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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

#41
post #34
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 (bot…

Don't feel too bad, in Australia one Government party actively sabotaged the national optic fiber infrastructure project of the other Government party.

Australia's current government has literally held the country back a decade in network infrastructure progress, one of the key foundations of any country's economic future.

It IS a national shame.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#42
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.

Here in Berlin, there's not even fiber for consumers yet (there probably is for commercial). Meanwhile, in my native Zurich there's fiber everywhere and you get 10x the speed for the same price.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

148,729 mi² vs 3.797 million mi²

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#44
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.

That’s disingenuous. You don’t need broadband in the middle of the desert where there is no population. You need it in cities and towns where the density is much more similar to Europe etc.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#45

I'm amazed that the latency appears so low. I used satellite broadband for years here in very rural England, latency was more like 1000ms!

If you take the US to Europe round-trip, the latency is even faster then the cable bound connection, because the light in vacuum (space) travels around 1/3 faster then in fiber.

Only once they have inter satellite communication working.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

148,729 mi² vs 3.797 million mi²

15 people per square kilometer (Norway) vs 34 people per square kilometer (continental us).

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They have a ridiculous amount of oil for their size.

That being said, they've also done a pretty good job in managing that money (which is rare for natural resource rich countries).

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#48
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.

That could be an excuse if you ignore the fact that the terrible service is not limited to rural regions in the US. It's often really expensive and slow even in places that are packed with people.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s disingenuous. You don’t need broadband in the middle of the desert where there is no population. You need it in cities and towns where the density is much more similar to Europe etc.

That's true, but the USA is famous for huge, sprawling suburban rings around its cities (vs Europe where the impression is far more 'inner city apartments').

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#50

download speed is great, but what’s the latency like?

30-40ms round trip generally. It's Starlink's biggest advantage vs. existing satellites, along with greater capacity per user due to the huge number of satellites, so they don't need draconian data caps.

They'll need some sort of congestion control in urban areas. They might just refuse to sell into urban areas, or use fair queuing, but urban users are going to be limited or capped one way or another.
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