SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

Post by pier25 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

flexvision wrote: post #85

pier25 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived for a year in some mountains in Mexico in an off-the-grid cabin. We became accustomed to everything (energy starvation, driving 30 mins to the nearest village, 2 hours to the nearest city, etc) except the lack of connectivity. I bought one of those huge Wifi antenna to connect to an open Wifi of a rural school a couple of kilometers away. It was empty after 2pm so we had 4Mbps just for ourselves all afternoo…

> huge Wifi antenna to connect to an open Wifi of a rural school a couple of kilometers away That's impressive, but how did this work from the school's side? Wouldn't they need a huge wifi antenna too?

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:33 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #77

Reedx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if it really does deliver ~25ms latency and up to 1GBPS, work from anywhere becomes much more literal. Currently a lot of remote work and things like multiplayer games are limited to areas with reliable broadband. But if you can get that anywhere... it'll be amazing and have a profound effect.

It will work from anywhere after about 90 more launches and thousands of ground relays being installed, and the antenna is the size of a watermelon. So "anywhere" would be limited to vanlife on up, in a place that doesn't have trees, in the markets initially served, which will likely be rural US. But starlink v2? I'll be on a cute Panamanian island :)

Post by nix23 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

sontek wrote: post #25

As someone who lives in the mountains of Puerto Rico and has to rely on "unlimited" cell phone coverage that data caps me and satellite internet that also has data caps.... I can't wait until starlink is up and running and we may have an option for high speed, low latency, internet for us who hate cities and love nature :)

Post by walrus01 » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

xenospn wrote: post #67

jblake wrote: post #23

I'm so excited for Starlink! As a solo founder I do all of my support, but I like to frequently go off-roading and camping outside of cell service. I have a satellite messenger for critical things, but it still leaves me feeling quite anxious to go on extended trips. If I can toss a starlink dish in a briefcase and get fast affordable internet in the Sierra's, life will be good.

I wanted to move to rural OR/WA a couple of years ago, but couldn't find a single property with high-speed internet. This is (hopefully) a game-changer.

Post by Rebelgecko » Thu, Jun 04, 2020, 6:57 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #70

Rebelgecko wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any urban area, they'd be super oversubscribed. I haven't been following Starlink super closely lately, but IIRC each satellite is really only capable of supporting 20 users at the full advertised speed. Even though there's a handful of satellites visible from a given location at a given time, it's not enough to support urban (or perhaps even suburban) areas.

Googling this suggests we are seeing 100gbps per satellite... at 100mbps that's enough for 1000 saturated connections per satellite and a decent multiple of that number of users by oversubscribing/multiplexing. It's still not enough bandwidth to compete with city-ISPs in cities. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/duw4o4/starlink_1...