| ▲ | loandbehold 8 hours ago | |
Can anyone explain how it's possible given that Starlink satellites are at 500 km altitude while LTE tower has coverage radius of only around 5km? | ||
| ▲ | ablation 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
I am by no means an expert on this, but I think it works because satellites at 500 km altitude have a much wider line of sight than ground-based LTE towers. Throw beamforming and steerable antennas into the mix and I think you’re then getting to why. It’s a “cell tower in space” optimised for wide coverage, not urban capacity. | ||
| ▲ | hmottestad 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
Dunno if that’s maybe a typo? Could be that the signal strength is really weak so they have to use a very directional antenna to transmit and receive signals. I would bet that receiving a signal from a cell phone is the hardest part. You can always omf up the transmit power, but to receive you really need to have a sensitive and directional antenna | ||