You're singing along with the cast of "Hamilton" on Disney Plus, or you're watching the latest Bond movie on HBO Max, or you're deep into the finale of "Yellowstone" on Paramount Plus. And just when it gets to the good part, whether that means King George or the meeting of SPECTRE or Beth saying "You are the trailer park. I am the tornado," the picture freezes and a little twirly thing pops up on the screen. You sit patiently for a few seconds, and if you're lucky, it picks right back up where it left off. If you're not, you have to bail out and restart the app and hope it reconnects. In either case you are not a happy camper.
For a brief moment you forget (if you ever stopped to consider it in the first place) what is actually happening. You selected your choice from a laundry list of possibilities. Based on that, a file is retrieved at some data center in Ashburn, VA or Secaucus, NJ or Kansas City, MO, and pushed down a wire. It bounces off a switch in Duluth then Dallas then Detroit or some other combination before it makes its way down your street and into your house. Then it is has to fight with your son's Xbox and your daughter's Tic Tok videos to find its way to the screen in your family room. And at the same time you are watching, 100 million people are doing the same thing, just with different movies in different homes. So yeah, every now and again one of the countless pieces of tech in that very long chain might have a little electronic hiccup.
Or you just might have a cat trying to stay warm.
It's a story that begins, as do so many strange things these days, with Elon Musk. Most know the visionary entrepreneur for almost singlehandedly revolutionizing the automobile market with electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. But he has other ventures in infrastructure (The Boring Company), energy (SolarCity) and aerospace (SpaceX). It is within this last field that our kitties come into play. For while SpaceX is known for its billionaires-in-space program, one of its other business angles is internet distribution via home based satellite dishes, through a subsidiary called Starlink.
The company has placed nearly 2000 satellites in low earth orbit, and has shipped over 100,000 systems to consumers in select markets. Their package consists of a small dish to receive the signal, and a router/terminal to get it to your TV and devices. While not as fast as fiber nor as cheap ($499 for the gear, then $99 a month for the service), if you live in a rural area with no or spotty service, it's likely worth it to be connected to the world. It's designed to be user friendly: all you need do is mount the dish, plug it all in, and you can be watching "Squid Game" in no time.
One big issue is that while the system works well, it is susceptible to weather. As it has to have a clear shot at the sky, obstructions like trees, snow and heavy rain can affect the signal and hence your viewing or online experience. To that end the dish has a built-in heater to melt any flakes that fall directly on it. And here's where the cats come into play.
Seems that felines have discovered that these high-tech antennas make lovely day beds. Smooth, about two feet wide, aimed upwards and heated, owners have posted pictures of cats curled up enjoying a rest. Doesn't hurt the cats, but that furry blockage can slow the signal down, resulting in that twirly icon popping up. Chase them off the dish, and you can get right back to see Beth snarl "Martinis have vermouth and are enjoyed with friends. I don't like vermouth, and these aren't my friends."
Steve Chen, one of YouTube's founders, is credited with uploading the first cat video many years ago. From that humble beginning the genre has grown to where there have been an estimated 25 billion views of similar fare. But in this case the tabbies are playing a different roll. And so if you have Starlink and your signal starts to fade, it's possible it's not too many cats online, but too many cats, well, on the line.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford is not a cat person. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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