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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

#301
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they'll simply deny licensing of spectrum over their land area, and SpaceX will comply. This will never be some tool to counteract totalitarian governments.

I am interested in that. Are there any international treaties that force SpaceX to comply? If SpaceX has no business in totalitarian country X, do they have any way to sue SpaceX for offering service? I imagine a black market will establish to get access to starlink even if SpaceX doesn't officially sell access. Can you expand on this topic?

https://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/ConstitutionAndConventi...

If SpaceX violates ITU policy they risk their licenses globally.

A black market for this service is not possible. The equipment necessary to confirm SpaceX is transmitting into an area, or to radiolocate the ground stations themselves costs a few grand. Even low income nations can afford to monitor and enforce spectrum requirements if they desire to.

But more fundamentally, this is not a goal of SpaceX or Elon. The projection of "hero" onto him and this project is out of control. Elon is doing this to make money, plain and simple.

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

#302
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 po…

But most of this is already being done with existing satellite services. Starlink is cool and better than existing providers in many respects, but it's not a total game changer.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

> 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.

For what benefit?

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

This is a very niche use case.

> 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.

I'm sorry but this is incredibly ignorant. There's a huge volume of data that's fed into several global weather modeling supercomputers continuously. That's literally where the weather forecasts on your tv come from.

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

You still aren't getting it. There are fundamental physical limits to image resolution based on the size of the optics. You'd have trouble resolving individual creatures even with a telescope the scale of Hubble/KeyHole. Starlink changes nothing about this.

> However, this is different because there are billions being spent to send actual satellites to space.

The hype is people speculating on applications like the above that are entirely implausible and unrealistic. It's on the same scale as thinking the next Tesla is going to be a flying delorian with fusion power.

> But Imagine if you could have one.

But you just aren't fantasizing, you're claiming these fantasies will become real in the short term without understanding the limitations that preclude them.

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

Yes, it is too far fetched. You cannot shrink a wavelength. In addition, starlink's design requires the transmission/received lobes have a certain maximum beam width. The global capacity of the system depends on this parameter. That means they need phased arrays of a certain minimum size in terms of array area and number of array elements to meet their specs.

> But, when the iPhone was made, the app store, as a concept was at best, a theoretical idea in Jobs' mind.

There were examples of app stores before iPhone. That wasn't a unique new concept.

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

#304
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 198…

Space X will need a license in each country/regulation to provide their service there. They will probably employ some geofencing or similar to comply.

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

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on EE 4G in central London (Westminster) for several years now while at work. A speed test back when it was new would get me 85/85 Mb, these days, with a much more capable device, I am lucky if I get 15/30 Mb (download is being taxed more). It's not horrific, but it's a far cry from what I was advertised when I started. I guess I'll just upgrade to their 5G plan and start the cycle again sigh

I’m on three. I’ve noticed the speed drop in town over the years. What’s really surprised me has been the lack of an increase since lockdown, even though the City is empty. Which makes me suspect there’s something else going on rather than just undercapacity. Chronic underinvestment across networks?

Very interesting point. I've not been into the office since lockdown but I suspect if it was also the case with EE, they've probably shifted a lot of their backbone's bandwidth from the 4G network to 5G for that sweet marketing and word of mouth.

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

#306
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. EE 4G in CENTRAL LONDON with a SIM-card Home Router and the speeds are horrific — mostly 5Mb, and maybe 15Mb for an hour or two each day. Used to be consistently 50Mb+ back in the days.

Is 15Mbit really such a horrible speed? For a mobile device I think that’s still great.

They're talking about a home router with a sim card. I'd say 15Mb is pretty poor for home use.

It may be better than some wired home broadband in parts of London though (I used to get 3Mb/0.2Mb in zone 3).

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

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on EE 4G in central London (Westminster) for several years now while at work. A speed test back when it was new would get me 85/85 Mb, these days, with a much more capable device, I am lucky if I get 15/30 Mb (download is being taxed more). It's not horrific, but it's a far cry from what I was advertised when I started. I guess I'll just upgrade to their 5G plan and start the cycle again sigh

I think they throttled all users to get them to pay for their "double speed" plan upgrade.

I've asked them this outright, several times and they've always denied it. They deny any throttling.

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

#308
post #224
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are all villages in France like that? I doubt it. Even in Norway there are thousands of people without access to sufficiently fast broadband, and some 80k DSL customers who apparently will never get fiber at all. The proposed solution for the latter is to use 4G/5G, which comes with its own issues of course. I'd say even in well developed countries, Starlink is a nice option to have. As I understand it, the 42Mbp…

Yes I think all French villages have at least super fast ADSL. The US is much larger than France of course, but whatever the reason, it's incredible and really upsetting that they can pollute the earth like this, and for the rest of eternity, just to solve a temporary domestic problem.

The satellites deorbit automatically. You are misinformed.

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

#309
post #224
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are all villages in France like that? I doubt it. Even in Norway there are thousands of people without access to sufficiently fast broadband, and some 80k DSL customers who apparently will never get fiber at all. The proposed solution for the latter is to use 4G/5G, which comes with its own issues of course. I'd say even in well developed countries, Starlink is a nice option to have. As I understand it, the 42Mbp…

Yes I think all French villages have at least super fast ADSL. The US is much larger than France of course, but whatever the reason, it's incredible and really upsetting that they can pollute the earth like this, and for the rest of eternity, just to solve a temporary domestic problem.

> The US is much larger than France of course, but whatever the reason, it's incredible and really upsetting that they can pollute the earth like this, and for the rest of eternity, just to solve a temporary domestic problem.

Temporary domestic problem? It's a problem worldwide, the fact that France can get fast ADSL almost everywhere doesn't means it's true worldwide.

Wireless has the advantage of not needing a huge infrastructure locally, which is a huge help where you don't have any. I remember a presentation from Charles Sirois, one of the guy that brought cellular networks to Quebec. He told us how he helped build some cellular networks in some place where they didn't even have phones. Sure I have no doubt it wasn't easy to build theses towers, but it was certainly much easier than bringing cable to every single building. Every business had cellphones afterward, it was a huge boom, it helped develop so many industry.

Now imagine the same but with freaking internet. This is going to be a huge boom for so many third world countries.

But no you are right, France can pay to lay fiber everywhere, theses third world country should just do the same, they are just not trying enough.

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

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest generation of Starlink satellites is invisible to the naked eye once fully raised to full height in a couple of months. The impact on astronomers is real, but very small. OTOH, the benefit is the ability to participate in the modern economy. Cost/benefit to the world seems pretty clear to me.

Seems to weigh on the side of not interfering with astronomy, given that we have plenty of alternative options for accessing the internet.

Your comment kind of make me sad... this is such a big issue of perspective. It's something that I often see coming from the US, but any first world country often has that issue, we forget that there's more than us in the world.

> In 2019, Internet access became available to 51 percent of the world's population. When households are taken into account, the index increases, reaching 57.8 percent.

42% of the world don't have internet. We aren't talking about not having competitive internet, literally, no internet at all.

At the bare minimum, you forgot about 42% of the world... that kind of sad.

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