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Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

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Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#531

Post by nickik »

shaklee3 wrote: post #512
rlt wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is the on the one making absolute claims like yours.

"DaveMosher reports @SpaceX has contracted @ST_World already "a few years ago" to build 1m #Starlink user terminals at $2400/pc, hence current hardware subsidy for beta testers is $1900. Article suggests, SpaceX may be paying $2.4 billion for the order. https://t.co/jak0hKQBGn " So the current estimate published in business insider means you are about four times off based on the contract with ST, who we now know buil…

So we have $2.4 billion, but we don't know what this includes. This is likely for all the development, setting up the production system and so on. It could include a number of things.

To just take that number an convert it unit cost like that doesn't make sense. SpaceX will need many more then just 1M terminals, what matters is the marginal cost per terminal.

And if these numbers are accurate is also questionable.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#532

Post by Melkman »

mleonhard wrote: post #528
Melkman wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a beam in an open medium always diverges due to wavefront errors and diffraction. A very good laser system might possibly have a divergence of only 1 microradians. For reference a typical laser pointer has a divergence angle of 1 to 2 milliradians. With the 2000km or so between satellites for Starlink the laser "spot" on the receiving satellite with the very good laser will be about 2 meter. Not enough to rec…

Thanks for explaining. Would it work if they put receivers on a long pole, spaced 3m apart? Maybe they could mount them on the edge of the solar panel array, which is ~30m long [0]. [0] https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-dim...

The link estimates the surface of the panels to be 30m2. Since the panels are 3.1m wide the length would be 9.6 meters. But even at 30 meters it would be very very hard to engineer a system that can keep a laser beam aligned on a moving target with sub microradian precision. I'd guess Starlink laser are more divergent to make hitting the target easier. Keeps the exit pupil a manageable size too (narrower beams need bigger optics).

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#533

Post by jccooper »

Pfhreak wrote: post #471
walrus01 wrote: post #40

I have been using a starlink beta terminal for 3 months now, ask me whatever you want. Day job is senior network engineer for a regional-sized (4 US states) fiber based ISP. My most important message to everyone reading this is that it's not intended to compete with properly implemented wireline based services. It's going to absolutely blow away consumer-grade highly oversubscribed, bottom of the barrel ku and ka ban…

I'm considering a cabin deep in the mountains. What should I be aware of when it comes to limitations of Starlink? For a cabin that is likely to be off grid, where I'd like to have relatively stable, relatively usable internet, what should I expect?

Clear field of view of the sky is necessary, which may be a problem in the woods. The field of view will narrow with more sats; now it's quite large. Apparently they have an app to visualize it.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#534

Post by samstave »

kortilla wrote: post #253
geerlingguy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing my current ISP still does is returns an ad-laden search page any time you visit a domain that doesn't resolve.

Super annoying. FYI every ISP I’ve had that does this has some setting buried somewhere that lets you turn this off. If not that, you can usually bypass this by setting your router (or computer directly) to use 8.8.8.8 (Google dns) or 1.1.1.1 (cloud flare dns) as a resolver. I’ve only heard of a couple of cases where ISPs sniff all dns and rewrite NXDOMAIN responses, and the answer for those is some kind of unpleasan…

I've always wondered how muc CF paid to get 1.1.1.1

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#535

Post by oarsinsync »

escalt wrote: post #423
rkangel wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about IP and therefore with IPv6 is it's not just an address format - it's a set of protocols and practices so a lot of it changes. Address asignment in an IPv6 world is more complicated - you can do DHCPv6, or your can do stateless auto-config. Which should you choose and when? Many other aspects of the stack require more knowledge. And THEN you ALSO need to understand how v4 and v6 interacts so you can pr…

Using SLAAC is the way to go in most cases. DHCPv6 should only really be used when you have a network that is for some reason smaller than a /64. In my opinion you shouldn't really bother with compatibility. Just do dual stack and maybe NAT IPv4 if necessary. For my personal use cases IPv6 just proved to be much more versatile than IPv4. It did take some getting used to since it's approached differently, but learning…

Look at all the additional optional bits DCHP offers in terms of being able to communicate additional information to clients to configure themselves. Two big ones that stand out are timeservers and network booting parameters.

SLAAC is only a drop in replacement in the (typical) home.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#536

Post by koheripbal »

ncallaway wrote: post #515
koheripbal wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is someone semantics anyway since there will be no enforcement mechanism in the beginning from Earth to Mars. People on Mars will just do whatever they want.

That doesn't seem accurate to me. Let's say you're in the _first_ colony ship that lands on Mars. 12 people disembark from the vessel. There are resources available for 5 years on the planet from prior cargo runs. All future cargo will be launched from Earth, and very likely from territory controlled by large and powerful governments. All those flights require mission approval to launch and resupply. Are you _sure_ t…

My point only applies to a colony that is functionally independent.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#537

Post by yencabulator »

spockz wrote: post #343
Jedd wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect a fair bit of interest from latency-sensitive markets (eg finance) here in Australia. A few years ago when I was in the WAN optimisation space, IIRC Sydney/Singapore latency was ~150ms, partly raw distance, partly because the route was physically quite convoluted. There's some expectation that once Starlink's mesh comms ramp up, it'll be significantly faster to go up to a bird, across through one or more at…

Is there any mechanism by which we (in general) or a client specifically could use an expensive low latency for say browsing and a high latency but wide/cheap pipeline for bulk transfer? I can imagine being able to do this when you control both sides by letting one type of data flow over one IP and the other over a different one with different peerings. But I wonder whether this is generally available.

You can do this with a Linux box that has multiple internet links and/or VPNs, using fwmark for routing decisions. You can also e.g. launch a browser in a network namespace that is routed as you please.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#538

Post by ninkendo »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #347
ninkendo wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. The intersattelite laser link is still vaporware at this point, and I’d wager always will be. It turned out to be a much more difficult problem than they originally anticipated, and so they’re basically not doing it. I will be very surprised if it ever happens.

https://wccftech.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-laser-test/ ahem

That they had a successful “test” of it a year and a half ago does not mean it’s in use now. Current starlink is just receiver -> satellite -> ground station, there is no lasers in use.

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#539

Post by samstave »

gpm wrote: post #63
samstave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UH??? Serious Question: So are the early adopters subsidizing the masses down the line? i.e. so at $100/mo + $600 start-up/set-up fee -- thats for early adopters ... so the "african farmer who can pay And the encryption policy? The Privacy policy? The data-mining-of-location-history policy? Yeah, it's a Nope from me dawg... And I folow Elon closely, and I like a lot of what he says and stands for - but he is at the b…

> So are the early adopters subsidizing the masses down the line? "Subsidizing"? No, they're paying for a service. It may or may not get cheaper over time... but that's rather irrelevant. SpaceX isn't a charity, they are in this to make money. It's also not like SpaceX is making a ton of money off of the early adopters. The satellite dish almost certainly costs the vast majority of those 600 dollars to produce, and t…

>*SpaceX isn't a charity, they are in this to make money.*

Exactly - but what are the EXACT revenue streams they expect?

How are they going to make money off the largest continent on the planet; Africa which also has the poorest population on the planet?

Re: Starlink is now Accepting General Pre-orders

#540

Post by samstave »

CrazyStat wrote: post #107
gpm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So are the early adopters subsidizing the masses down the line? "Subsidizing"? No, they're paying for a service. It may or may not get cheaper over time... but that's rather irrelevant. SpaceX isn't a charity, they are in this to make money. It's also not like SpaceX is making a ton of money off of the early adopters. The satellite dish almost certainly costs the vast majority of those 600 dollars to produce, and t…

Estimates for the satellite dish from people in the industry are well over $1000 (see e.g. [1] https://spacenews.com/news-analysis-spacex-has-a-lot-riding-... ) Unless SpaceX has made a huge unannounced breakthrough in phased arrays they're actually taking large losses on the up-front cost at this point.

They should buy Ubiquity and build extant mesh networks...
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