from Hacker News

Ask HN: Can you use Starlink terminals with other satellite netorks?

by uxcolumbo on 3/6/25, 7:23 PM with 2 comments

This is in relation to this video.

Europe Steps Up Satellite Capabilities Amid Doubts Over Musk's Starlink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5VxZqamfzM

Rather than replacing the terminals (around 40k), is it possible to modify Starlink's terminals to use Eutelsat's network for example?

  • by bigfatkitten on 3/6/25, 7:50 PM

    No, not at scale. There's no scenario in which this would become an economically worthwhile approach.

    There is no commonality between the air interface etc between Starlink and the other networks, so you couldn't reuse terminal hardware off the shelf.

    You could possibly reverse engineer a terminal and write entirely new firmware for it, but it's full of semi-custom silicon and so this would be extremely expensive.

    There are secure boot protections, so you couldn't mass deploy that firmware in the field anyway. Each would need expensive individual rework by skilled hands to be converted.

  • by stop50 on 3/6/25, 7:41 PM

    I think the earlier generations had an hardwarebug that allowed interacting with the software, but that had been fixed since it was reported