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Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

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Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#41

Post by Tuna-Fish »

mrtksn wrote: post #26

How is the censorship going to work with Starlink? Twitter is heavily censored in many countries like Turkey. Other countries censor other things, be it on political, commercial or "criminal" grounds. Can someone explain a bit on these issues? Is the global internet going to be governed on US laws if Starlink becomes a thing?

No. Starlink will follow all local laws, including licensing the bandwidth they are using. They are not going to run a pirate internet network.

Due to complications in US laws, this actually means that Starlink cannot directly offer service in much of the world, instead having to let a local company resell access. (Because SpaceX as a US company cannot do certain kinds of filtering without running afoul of US laws.)

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#42

Post by bearcobra »

jayd16 wrote: post #16
donkeyd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess high frequency traders might be interested too then.

Aren't they all just across the street form wall street with exactly the same network ping as everyone else?

Real Engineering has an interesting video on why it would be useful for firms trading internationally

https://youtu.be/giQ8xEWjnBs

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#43

Post by Tuna-Fish »

mlrotter wrote: post #13
nickik wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just launched the first couple satillites. Its all internal testing on non-finished hardware as of right now. Far away from an beta.

I think they have 57/60 working. I assume this is a testing phase. 12k planned

30k based on latest filings. The number goes up rather often...

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#44

Post by ctdonath »

DGAP wrote: post #14
jniedrauer wrote: post #5

I'm really excited about this technology for selfish reasons. I love disconnecting and spending time in remote wildernesses. But paradoxically, being disconnected from technology gives me a lot of anxiety about technology. Working on devops roles over the last decade, I've almost never had a time when I can just forget about it all. Even when I'm not on call, and no matter how well I try to document things, I'm often…

Why not just use any of the number of existing satellite telecoms providers?

I currently pay $25/mo for wired internet, 25Mbps & 1TB/mo cap, no discernible latency.

Closest available is $80/mo satellite internet, 12Mbps & 40GB/mo cap (overage => deprioritized), latency measured in seconds.

While little to go on, assuming Starlink will be aggressively competitive on all factors.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#45

Post by regnerba »

mrtksn wrote: post #26

How is the censorship going to work with Starlink? Twitter is heavily censored in many countries like Turkey. Other countries censor other things, be it on political, commercial or "criminal" grounds. Can someone explain a bit on these issues? Is the global internet going to be governed on US laws if Starlink becomes a thing?

Elon has a lot of money in Tesla. Tesla currently makes, and is moving to make a lot more, money in China. If they want to continue that in China then when China asks them to turn off their Earth facing equipment on the satalites over China they are going to. Unless Elon wants to get into censorship himself, which I don't think he does. They can leave their laser links running between the satalites.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#46

Post by Yetanfou »

jniedrauer wrote: post #5

I'm really excited about this technology for selfish reasons. I love disconnecting and spending time in remote wildernesses. But paradoxically, being disconnected from technology gives me a lot of anxiety about technology. Working on devops roles over the last decade, I've almost never had a time when I can just forget about it all. Even when I'm not on call, and no matter how well I try to document things, I'm often…

May I suggest to put a curb on your availability every now and then? I fully understand the urge to help out in times of need but I also know this creates a situation where you're always on call - whether scheduled or not. It also gives those who get to depend on your availability a false sense of security in assuming you will be there to help out, negating any impetus to find alternative sources. In the end you will be assumed to be available (and might get shit for not being there to help) and the distinction between 'work time' and 'leisure time' will fade.

To me one of the lures of the wilderness is the fact that I can go 'off-line' there. I paddled the Yukon from Whitehorse to the Bering Strait without being connected to the outside world, my only means of communication being the letters I sent to friends and family. The experience would have totally changed - and been markedly less - had I been in constant communication with the outside world, having a communication device go 'bleep' while running some rapids, sending that photo of that elk swimming in front of the canoe to whatever social network I might use for my share of likes and instant gratification.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#47

Post by windsurfer »

jb775 wrote: post #19
tpmx wrote: post #9

I saw something interesting the other day that I had previously missed: Starlink has the potential to provide lower latency around the globe than terrestrial fiber because light travels faster in vacuum than in optical silica fiber. "Delay is Not an Option: Low Latency Routing in Space" https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10062262/ http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/starlink-draft.pdf "We conclude that a network built in…

I wonder how the Starlink latency compares to the current microwave technologies used by high frequency trading firms. Any slight latency improvement is a game-changer in the HFT industry.

Distance is still a huge problem. The Starlink signal still needs to travel up to the satellites 500 KM up, and then another 500 KM back down. That should be around 2 ms (thanks user jobseeker990, corrected from previous 15ms) of added latency, so anything that is already below 4 ms of latency probably wouldn't be improved.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#48

Post by kbenson »

jb775 wrote: post #19
tpmx wrote: post #9

I saw something interesting the other day that I had previously missed: Starlink has the potential to provide lower latency around the globe than terrestrial fiber because light travels faster in vacuum than in optical silica fiber. "Delay is Not an Option: Low Latency Routing in Space" https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10062262/ http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/starlink-draft.pdf "We conclude that a network built in…

I wonder how the Starlink latency compares to the current microwave technologies used by high frequency trading firms. Any slight latency improvement is a game-changer in the HFT industry.

Lower latency across the globe is likely irrelevant to people that colocate in the same data centers as the exchanges to reduce latency.

Then again, maybe it's useful for arbitrage between different exchanges, where they would likely have equipment next to each exchange, and have a wide distance between them.

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#49

Post by loose11 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #33
tpmx wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio and light have (for the purposes of this comparison) the same speed in vacuum.

They don't have FCC licensing for the satellites to communicate with each other using radio, the radio links are sat ground only.

FCC licensing in space...

Re: Elon Musk tweets using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet

#50

Post by tpmx »

jayd16 wrote: post #15
tpmx wrote: post #9

I saw something interesting the other day that I had previously missed: Starlink has the potential to provide lower latency around the globe than terrestrial fiber because light travels faster in vacuum than in optical silica fiber. "Delay is Not an Option: Low Latency Routing in Space" https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10062262/ http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/starlink-draft.pdf "We conclude that a network built in…

Pretty neat. I guess they could vendor out to Google. GCP Spanner relies on reliable low ping fiber between zones so this might be a clear throughput win for them.

A high bandwidth dynamically directed laser-based mesh network of 12k-42k tiny satellites 340 km above the earth is a pretty ballsy concept to begin with.

I'm curious about who came up with this idea. It's kind of brilliant.

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