Though I don't know if this is the case, as I'm not very technically versed on the sats, it may be that the placement of the sats needed for Gen3 or Gen4 aren't amenable to those living in Alaska. Maybe it's too low on the horizon for most, so they don't bother offering it for any.
I just checked a couple of places and the elevation was 9 degrees for the ES17 in about the middle of the state.
GabeU wrote:Though I don't know if this is the case, as I'm not very technically versed on the sats, it may be that the placement of the sats needed for Gen3 or Gen4 aren't amenable to those living in Alaska. Maybe it's too low on the horizon for most, so they don't bother offering it for any.
I just checked a couple of places and the elevation was 9 degrees for the ES17 in about the middle of the state.
At those angles I don't think a spot beam like the new satellites use is very effective, the power output is much lower than the old one large footprint satellites that put out greater power. Would most likely take a huge dish like the old 6-12 foot diameter days just for the receive side, then the transmit side would most likely need to be quite a bit more than the 1-2 watt used now. Probably would not be cost friendly at all for those who might want it.
I was a bit shocked when I saw some of the beam charts before Echo 19 launched showing one Alaska beam.
Quite possible that the frequency bands that are used can't provide a significantly usable signal to that area. Too much path loss, if not too much latency. So the spot beams were prioritized elsewhere.
