OK Geeks, explain this one to me...

Kilarney

I live in an area with absolutely horrible cell phone coverage. Nobody is interested in building towers here for a variety of reasons - permitting and low population density being the two biggest.

Our Lieutenant Governor has negotiated with a company to test satellite cell phone service. This service will cover an area with a 125 mile radius using "spot beams" from a satellite. It will work in conjunction with land based towers. (News article.)

Can someone explain to me how this can possibly work? How can my puny little hand-help cell phone that generates less than 1 watt when transmitting beam a signal all the way up to a satellite? Do you think that this service will only work with special cell phones? The company's article makes me think so.

Apreche

AFAIK you need a satellite phone to use satellite phone service. Satellite phone is a very old technology, and is mostly only used by the military. There was one attempt to bring satellite phone service to the consumer called Iridium. IIRC, they paid a lot of money to put satellites in space, then went out of business. If as they say they are doing something in conjunction with land-based towers, then I guess it is possible that your phone will connect to the land tower which in turn connects to the satellite. I really don't see the point of that because if you build a land based tower, you might as well make it a normal cellular tower. The only reason I see to make such a system is if you want to build cell towers out in places where you don't want to hard-wire them into the telco network.

Jason

WTF Iw/ AOT ABB.'s? DYLTaO07? LOL

navelfluff

The descriptions online are very vague. My interpretation is that your cell phone will communicate with the land based towers like any normal cell phone (GSM/3G) tower. The difference is that the connection to a central goes via the satellite instead of a cable. This eliminates the problem with long and expensive telecom cables through wast unpopulated areas.

This system is very robust and less likely to be interrupted by thunder, earthquakes, landslides or terror attacks since every tower can operate on its own as long as it has power, and they could probably operate for a while with just battery backup. The satellite system offer other practical uses as well, making it a tempting investment for federal government (which is seems to be an important part of the TerreStar business model .

Kilarney

Myinterpretationis that your cell phone will communicate with the land based towers like any normal cell phone (GSM/3G) tower.

That makes sense. I read something further where they state that you can use your regular old cell phone. So it's the towers that are connected to the satellite, not the cell phones. Supposedly, the antennas are much smaller, which makes me think that they'll be putting more of them up but making them less intrusive.

Neito

Supposedly, the antennas are much smaller, which makes me think that they'll be putting more of them up but making them less intrusive.

In that case, though, there's still the question of why they're doing that rather than hooking them up to the phone system...

Kilarney

In that case, though, there's still the question of why they're doing that rather than hooking them up to the phone system...

Good point. If you can run power to the antennas, how hard is it to run phone service to them. Of course there is usually a need for switching equipment in a shed, but still... something isn't adding up here.

I've also been told that the satellite company can move a spot beam to an area that needs it. For example, they can cover an area affected by a natural disaster. This would suggest that the satellite can run independently of land-based antennas. Which then gets me back to my original question... how can it do this with regular cell phones?

Neito

Which then gets me back to my original question... how can it do this with regular cell phones?

Maybe the rescue workers have the special satellite phones?

navelfluff

Which then gets me back to my original question... how can it do this with regular cell phones?

Maybe the rescue workers have the special satellite phones?

That sounds reasonable. They could also have GSM transmitters on the rescue vehicles making normal cell phones work as soon as the rescue team arrive.