Tongan communications problems

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Rikkitic

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#2864505 10-Feb-2022 09:26

Geektastic: To be brutally commercial, why would anyone go to significant effort to provide Comms to Tonga as a priority?

NZ has naval ships there which presumably have working Comms that would permit high level aid and government Comms traffic. Tonga is an economic blip which has neither political nor economic importance enough to persuade anyone to expend massive time and money solving the problem other than as BAU I would think.

Geopolitics. Tonga is a foothold for China. Also receptive to Mormon proselytising.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

lchiu7

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#2864515 10-Feb-2022 09:31

Scotdownunder:

Elon’s Starlink satellites are in a low earth orbit so cannot be ‘moved’ but pass over most of the earth (depending on orbit). However they are only a relay from a master ground station which provides the network connectivity only when both stations can see a common satellite. Without inter-satellite links using lasers (of which only a few have been launched to date) service can only be provided over several hundred kilometres from that master ground station. For NZ that is provided by two stations, one in Southland and one in Northland.

So in short, Starlink cannot provide reliable service at present. A link from Fiji might be possible if a couple of satellites with laser links were in favourable locations but that would only be a fleeting link.

I will bow to those with more knowledge and expertise than I do in this area. So from I understand, some sort of ground station is required to route the Internet traffic across the network. There is none in Tonga of course. So the satellites that transmit/receive data from a Tongan based dish, hopefully can send the data via laser to another satellite(s) that are connected to a ground station that is connected to the Internet and that is likely to be Fiji. Or possibly the satellites could use the Fiji ground stations directly if they are not too far away?

Perhaps that is what the Starlink engineers are evaluatimg now.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Jase2985

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#2864613 10-Feb-2022 11:28

Geektastic: To be brutally commercial, why would anyone go to significant effort to provide Comms to Tonga as a priority?

NZ has naval ships there which presumably have working Comms that would permit high level aid and government Comms traffic.

Because the ships aren't sitting still, not just sitting at a wharf, they also are doing their visit contactless. Its also not convenient to not be able to communicate easily yourself, ie have to rely on someone else to send the message for you.

wired

187 posts

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#2864658 10-Feb-2022 12:34

lchiu7:

Scotdownunder:

Elon’s Starlink satellites are in a low earth orbit so cannot be ‘moved’ but pass over most of the earth (depending on orbit). However they are only a relay from a master ground station which provides the network connectivity only when both stations can see a common satellite. Without inter-satellite links using lasers (of which only a few have been launched to date) service can only be provided over several hundred kilometres from that master ground station. For NZ that is provided by two stations, one in Southland and one in Northland.

So in short, Starlink cannot provide reliable service at present. A link from Fiji might be possible if a couple of satellites with laser links were in favourable locations but that would only be a fleeting link.

I will bow to those with more knowledge and expertise than I do in this area. So from I understand, some sort of ground station is required to route the Internet traffic across the network. There is none in Tonga of course. So the satellites that transmit/receive data from a Tongan based dish, hopefully can send the data via laser to another satellite(s) that are connected to a ground station that is connected to the Internet and that is likely to be Fiji. Or possibly the satellites could use the Fiji ground stations directly if they are not too far away?

Perhaps that is what the Starlink engineers are evaluatimg now.

I agree with Scotdownunder’s comments.

Starlink engineers are working on the inter satellite laser functionality particularly for the satellites that travel over the poles where there will be no ground stations and hopefully to ships and aircraft. They have only just started launching the polar orbit satellites.

I use the website https://satellitemap.space/# that shows where the satellites are and the ground stations. It also shows hexagonal defined areas where service is now being provided to. You can also turn on the “intensity” setting to see how good the coverage is. Even when Tonga gets a ground station, it looks like their service won’t be as good as NZ which is near to the green intensity but I expect it will still be beneficial.

lchiu7

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#2864807 10-Feb-2022 15:34

wired:

I agree with Scotdownunder’s comments.

Starlink engineers are working on the inter satellite laser functionality particularly for the satellites that travel over the poles where there will be no ground stations and hopefully to ships and aircraft. They have only just started launching the polar orbit satellites.

I use the website https://satellitemap.space/# that shows where the satellites are and the ground stations. It also shows hexagonal defined areas where service is now being provided to. You can also turn on the “intensity” setting to see how good the coverage is. Even when Tonga gets a ground station, it looks like their service won’t be as good as NZ which is near to the green intensity but I expect it will still be beneficial.

Having reliable communications with the rest of the world must be a good thing and just because Tonga does not figure in the world either politically or financially doesn't mean somebody can't try to get them better connected in these difficult times. Whatever Starlink can provide has got to be better than what they have now.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

wellygary

8312 posts

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#2864824 10-Feb-2022 15:53

Scotdownunder:

Elon’s Starlink satellites are in a low earth orbit so cannot be ‘moved’ but pass over most of the earth (depending on orbit). However they are only a relay from a master ground station which provides the network connectivity only when both stations can see a common satellite. Without inter-satellite links using lasers (of which only a few have been launched to date) service can only be provided over several hundred kilometres from that master ground station. For NZ that is provided by two stations, one in Southland and one in Northland.

So in short, Starlink cannot provide reliable service at present. A link from Fiji might be possible if a couple of satellites with laser links were in favourable locations but that would only be a fleeting link.

According to this the footprint of Starlink could be a radius as large as 500km per satellite
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frcmn.2021.643095/full

Fiji is 800km so if there was an orbit some point between the two they should be able to have a direct downlink without the need for any laser communication

This seems to indicate that there are Starink satellite that do orbit between Fiji and Tonga...

https://satellitemap.space/?constellation=starlink&norad=48440

So I'm guessing that's what they are hoping to use...

Geektastic

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#2864925 10-Feb-2022 17:33

lchiu7:
wired:

I agree with Scotdownunder’s comments.

Starlink engineers are working on the inter satellite laser functionality particularly for the satellites that travel over the poles where there will be no ground stations and hopefully to ships and aircraft. They have only just started launching the polar orbit satellites.

I use the website https://satellitemap.space/# that shows where the satellites are and the ground stations. It also shows hexagonal defined areas where service is now being provided to. You can also turn on the “intensity” setting to see how good the coverage is. Even when Tonga gets a ground station, it looks like their service won’t be as good as NZ which is near to the green intensity but I expect it will still be beneficial.

Having reliable communications with the rest of the world must be a good thing and just because Tonga does not figure in the world either politically or financially doesn't mean somebody can't try to get them better connected in these difficult times. Whatever Starlink can provide has got to be better than what they have now.

It might be a "good thing" but that's not sufficient to make it a priority.

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gwh

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#2865249 11-Feb-2022 10:36

Geektastic: To be brutally commercial, why would anyone go to significant effort to provide Comms to Tonga as a priority?

NZ has naval ships there which presumably have working Comms that would permit high level aid and government Comms traffic. Tonga is an economic blip which has neither political nor economic importance enough to persuade anyone to expend massive time and money solving the problem other than as BAU I would think.

Because, to be brutally commercial, there's money in grief. In an event like this, everyone who helps sends their invoice one way or another. Starlink may not charge for the work they are doing, I have no idea whether they will or not, but their technical and commercial teams will gain a huge amount of knowledge and useful experience from providing comms to Tonga.

I also understand that disaster relief was part of Starlink's marketing model. This event appears to have caught Starlink unready but they appear to be stepping up. This one may be a freebie for the Tongans, who knows, but you can be sure in times of climate change causing disasters for developed and undeveloped nations and affecting communications networks that Mr Musk will dine out for a very long time with what his company was able to do for Tonga.

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