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Starlink Is a Big Deal

sneak.berlin

91–100 of 365 posts

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#91
post #87
post #86

> For reference, my last flat in Berlin (the capital of the largest economy in the EU), on the ground on a main street in the city center, was serviced with approximately 14MBps ADSL, and this was the fastest offering available from any vendor. 14Mbps in Berlin? How is this possible? I had 20Mbps in Mexico City almost a decade ago. A family member who lived in the same building at the time had 100Mbps symmetrical.

Mostly policy. Spain deployed a lot of fiber in the las 10 years that we've got little towns with multiple symmetric 600mbps offerings. If it can be done in Spain, it can be done in Germany.

My father lives in Mallorca and he has fiber with 400Mbps I believe.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With enough people in once place, Starlink will suffer from congestion just like a cellular network. I don't think it's fundamentally different in that regard. But great for boats indeed!

> Starlink will suffer from congestion just like a cellular network. It's even worse than a cellular network. With a cell network, one can just build more towers in a particular city. With LEO satellites, the only way to get more coverage over a particular city is to get more coverage over the entire world.

Maybe you could roam on another LEO provider. There are over a dozen companies from a number of countries planning their own Starlinks.

Half a million satellites ought to be enough for anybody.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#93
post #51
post #34

"HFT firms will be the first customers, seeking a few-millisecond reduction in the transmission of realtime data between markets. Starlink has already said as much, and I think they rely on this as their first and primary source of revenue." I am not sure this is a good prediction ... the shaving of milliseconds that has been pursued by HFT firms (and other such actors) has progressed to the point where they are meas…

Consult the original source: http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/starlink-draft.pdf

These first satellites don't have the free-space lasers I modelled in that paper, but my simulations show they can still beat fibre on many paths without inter-satellite links, by relaying via groundstations:

https://youtu.be/m05abdGSOxY

Later satellites will have inter-satellite links, but probably not till near the end of this year, and most of the first phase will already be deployed by then.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#94

> "Hundreds of cities and dozens of countries, fine for living but previously entirely unsuitable for a place of business, will blink from red to green on the map once Starlink goes live." this reads like a marketing piece rather than actual analysis. Throughput of a single satellite is 20Gbps. The finished constellation if I recall correctly is supposed to be about 12k satellites. So about ~250.000Gbps. So assuming…

That is correct, as someone looking for a remote job opportunity, 95+% of the "remote" job posts are still restringed to residents of specific countries/zones. Having good connectivity or being in the same time-zone matter very little.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#95
post #33

> "Hundreds of cities and dozens of countries, fine for living but previously entirely unsuitable for a place of business, will blink from red to green on the map once Starlink goes live." this reads like a marketing piece rather than actual analysis. Throughput of a single satellite is 20Gbps. The finished constellation if I recall correctly is supposed to be about 12k satellites. So about ~250.000Gbps. So assuming…

They have approval for up to 42,000 satellites, most internet connections are shared at homes and businesses, and broadband is over subscribed anyway. One way to look at it is up to 42 million 4k streams at the same time. But, a significant fraction of the constellation will be over the ocean or other minimally inhabited regions so something like 25% of total bandwidth is likely utilized at any one time. However, tha…

I wonder if they will charge less for bandwidth over minimally inhabited regions?

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#96
I am in the process of building out a boxtruck with solar panels and a big batter and I am eagerly waiting for starlink to roll out public Access so I can get an antenna and park my new home office in very rural areas and work comfortablely.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#97

I don’t understand how you can make functional satellites so small? That they can launch 60 at once. Usually a launch just has one satellite.

> can make functional satellites

By reducing their "function" until they're basically a battery with a radio repeater strapped onto it. Obviously it's a bit more complicated, but there's very little these satellites actually have to _do_.

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#98

> "Hundreds of cities and dozens of countries, fine for living but previously entirely unsuitable for a place of business, will blink from red to green on the map once Starlink goes live." this reads like a marketing piece rather than actual analysis. Throughput of a single satellite is 20Gbps. The finished constellation if I recall correctly is supposed to be about 12k satellites. So about ~250.000Gbps. So assuming…

Something is off with your analysis. At any given time, the vast majority of the people in a given city aren't all using 100 Mbps 24/7/365.

For instance, my typical monthly mobile data consumption is around 4 GB, which is .0015 MB/s -- a far cry from 100!

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#99

> "Hundreds of cities and dozens of countries, fine for living but previously entirely unsuitable for a place of business, will blink from red to green on the map once Starlink goes live." this reads like a marketing piece rather than actual analysis. Throughput of a single satellite is 20Gbps. The finished constellation if I recall correctly is supposed to be about 12k satellites. So about ~250.000Gbps. So assuming…

Something is off with your analysis. At any given time, the vast majority of the people in a given city aren't all using 100 Mbps 24/7/365. For instance, my typical monthly mobile data consumption is around 4 GB, which is .0015 MB/s -- a far cry from 100!

Can you share what has led you to believe that you're the average rather than just an outlier?

Re: Starlink Is a Big Deal

#100

I'm not convinced that Starlink will provide access to the "half of the human beings (who) are not online yet." Of course that would be good, yet my guess is that Starlink will target people in developed nations who are in rural areas, or people who want low latency. Maybe Starlink could serve people w/o internet if a whole village buys a subscription, or if a cell provider uses Starlink as backhaul for voice? Still…

Their costs are mostly fixed and bandwidth is limited by the number of satellites overhead so will be as high in Mali as New York. If they want to maximize their profits they'll price their bandwidth so that they're able to supply most of the resulting demand in both places.
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