COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Pluggy]

A shout out for Amazon's Alexa. The scenario I bought it for happened. I had a fall when I was on my own and couldn't get up I I was able to call Catherine from the floor and she arrived with the cavalry. Mr Garry Pearson who is a local painter and decorator was with her and together they scraped me off the floor. If you want some decorating doing, get in touch with me and I'll put you in touch with him. He does a good job.

[Stanley]

Oh Stephen, so sorry to hear you were in that position but good that Alexa rescued you. I hope there are no consequences attending the fall.

[PanBiker]

I echo Stanley's words, I hope you are OK and nothing busted but your pride.

[chinatyke]

Best wishes Stephen. Good planning on your part installing Alexa.

[Big Kev]

A bug plus for technology there. As Ian says, I trust it's only your pride that hurts...

[Pluggy]

My right leg is a bit sprained but I'm OK.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

It's good to hear you're all in one piece after the fall, Pluggy, and to know that a modern electronic gizmo is helping you. It seems fitting that electronics should be paying you back now!

[PanBiker]

Space X's Starlink internet service is due to go live with what they call a "better than nothing beta service". Initially to the Northern US and Canada. It will be priced at $99 per month with an upfront cost of $499 for the required dish, transponder and router to enable connection to the orbiting Starlink satellite network. The number of deployed satellites to date is only a fraction of what will be required for full global coverage. Speeds to be expected are between 50mbps and 150mbps with warnings to expect erratic connectivity and periods with no broadband at all.

A long way to go to catch up with terrestrial systems even on the mixture of fibre and copper and of course without the baggage of the polluting of Low Earth Orbit with tens of thousands of orbiting repeaters. I reckon it will be cheaper in the long run to install fibre to premises in a few years time.

[chinatyke]

Space X's Starlink internet service is due to go live with what they call a "better than nothing beta service". Initially to the Northern US and Canada. It will be priced at $99 per month with an upfront cost of $499 for the required dish, transponder and router to enable connection to the orbiting Starlink satellite network. The number of deployed satellites to date is only a fraction of what will be required for full global coverage. Speeds to be expected are between 50mbps and 150mbps with warnings to expect erratic connectivity and periods with no broadband at all.

A long way to go to catch up with terrestrial systems even on the mixture of fibre and copper and of course without the baggage of the polluting of Low Earth Orbit with tens of thousands of orbiting repeaters. I reckon it will be cheaper in the long run to install fibre to premises in a few years time.

Geez! Who can resist an offer like that?!
High time Trump imported some Chinese technology!

[Stanley]

But if you are in a shack in the wilds with no service at all? Not a big market I'll grant you.

[PanBiker]

To get full global coverage it will take nearly 8,000 repeater satellites all in Low Earth Orbit. A lot of hardware junk that all has to be tracked, it is a form of corporate pollution actually. Not content with screwing the planet itself, Musk is making a good start beyond the atmosphere. He needs LEO and multiple repeaters to provide good latency. You can get the same coverage from a handful of geostationary satellites parked in higher orbits but they need to be big and heavy which costs a lot more money to launch and they also have increased latency problems if pressed into a broadband role because they are further away. Ideal for telephony traffic and the like, you only need about six for total 24/7 global coverage. Musk is launching 60 StarLink transponders at a time. If this was game changing 1GB broadband or better I could see the point. I had 100mbps broadband 15 years ago from spare capacity on Virgin Fibre in Burnley. Easy enough to shove it into the old Barden High School building from the cable that ran all the way down Barden Lane.

[Tizer]

High time Trump imported some Chinese technology!

China depends on the US for its computer chips...
`Chip wars: The US v China' BBC video
`A big source of tension between the US and China at the moment is technology. And one very small component is now at the centre of this battle for global dominance. BBC Asia business correspondent Karishma Vaswani explains.'

[Whyperion]

To get full global coverage it will take nearly 8,000 repeater satellites all in Low Earth Orbit. A lot of hardware junk that all has to be tracked, it is a form of corporate pollution actually. Not content with screwing the planet itself, Musk is making a good start beyond the atmosphere. He needs LEO and multiple repeaters to provide good latency. You can get the same coverage from a handful of geostationary satellites parked in higher orbits but they need to be big and heavy which costs a lot more money to launch and they also have increased latency problems if pressed into a broadband role becasue they are further away. Ideal for telephony traffic and the like, you only need about six for total 24/7 global coverage. Musk is launching 60 StarLink transponders at a time. If this was game changing 1GB broadband or better I could see the point. I had 100mbps broadband 15 years ago from spare capacity on Virgin Fibre in Burnley. Easy enough to shove it into the old Barden High School building from the cable that ran all the way down Barden Lane.

What happens with all the items in low earth orbit start getting in the way of higher satellites?

[PanBiker]

What happens with all the items in low earth orbit start getting in the way of higher satellites?

Nothing, because they cant get in the way. Only way to get from LEO to the much higher geostationary belt is by powered means. For LEO items there is only one eventual outcome and that is re-entry into the atmosphere. This applies to non powered pieces of space junk and satellites alike when their positioning thrusters run out of juice. Newtons Law is acting on all items that are in the gravitational pull of Earth.

NASA - ARES - Orbital Space Debris Tracking

Have a look at the Debris Modelling to get an idea of the problem.

[Whyperion]

What happens with all the items in low earth orbit start getting in the way of higher satellites?

Nothing, because they cant get in the way. Only way to get from LEO to the much higher geostationary belt is by powered means. For LEO items there is only one eventual outcome and that is re-entry into the atmosphere. This applies to non powered pieces of space junk and satellites alike when their positioning thrusters run out of juice. Newtons Law is acting on all items that are in the gravitational pull of Earth.

NASA - ARES - Orbital Space Debris Tracking

Have a look at the Debris Modelling to get an idea of the problem.

Sorry I meant in blocking or interfering with signals

[PanBiker]

Sorry I meant in blocking or interfering with signals

In that case, it will probably have an attenuation effect to the signal strength.

[plaques]

Not knowing much about satellite frequencies I always thought they were in the 3 GHz to 40 GHz band, (10cm to 1 cm) I suppose attenuation would depend on the debris particle size but this would not be as bad as atmospheric ice and rain. Says he who knows nothing.

[PanBiker]

A lot of the debris tracked in the LEO zone is from 1cm upwards.

[Whyperion]

Reminds me of the Clangers fishing in space above their abode with magnets to bring down the debris.

[chinatyke]

The Clangers! There's a forgotten corner!

And the little Martian men in the Smash advert.

[Tizer]

`Raspberry Pi 400: A computer for the coronavirus age?' LINK

I wish schools would invite people to give them their old monitors, there must be many sitting unused in houses around the country. They could do the same with old PCs if they replaced the Windows OS with free up-to-date Ubuntu Linux.

[Stanley]

What a good idea Peter and you're right, I have a good LED monitor sat doing nothing.

[plaques]

Internet down from 8pm last night. Cannot connect to DNS server. After growling at TalkTalk they eventually got me running again at 4pm this afternoon. Initially all their checks said everything was fine, it must be your end. I think something went amiss with the router and after a 'reset' and some clicking at their end it was all sorted. Life's too short to start brooding over water under the bridge.

[Stanley]

Yes Ken but when it goes AWOL it's definitely deprivation!