Maaaaaan this would be great for living out in the sticks.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
21 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
34815 readers
85 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The most impressive part is that the satellite is able to receive the phone's signal. I'm really surprised by that.
Phones receiving satellite signals is nothing new, GPS works like that, but two way communication is much harder since phones are much less powerful.
I guess it has to do with how large the antennae are.
Now imagine what current generation spy satellites can already do.
Right now I have an InReach for when I'm in the middle of nowhere, but having straight up phone service would be awesome.
Wow it’s “693 square feet in size” and they need to launch another 168. Also it is already ruining some astronomical studies because of streaking… but hey I need to TikTok while I’m hiking in the middle of Yellowstone so whatever! 😅
I was doing this analog with the International Space Station in 1992. During the horizon overpass I was able to establish voice contact via a 2 watt handheld transmitter. This was a two way contact with an ham radio operator on the ISS. The voice bandwidth far exceeds the 4g bandwidth. I'm not sure exactly how this is new being that it was a one way contact. It's basically line of sight communications which is exactly what the higher frequencies are intended for; nothing in their path. Still cool nonetheless. I wonder how they received the FCC okay for it though.