Founding Stories Part IV: From Small Antennas to Big Antennas, the Technological Innovation That Drove Starry

“我们对消费者使用的一些硬件和软件服务有多么糟糕感到惊讶, in many cases provided to them by the incumbent ISPs. We were convinced there was an opportunity to improve what we saw.” -JL

Delivering live television over the internet is pretty common in 2022. 而在2012年，情况却并非如此.

但Aereo就是这么做的, the OTT streaming company from the team that later founded Starry, 做了, altering the broadcast TV landscape in ways that are still felt to this day. 个体的概念, 集中的无线天线与云端的DVR配对，你可以用它在任何设备上随时观看和录制你最喜欢的广播电视节目，这是由Aereo首创的.

Before its history-making appearance at the U.S. 最高法院, Aereo had amassed a customer base numbering in the hundreds of thousands, while operating in 12 major US markets. 该公司的惊人增长可以直接归因于其技术创新, 这是由一个专注的工程师团队推动的，他们致力于通过创造一种有竞争力的替代昂贵的有线电视捆绑包，从根本上改变人们消费电视的方式.

技术创新——服务于客户体验——是Aereo和星空之间的贯穿线. 还有Joe Lipowski, co-Founder and Chief 技术 Officer (CTO) for both companies, was and remains at the forefront of that groundbreaking innovation today.

之前Aereo, Lipowski served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at LoJack Corporation, 他在哪里领导工程团队为被盗车辆回收和风险人群市场开发产品和运营服务. Through a serendipitous alignment of the stars, Lipowski was introduced to future partner and Starry CEO Chet Kanojia through Amish Jani, founder and principal of FirstMark Capital. (十月七日, 2021, 星空宣布将通过与FirstMark Horizon收购公司的业务合并成为一家上市公司. (NYSE: FMAC)).

乔和切特对流媒体电视可能(最终会)变成什么样有着相同的看法, and the same appetite for disrupting stagnant industries. 很快地, Aereo颠覆了广播电视的格局，并在此过程中引起了主要电视广播公司的愤怒. 尽管取得了成功，但美国政府仍在努力.S. 最高法院, overturning both District Court and Appeals Court decisions, 裁定Aereo败诉, 理由是违反版权法, which effectively forced the company to shut down its operations in November 2014. As painful as the end was for the Aereo team, 事实证明，在极速赛车正规官网开奖网址上直播电视的经验为下一个时代奠定了基础, 更有野心的行为, 利波夫斯基说.

“We learned a lot about what consumers need for home internet, particularly for streaming and handling video,利波夫斯基说 of the lessons taken from Aereo when developing Starry. “我们还了解到当代极速赛车正规官网开奖网址服务提供商存在哪些不足，以及为人们提供良好服务意味着什么.”

Poor internet service had plagued Aereo customers across the board. Providing live broadcast television requires a near continuous connection, something too many customers just 做了n’t get from their ISP.

“我们对消费者使用的一些硬件和软件服务有多么糟糕感到惊讶, in many cases provided to them by the big incumbent ISPs,利波夫斯基说. 他指出，过时的家庭WiFi设备往往是糟糕的客户体验的罪魁祸首. “We were convinced there was an opportunity to improve what we saw.”

But delivering home internet service is extremely cost prohibitive, especially for new entrants into the market. 铺设光纤是一项非常昂贵和耗时的工作(只要问任何尝试过的人就知道了)，而且没有现成的传统电缆或电话操作, the economics are largely infeasible. Solving for this problem would require a lot of innovation and technical expertise, something Lipowski and the Aereo team were well-versed in.

In building the foundational blocks of the network, 决定利用许可的毫米波频谱为家庭提供最后一英里的宽带连接. 走这条路的好处是显而易见的:不用挖开街道和人行道来铺设电线，可以节省大量的时间和成本, if they got the engineering right, 它们可以通过毫米波频谱传输的带宽将等于或可能超过光纤的带宽, Lipowski说.

多年的深入研究, testing and development went into validating these bands and Starry’s technology approach. 这些努力最终发展成为现在星空公司的第二代基站:星空泰坦. 星空泰坦通常被固定在垂直资产站点(塔或屋顶)上，并通过光纤进行反向传输. Titan transmits within approximately a one-mile radius, 多千兆连接到公寓大楼和家庭屋顶上的星空接收器, which in turn provide service to the households beneath it.

Today, Starry’s network of Titans covers more than 5.3 million households across six cities and continues to grow. 利波夫斯基说，尽管如今星空公司的技术手段听起来很明显，但过去并非如此. While millimeter waves have great potential for providing bandwidth, the bands also have inherent limitations, which were not trivial to solve.

“At such a high frequency, millimeter waves don't propagate well,利波夫斯基说. “例如, 我们在研发过程的早期就了解到，毫米波通常无法穿透现代(低e)玻璃. So, we built our first unit to go underneath the window sill with two parts; one part inside the home side that had the modem, and one part outside with an antenna that autonomously aimed itself to find the best signal.”

Though this method of delivery worked well for higher floors in an apartment building, 该团队很快发现，由于潜在的障碍物，较低楼层或单层建筑接收附近基站的信号会有困难.

“所以我们很快就改变了主意，意识到我们可以在楼顶建造一个单元, receive the signal and share the bandwidth across multiple apartments,利波夫斯基说, whose team was tasked with figuring out this new technical challenge. Instead of a series of individual antennas, there would be one compact-sized, 中央收发机, 叫做星河三叉戟, that would service the entire building. Lipowski’s team would also develop an even smaller transceiver, 鞋盒大小的星空彗星, to serve small buildings and single-family homes, which debuted in multiple markets in 2021.

“接下来的问题是，你如何学会将信号分配到大楼里的多个公寓,利波夫斯基说. “We began studying a technology called G.hn. 我们已经接触到了G.hn during our quest for ubiquitous indoor coverage using two or more WiFi APs, with the need for a persistent connection between the APs.  我们发现这是一项伟大的技术，我们可以利用它为所有不同类型的公寓提供高速连接, using essentially any existing wiring type, saving the cost and time of having to rewire an entire building.”

Not having to rewire buildings was a key breakthrough. Starry’s ability to utilize a building’s existing wiring, including old twisted pair wiring, was innovative and critically important from cost and deployment efficiency standpoint, 对于业主来说，这一点很重要，因为他们可能不欢迎安装新线路带来的干扰和成本. 能够使用各种类型的布线使公司具有灵活性和快速移动和构建的优势.

The innovative problem solving continued inside the home, with the design of Starry’s first generation in-home router, 星空站. 利波夫斯基说, 从Aereo的经验中学到的一个重要教训是，消费者对家庭WiFi的沮丧程度很高. 客户通常不知道他们的设备是否连接，也不知道他们正在接收多少带宽. The experience with incumbent internet providers was completely opaque.  所以, the team determined that adding a visual display to the router itself, and creating a unique design around the router form factor, 通过让用户实时了解他们家庭wifi的运行情况以及连接了哪些设备，会改善客户体验吗. This level of transparency and information was radical at the time.

它还有另一个目的. “We wanted people to actually see the router and make it a part of their homes, 因为如果你能看到路由器而不是把它放在壁橱里或者藏在橱柜里, 这样天线就会在房间里有一个更显眼的地方，信号传播也会更有效, and therefore delivering better service,利波夫斯基说.

And better service is what Starry Internet is all about. 从一开始, 不断改善客户体验的承诺-从注册和安装到家庭性能和客户关怀-一直是星空技术创新背后的驱动力, and continues to act as the company’s north star across all departments.

“关于斯Starry的一点是, 无论你在公司的哪个部门工作，你基本上每天都要知道你在这里的原因只有一个:为客户服务,利波夫斯基说.