How a Phone Talks to a Satellite: Doppler, Delay and Handover
Beyond signal strength, what technical problems must be solved for an ordinary phone to work with a satellite moving at 7.5 kilometres per second?
Chapter summary
Four problems, each of which mobile networks were never designed for.
Key takeaways
- 1
Doppler shift: a satellite in low orbit moves so fast that its signal's frequency shifts by tens of kilohertz, more than phones expect.
- 2
Delay: the round trip to a satellite at 500 km takes a few milliseconds, and to a geostationary satellite about half a second, upsetting the timing of mobile protocols.
- 3
Handover: a low-orbit satellite is in view for only a few minutes, so connections must pass between satellites and beams constantly.
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The Physics: Why Phones and Satellites Struggle to Talk
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