FCC Proposes Satellite-to-Phone Rules To Eliminate 'No Signal' Once and For All...

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  Satellites in a geosynchronous orbit could cover large areas to allow people over vast distances to share one cell in a cellular phone network. This is not likely to be the case since a satellite at that height would introduce a delay in the line that would be annoying, even for people that are close to each other on Earth so long as the link is through that satellite. Another problem with sharing a cell over such large areas is the number of calls that each satellite must handle. Three geosynchronous sa

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    You are really behind the times I see. Starlink and maybe their future rivals will use low orbits and lots of satellites in orbit so each services a smaller cell.

    Example, Starlink want to go as far as 42K units.

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      I see a couple problems here. First, you appear to have missed that I was pointing out the absurdity of sharing a satellite based cellular phone cell with satellites above LEO. Second, it appears you also missed the absurdity of how I was mistaking which kind of cell would be shared. I was trying to make a subtle joke on the mistaken kind of cell being shared but it seems I missed my mark.

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  It's an editor making things up for a click-bait headline. There's some truth to this as a smart phone that is equipped with the means to make phone calls by cellular, WiFi, and satellite there's going to be few places that humans could go and not be able to make a phone call. That is a bit unfortunate since it means people going on a hike in some park might still be expected to answer the phone. Personal emergency locator beacons have been a thing for quite some time so the ability to call for help exis

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    Don't be an ass. It's not about "too cheap". If some random wacko kills you on the street, are you "too cheap" for not having hired a personal bodyguard? Or are we all just inundated with a million potential monthly-fee subscription services and we have to make a value judgement about which ones we can afford and are likely to be beneficial to us?

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      A random act of violence in what I presume is a populated area is distinct from wandering off into the wilderness alone with no means to alert others if something happens that could prevent coming out under one's own power. It's not just being "too cheap" but choosing to go someplace known to be hostile to human life. I guess there is a parallel to getting killed at random on a city street if one chooses to enter a neighborhood known to be hostile to "outsiders" and not paying for some means to protect th

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        It's a little ridiculous though to assume that anyone outdoors beyond range of cellphones should be expected to have a beacon. You can be out-of-range without being deep in the backcountry.

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          I don't know where that came from.

          Yes, indeed you can. Being outside of cell phone range while being deep in the back country is not always a wise thing to do. Being in cell phone range means the chances are high of summoning assistance when in need, even when well off a well beaten path. Going out of cell phone range on a well traveled road, hiking path, or river, is not likely to be a risky thing to do as someone is likely to be along soon enough to summon assistance if needed.

          I did point out that it i

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  There is a old saying "Don't judge a book by its cover"
  Which also could apply don't judge an article by its title.

  Because every title is clickbait, or reason to buy a paper, or stay on the TV to watch what is next.

  I mean... "Coming up next, a list of new FCC proposed regulations." vs. "Coming up next, are you tired of No Signal, these new FCC regulations may help"

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  Calling emergency services could be one reason.

  Calling 911 (at least in the USA) on a cell phone gets routed similarly to how landlines work, based off a mapping on where that call comes from, a mapping the phone service providers made when establishing service in an area. If that call is wrapped up in VoIP then that gets into the problem of any other VoIP service today. With a static location like the crappy VoIP service I had from Mediacom the location was something entered in some database. If the set

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  Technically VoLTE (Voice over LTE) is VoIP. The reason it's still separated out is money, of course. The cost per kilobyte is second only to SMS.

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  I think you're missing the point. The issue isn't the data protocol (ISO layers 3-7), it's the lower level RF layer (1 and 2). You need to sort out what radios to use, what frequencies they're on, the modulation, power, noise filtering, error correction, and the like. You also need to sort out how a voice session gets handed between different radios without glitches (which ought to be a solved problem by now but one never knows).

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  Different latency requirements dictate different packet sizes. The telecom people look at a TCP/IP and say that the format is too heavy. Although today, people seem to be quite tolerant of 2 second communications delays. So maybe the old expectations of 10ms latency aren't important any more because it's already been blown to bits.

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    The old expectations of 1oms latency went out the window with GSM over two decades ago!

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  It won't work underground, however there are large areas on the country which have no cell reception. I can be in a dead zone in 15 minutes. The dead zone is eight whole miles from the county seat. Mountains are quite impervious to HF radio waves.

  This problem could be avoided with VLF transmission, but the multi-hundred meter antenna needed on your phone might be a wee bit inconvenient.

  Of all the places I've gone camping in the last decade only one had cell phone coverage. I view this as a feature, but if I

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  If you're underground, why would you think there would be a cell signal? Is this a trick question I'm too intelligent to understand?

  Reminds me of the people who go off into the wilderness and bitch they can't use their phone to navigate.

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    > Is this a trick question I'm too intelligent to understand?

    No, legit there are many people who think their phones works in the subway because the signal must be pretty strong.

    It's like they can't even remember before the repeaters went in.

    It's wild.

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    Or to me, people traveling Death Valley with no spare water.

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  I can recall being in a lecture hall that was deep in the basement of a large stone and brick structure to find that my cell phone could still receive phone calls. I then recalled how my phone and service provider had WiFi calling services. If there is WiFi access to the internet then your phone will likely work indoors like mine does. Presumably large population centers will still have terrestrial cellular service since satellites could be easily overwhelmed in such areas, as well as "micro-cells" in la

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  So just turn of roaming in settings if you think you won't need it, this is great fot rhose rhat need it. It won ' t surprise me if you will get an option to "satellite roam for e-911 only" option rather quickly, and thise calls will ofc be free

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    will there be an satellite roam as it's own setting?
    and there may need to be an fcc rule that some software build can't do an easy button have have any roaming be only one on or off button.

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  How many years has it been? Now look up cell phones of the 1980s and 1990s to see the march of tech.

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  Yes, the iPhone 14 has it built it for example.

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  So pretty much the same as today.