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SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

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Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, why should the majority of us in denser areas in the US subsidize people who want to live in exurbs/rural areas? If you want to live in a place like that, be prepared to pay the cost for the infrastructure. We already pay enough subsidies for roads, water, power, etc in rural/exurban areas.

I'm healthy but I pay for those who are not. I grew up fine but I pay for those with special needs. I have a job during Covid but I pay for those who don't. I guess in Europe we call this 'society'.

If, in Europe, if people decided to pave over every natural area within 100 miles of where you lived because they want to live far away while, you paid to make it cheaper for them to do this, would you still be ok with that?

If this caused all of the water (streams, lakes etc) in the area to be polluted and unsafe to swim in and drink without heavy treatment, would you still be ok with this? I can't think of a single body of water where I live that doesn't have excessive algae growth from fertilizer runoff from the massive number of suburban/exurban lawns. I was exploring in my favorite nature preserve that has a nice size stream (well, one of the few over 10ft that hasn't been culvertized) and one of the park rangers told me to be mindful that there was a septic system a mile upstream leaking E. coli in to the stream. In a city that has a "township" designation literally so they can get tax breaks and grants for roads meant for farmers. There isn't a single farm in this city, nor in any of the other "townships" in the area.

I can go on and on, do you still think subsidizing this life for people is reasonable? It certainly isn't done to this level over in Europe. Why not?

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, why should the majority of us in denser areas in the US subsidize people who want to live in exurbs/rural areas? If you want to live in a place like that, be prepared to pay the cost for the infrastructure. We already pay enough subsidies for roads, water, power, etc in rural/exurban areas.

I'm healthy but I pay for those who are not. I grew up fine but I pay for those with special needs. I have a job during Covid but I pay for those who don't. I guess in Europe we call this 'society'.

How many of those things are choices? Can you not think of other alternatives to this "problem"?

This seems wholly different to the point of making the analogy laughable.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#253

So I guess companies will now fill the entire global sky with thousands of sats just to make up for the fact that the US government ignores rural houses when it comes to digital infrastructure? I'm sorry but how is 42Mbps worth spamming the entire nightsky with to the point that it prevent astronomers from obtaining useful data? Not even 10Mbps upload? My inlaws live in a village in France that has 70 people total. I…

I'm in Italy, 15km from the province capital, 7km from a major turistic village, in a village of 3000 souls. I'm waiting for 2Mbps ADSL since 2007.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#254

So I guess companies will now fill the entire global sky with thousands of sats just to make up for the fact that the US government ignores rural houses when it comes to digital infrastructure? I'm sorry but how is 42Mbps worth spamming the entire nightsky with to the point that it prevent astronomers from obtaining useful data? Not even 10Mbps upload? My inlaws live in a village in France that has 70 people total. I…

Maybe it’s not at full capacity? I mean they are just testing it after all. Lots of fine tuning to do.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smart phones use 4G networks. And now there is another alternative. Cellular networks have limited coverage. Imagine tracking a truck traveling across the US, or a ferry, across the English channel. Currently, that's not possible with 4G. But with a satellite driven internet system, it very well could be. As for urban and sub-urban applications, not much.

I don't think it is possible or planned to use StarLink directly from a mobile phone. You will need a ground station to communicate that isn't going to fit in a pocket.

True, for now. There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick.

Maybe we will not see such miniaturization, but I can safely assume that a small backpack size device should be light and last long enough for meaningful high speed internet with StarLink.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#256

So I guess companies will now fill the entire global sky with thousands of sats just to make up for the fact that the US government ignores rural houses when it comes to digital infrastructure? I'm sorry but how is 42Mbps worth spamming the entire nightsky with to the point that it prevent astronomers from obtaining useful data? Not even 10Mbps upload? My inlaws live in a village in France that has 70 people total. I…

You are ignoring millions of people in rural Asia and Africa who don't have internet connection, or a spotty 3g/4g connection for internet. Satellite internet is legitimate use case for these people. Starlink might be too costly for most of them, but some other satellite internet company might cater to them.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logistics - Tracking cargo, without interruption, in real-time, across the world. Shipping - Same as logistics, but across oceans. Real-Time weather data, from solar powered sensors, spread across the world. Real-Time video for tracking endangered wild-life. I think different people can come up with more ideas. The difference between satellite and cellular networks is coverage. Imagine if a nature loving adventurer f…

Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom. SpaceX hasn't designed for mobile/vehicle mounted ground stations either. Shipping: already done via AIS Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features. SpaceX is not building this. Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat. I swear people have taken the…

>Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom

Imagine being able to see live video, or AI enhanced video (movement detection, etc). A lot more bandwidth will open up many areas for innovation.

Imagine being able to get real-time data of patients being transported in planes or ground vehicles.

>Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features.

But there is not much data about wind patterns, directions, barometric pressure, etc. Satellites can observe on a macro level. If you can combine that with micro level ground data, perhaps predictions for weather would be more accurate.

>Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat.

Perhaps, but periodic photos, would be possible, and that would be enough for many innovations.

>I swear people have taken the usual Elon hype

Even I have the after taste of Hyperloop. However, this is different because there are billions being spent to send actual satellites to space. That is not hype. I would not cast aside Elon's vision so easily, especially if he has committed and spent so much on the idea and is actually building out the infrastructure.

>This is not a star trek communicator.

But Imagine if you could have one.

>Is your hiker really gonna be hauling around a giant freakin' dish?

Would it be too far fetched to think that those can be shrunk down, perhaps to the size of a suitcase or a backpack?

>It's going to be a premium priced broadband service for rural customers and institutions that can afford it. If you know anything about the market you know DoD is gonna be the customer they focus on.

Sure, that would be one revenue source. But many innovations in the world are made possible due to what is available. Would an app store be possible without the iPhone? But, when the iPhone was made, the app store, as a concept was at best, a theoretical idea in Jobs' mind.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#258
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the military setting up an internet base station and releasing remote controlled drones for surveillance or military operations. Having satellite based high speed internet would be a game changer for remote locations. Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Currently, not possible, but with high speed satellite based internet, it could be. Imagine an electric…

> Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Highly unlikely for many reasons: latency too high, cost of equipment way too high, only very few hospitals are even equipped for remote surgery even in the West, let alone underdeveloped countries... > Imagine an electrical engineer being able to help his colleagues in Africa That's already possible even without satellite-ba…

>That's already possible even without satellite-based internet and doesn't require it at all.

Maybe in developed countries. In India, most Power Plant construction sites don't even have dial-up internet. There are a lot of projects going on in a lot of remote places, where there is simply no infrastructure available for internet. StarLink could be rented for a while and perhaps used after that.

There is tremendous potential for such a service.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#259
post #133

This is easy to have a lot of bandwidth when you only have 10s of users, but when the bandwidth will be shared between 10000 users will it plummet? I remember when 4G was new and only few user where using it, it was very fast, but when more users arrived on the spectrum, the bandwidth per user decreased and the latency incised.

Starlink might even be affected by rain and weather conditions like some old wimax internet. I haven't seen any information about this regarding starlink.

Re: SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up

#260
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be very interesting for me. I plan to live on a sailing yacht and travel the world permanently, StarLink will make my working options a lot more flexible. Presently people are forced to see out their contracts over potentially dodgy marina WiFi. The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think, for example if you're in international waters, connected to the internet by a global ISP whose inf…

>The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think I think it'll be OK. Cellphone roaming works just fine for example

True, but cellular infrastructure is definitively in someone's territory. If I stick a phone mast up I'm still subject to things like planning permission even if the signal crosses a border. As far as I'm aware, space is pretty similar to international waters in that nobody is sovereign there.

It could lead to a bit of a "wild west" situation with governments giving themselves extraterritorial powers. In the late 1980s the British government gave itself very draconian powers to conduct armed raids on radio ships in international waters for example, they take a really dim view of information outside of state control even if they're not the state controlling it.

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