Reply to post: I am very dubious about this!

I am very dubious about this!

I cannot see how this can possibly work as promised; my reasons for saying this:

1. Musk is involved, and we know how reliable he is!

2. Mobile phones are designed to communicate to base stations that are typically less than 30 km away (you can get further, but only in ideal weather conditions). For a LEO satellite at, say, 300 km altitude the signal is going to be attenuated by at least 3 orders of magnitude, probably more given the frequency bands involved (rain-fade is a bitch).

3. The frequencies used by mobile phones are reserved for terrestrial use only, they cannot be used for satellite up- or down-links. Any attempt to use them for that purpose is going to trigger legal action (probably by the other mobile phone networks). I personally know of at least two hybrid mobile-satellite networks that failed due to this problem.

4. Doppler is going to be a bitch to solve; mobile waveforms are design to operate in an environment of low doppler (caused by travelling a few 100 kmh). The sort of Doppler associated with a satellite is way outside of the waveform specifications.

5. Musk is involved, and we know how reliable he is!