider.
A decade ago I recall Globalstar, yet another LEO phone service, had been trying to work out a partnership with a terrestrial carrier that could use their spectrum allotment. It was purely a business move. Nothing technical about it. Spectrum is valuable, and they were trying to find a way to monetize it while still staying in the rules, or at least a plausible argument that they were following the rules.
Looks like their plans just hit a snag -
D.C. court confirms Dish cheated on 5G spectrum bidding, revokes $3.4 billion in credits
Court decision on the spectrum was decided 6/21:
Also, to be a little clearer, Dish’s entrance to the cellular world was a byproduct of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. There were understandably some concerns with reducing the nationwide competitive landscape down to three carriers, so they had to agree to help prop up a replacement competitor.
If one watches the activity in the tower/outside plant construction side of things, Dish recent went into a burst of activity in hiring tower contractors and signing leases on monopoles, towers and other sites in a “use it or lose it” necessity to have some sort of LTE radios actually mounted, powered up and on the air, even if there were no customers connected to the equipment.
They’re still doing it as far as I know.