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SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

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Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Wireless NBN install in rural(ish, 1 hour from a capital city) Australia went from 25mbps to 0.1-0.5mbps and has sat there for 2 years until we gave up calling them monthly to complain, and switched to a 4G booster and just tethered to our phones. Due to blatant corruption there’s zero competition for broadband here, just resellers of the same system. If Starlink can even sustain 20mbps+ and rolls out to rural Au…

The catch is that international law prevents satellite to satellite links to bypass any country. To be issued frequency allocations within each country, the satellite communications must be routed via multiple ground stations within that country.

"international law prevents satellite to satellite links to bypass any country"

Fascinating, which treaty or 'law'?

My understanding is that Starlink is authorized to operate in Australia: https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/australia

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#142
post #18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is for you, if you plan to move your boat: https://www.starlink.com/faq > Can I travel with Starlink, or move it to a different address? > Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to all users within a designated area on the ground. This designated area is referred to as a cell. > Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a sat…

Beta users on Reddit indicate the service shuts off 90 miles from the home location

Well, that sucks but good to know, so no RV traveling yet?

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our Wireless NBN install in rural(ish, 1 hour from a capital city) Australia went from 25mbps to 0.1-0.5mbps and has sat there for 2 years until we gave up calling them monthly to complain, and switched to a 4G booster and just tethered to our phones. Due to blatant corruption there’s zero competition for broadband here, just resellers of the same system. If Starlink can even sustain 20mbps+ and rolls out to rural Au…

> Considering it doesn’t require any infrastructure, I can’t see how our tech-illiterate decrepit government can stop it. Just sell the modems online and ship directly worldwide. Make unlicensed operation of the dishes illegal, detect violators using an AWACS plane if detector vans are not sensitive enough to detect beams formed directly to the sky. Even if a country's government can't touch SpaceX directly, the user…

for comparison, look at restrictions for satelite phones in some countries. those same restrictions will apply here

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they be faster than microwave / laser terrestial towers, that already travel around the great arc?

You can't really cross oceans with microwaves though. So a London from can gain a competitive advantage against other London firms on Wall Street exchange.

It’s interesting. At this kind of distance, I wonder how topologies of cables and satellite constellations compare.

Cables run relatively straight under the sea. If they are optic fibre, they run at a lower speed than light in vacuum.

Satellites are in space, so communicate pretty much at speed of light, but probably not in a straight line, depends where the satellites are.

HFTs are indeed great at gaming such things, will be interesting to see what happens.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#145
post #78
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you did line-of-sight links on the ground, and had a "perfect" route that didn't require deviating to avoid any obstacles, the curvature of the Earth means you'd need far more relays introducing latency.

But speed of light in space is faster than the speed of light in fiber making it an overall win. And high-speed traders will pay a lot for a millsecond.

Absolutely - you'll be able to get both fewer hops and higher speeds for a single hop.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#146
I’ve had StarLink installed for a week now. We live on a floating house in Oregon, and up until now, DSL was our only viable option. That’s been hard given my wife and I both work remotely and do a lot of video calls.

Our impression: it’s fast, latency is awesome, but “downtime” is common and disruptive. Having the internet go offline at random intervals through the day, often for 10+ minutes, is a thing. We expected some of this given it’s currently in beta and it should get better as they make improvements and add satellites.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#147
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Due to blatant corruption there’s zero competition for broadband here, just resellers of the same system. Can you tell us more about this blatent corruption? Are you saying corruption has stopped multiple players entering into the highly profitable internet market of the sparsely populated rural Australia?

In 2009 a Labor government planned an Australian "National Broadband Network" (NBN) which was to serve 93% of Australians with direct fiber connections, the remainder to be covered by Wireless and Satellite. Unfortunately in 2013 the coalition government won power and immediately set about to destroy the NBN. It has since has been widely reported that this was at the behest of Rupert Murdoch who saw that his Cable ne…

> Whatever, do your own research.

Is it not ok to ask people making bold statements to backup their claims?

The wikipedia article (which I admittedly only quickly scanned) doesn't appear to mention corruption, murdoch, or newscorp. The other is a hyperbolic opinion piece that doesn't provide any references whatsoever.

Regardless of all this, you completely missed my point. The grandparent was complaining about lack of competition whilst being in a semi-rural (read low population density) and there being only one real option, with multiple resellers. Corruption isn't stopping rollout of companies from rolling out multiple competitive networks to rural australia. There is not going to be any return on investment.

For a country like australia we need internet as publicly owned infrastructure, with "zero competition...just resellers of the same system".

The coalition really ballsed-up what should have been a great resource for the so called "clever country". However, if starlink lives up to the marketing promises "our tech-illiterate decrepit government"s opinion that it would be a waste to provide fibre coverage to 93%* of our population, and their decision to instead to wait for technological advances to provide solutions better suited to australia is suddenly not a bone headed as people make out.

* Australian urban population is 86.2% https://knoema.com/atlas/Australia/ Australi

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#148
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine this is only in the beginning. As more sats go up ships can easily be a lot of customers.

Would you like to upgrade to the roaming plan for $99.99?

Shut up and take my money!

Seriously I have sites running 5 figure data bills every week.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#149
post #48

Reading it cynically/critically/literally, one could interpret it as counting users, not customers (so a family of four sharing a link would count as four users). They also mention “thousands of customers”, so I guess that reading may be correct. Also, as to economics, Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink ) says there will be up to 30,000 of these satellites. Even if (from https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1…

> all 50 states

Is there some sort of mental block on americans? Do you think that other countries don't exist?

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