michaelt a day ago

Given that the blogger is based in Kiev, Ukraine? Good chance this goes on some sort of long range, Predator-style drone.

  • neilv 21 hours ago

    I hope that the engineers and scientists contributing to asymmetric warfare technology there aren't designated high-value targets by the adversary.

    Wouldn't publicity paint a target on one's back?

    • stephen_g 20 hours ago

      Seems likely, just a risk one has to take if you want to actively contribute to a war effort...

  • burnt-resistor a day ago

    I wonder how SL plans vary in Ukraine / for use in Russia. Assuming US-like pricing and limitations, for low speed drones, this would work. The gotcha is that for jet or fast prop drones in the 250-478 kts range requires a very expensive aviation plan assuming it's similar to US plans.

    • dylan604 a day ago

      Could that not also be part of the support being provided to Ukraine in that those prices are not the same as some commercial account? At the end of the day, the billing department could just not issue the bill, or any other method of meaning Ukraine isn't paying for it.

  • tomaskafka a day ago

    I am not sure - afaik there is a speed limit (assumption of satellite visibility and specific latency?) over which starlink won’t work, right? It can however be useful for getting the internet without announcing yourself to a swarm of drones?

    • gruez a day ago

      >I am not sure - afaik there is a speed limit (assumption of satellite visibility and specific latency?) over which starlink won’t work, right?

      The author's youtube channel also contains a video of him doing a speedtest on a starlink mini while driving on a highway.

    • michaelt a day ago

      Starlink satellites orbit at 17,000 miles per hour, so I doubt receivers lose signal just from going at a few hundred miles per hour.

      Unless there's a software limit built in that turns them off, or the drone's doing some crazy high-G-force acrobatics.

  • mft_ a day ago

    Wouldn’t this give Starlink the ability to track and/or turn off operations in real time?

    • michaelt a day ago

      Yes, you may recall some controversy a few years back when Musk made some threats along those lines.

      There are alternatives if you only need short range, or if you can tolerate high latency. And of course there are fire-and-forget cruise missiles that don't need communications at all.

      But there aren't all that many other options. Historically, satellite internet companies like Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic have not fared well.

      • maxlin a day ago

        It was only made to appear a controversy for clicks and Ukrainians (understandably) trying to bend the rules.

        The thing came with a clear limit "this thing works in these cells of this big hex grid". And they drove it off that hex grid. Plan and simple.

        Its like if the US-supplied HIMARS came with some built-in limit that it cannot be used to target known Russian nuclear installments, and they'd try to do that.

        It's not that those things are unquestionable, but they are limits that would need US consultation as US obviously doesn't want the thing to escalate from being a defensive war to something else.

      • lxgr a day ago

        Iridium works extremely well for what it was designed for – truly global, low latency communications without requiring a directional antenna. Unfortunately, that also means very low data rates.

        It only gained packed-switched data with the second generation satellite network, but data rates are still very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that needs high-gain antennas).

    • mattmaroon a day ago

      Yes but they’ve mostly not been doing that (they probably are selling a lot of dishes) and what’s the alternative?

  • codedokode a day ago

    Russians also use Musk's satellites and might find the information useful.

    Also as I understand, satellites do not work over Russian territory so guess where this can be used.

    • Andrew_nenakhov a day ago

      Actually, they do work is Russia. You need account registered in some allowed country and also use RV plan (or maybe it is called 'roam' now). I know some ppl who use it. Was thinking to get one myself, to have a reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall.

      • Ray20 20 hours ago

        > Actually, they do work is Russia.

        Aren't starlink have some kind of geolock?

        > to have a reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall

        All data shows that Russia have one of the strongest and best firewall in the world, in many aspects even better than in China. And all the Russians I spoke with say that VPN is not blocked and any service for a couple of bucks does its job.

  • littlestymaar a day ago

    Maybe just for front-line deployment, it would suck to be targeted by a glide bomb because the Russians located some WiFi signal.