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Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

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Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#31

Post by londons_explore »

refulgentis wrote: post #2

"For now, Starlink internet cuts off for seconds at a time every couple of minutes" - wait, what?

A coverage gap would probably lead to multi-minute gaps in service.

Instead I'd guess this is a delay during reorientation of the physical antenna or repointing of the phased array.

The phased array can theoretically be repointed in milliseconds, but in a rush to launch I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't take a few seconds to lock on to the signal, do channel characterization, and adjust data routing stuff to use the new link. During that time, a bunch of packets are lost, and you then have to wait for the TCP timers to expire before retransmission.

End user ends up seeing a 5 second glitch.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#32

Post by ben_w »

fabian2k wrote: post #24
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation isn't entirely terrible in Germany, but extremely variable depending on your location. I have 1Gbit for 40 EUR per month, but there are certainly places that aren't even remote that get no reasonable broadband.

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage.

Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#33

Post by sparso »

0xy wrote: post #28
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

It's hard to not see fibre internet as a waste of money right now given 4G/5G costs coming down dramatically. For me personally, 4G is extremely fast and cheap while being, importantly, low-latency. Even gaming and other latency sensitive applications are possible on 4G/5G. Why not just roll out 5G networks? Eventually, 5G will outperform fibre on a cost and speed basis (for a long time my FTTH home internet was slow…

I've had 5G home boradband for roughly the last 6 months. Generally getting speeds of 300+ Mbps which is better than the 20 Mbps I can get at my property via copper cables (can't get fibre installed despite being in a large city).

However, whilst the speed is great, the reliability is not. Its currently been disconnected for the last 48 hours with no timeframe given for repairs to the mast. So I'm having to tether of 4G on my phone (on another network).

tl;dr

5G speeds ++ 5G uptime --

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#34

Post by sneak »

Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

There is active work and lots of money spent by large ISPs and telecoms to prevent deployment of additional networks, and to make it as difficult and expensive as possible for new entrants to start up.

It really should be a national shame, how much the US has permitted AT&T and Verizon and Comcast and Time Warner et al to derail the correct functioning of a market so insanely critical to the growth of prosperity (both personal as well as the wider economy).

This is what happens when you let the state decide who is allowed to offer certain types of services: pretty soon the large, well-funded incumbents take over the state-run process about deciding who is allowed in the market, and enact policies and regulations that make it cost millions to serve even a single customer. This is peanuts for large existing companies with billions of dollars of recurring revenue, but impossible for new entrants.

The guy who runs the FCC and decides this kind of stuff, for example, used to work for Verizon, one of the largest telcos in the country.

In most of the US, it is basically illegal to start a new ISP.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#35

Post by PeterisP »

0xy wrote: post #28
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

It's hard to not see fibre internet as a waste of money right now given 4G/5G costs coming down dramatically. For me personally, 4G is extremely fast and cheap while being, importantly, low-latency. Even gaming and other latency sensitive applications are possible on 4G/5G. Why not just roll out 5G networks? Eventually, 5G will outperform fibre on a cost and speed basis (for a long time my FTTH home internet was slow…

For cellular networks the general tradeoff is speed vs range - the higher speed protocols have much shorter range, so you need a more dense network of cell towers. Noone is going to splatter the whole countryside with 4G LTE high-speed coverage, this is going to cover the urban areas only. It's simply not practical to do it for low density areas, you'd have to put up a whole cell tower to cover just a couple people and they aren't going to pay for that; you'd use frequencies and protocols that get longer range but don't get as much speed.

It's worth noting that 5G explicitly combines very different techniques with very different properties (e.g. high-bandwidth short range systems and low power slow networks for things like smart meters), and the 5G systems that are competitive with fibre are essentially designed for dense metropolitan areas, USA won't cover all the suburbs with high-speed 5G.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#36

Post by fabian2k »

ben_w wrote: post #32
fabian2k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation isn't entirely terrible in Germany, but extremely variable depending on your location. I have 1Gbit for 40 EUR per month, but there are certainly places that aren't even remote that get no reasonable broadband.

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.

The US has around 15% of the population density of Germany. It's much easier to provide broadband to larger cities than to rural areas.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#37

Post by fredzel »

fabian2k wrote: post #36
ben_w wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.

The US has around 15% of the population density of Germany. It's much easier to provide broadband to larger cities than to rural areas.

I guess it might be also pretty hard if it's city centre full of old buildings.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#38

Post by Koliakis »

fabian2k wrote: post #24
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation isn't entirely terrible in Germany, but extremely variable depending on your location. I have 1Gbit for 40 EUR per month, but there are certainly places that aren't even remote that get no reasonable broadband.

It's even worse if you're a company in Germany. The pricing for business lines (and the speeds you get) are atrocious.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#39

Post by TulliusCicero »

fabian2k wrote: post #36
ben_w wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. Why does that excuse America? The continent of Europe is also huge. It isn’t like this stuff is installed by one solitary overworked technician going house-to-house, big countries (and regions) can employ more people to do more work, and can raise more money from more customers.

The US has around 15% of the population density of Germany. It's much easier to provide broadband to larger cities than to rural areas.

Norway has overall low population density, and seems to do fine.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#40

Post by Merem »

Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

"[...]a lot of parts in highly developed countries like [...] Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection."

Huh? Where do you get that from? "A lot of parts", even? I've lived in one of the most rural areas with basically only villages and small towns (<10000 pop) around. When I lived in my village of 600, we got broadband access in 2005.

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