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Comment by Tuna-Fish | Hacker News Reader

> (miniature receivers embedded in laptops, tablets etc.)

Not possible because of physics. Unless they branch into a completely different portion of the spectrum with all-new satellites and some communications tech that is as of yet unknown, they really cannot miniaturize the receivers.

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There is no fundamental physical reason that a phased array antenna for the V-Band (wavelengths of 4 to 7 mm) cannot be fitted into a 14" laptop package or 10" tablet. They are in the final phases of FCC approval for such a constellation of 7500 sats, in addition to the already approved ~4400 Ka/Ku bands constellation.

There might be technical showstoppers today related to transmitter power and battery, beamforming effectiveness and indoor performance of a mobile device, signal processing difficulties etc., ergo "long term productization".

Even if individual device reception isn't possible, just using these for better backhaul access like for an office building or neighborhood would still be massively disruptive.

Let's not forget the middle ground, a "pizza box" that sits on the roof and provides 1Gbps wifi connectivity to a home is something that rents for $50 a month to hundreds of millions of customers, while the $15 version - to a billion customers.

7500 satellites can serve a billion users?

Let's not forget the middle ground, a "pizza box" that sits on the roof

Aww, hell! Make it a small pizza box sized device I can put on a bracket I can hang out the window! Include a wireless hotspot and you'd sell those things like crazy!

The antenna needs to be able to see a lot of the sky, so that there are multiple satellites in its field of view at all times. Roofs are likely good, many window situations might not be.

BTW existing US regulations on apartments and the like require landlords to install roof antennae if technically required.

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