Setting up Starlink • Hacker News Board

Re: Setting up Starlink

#71

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

Reventlov wrote: post #52

Gwypaas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aiming for 20 ms later this year. (Elon time) A bigger dish would not lower latency but may increase signal strength leading to better throughput. But it's not a simple parabolic antenna. It is the first consumer oriented phased array antenna tracking the satellites as they move across the sky, so that would increase the antenna cost even more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array

« A bigger dish would not lower latency but may increase signal strength leading to better throughput. » A better signal strength would probably lead to better modulations being used, therefore, less transmission and reception time, and a better latency, or am I wrong ? (at least that's the case for Wi-Fi: the better the signal strength, the lower the transmission time so the better the latency).

[deleted]

Re: Setting up Starlink

#72

Post by kwhitefoot » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

paranoidrobot wrote: post #40

andrepd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just coordinates? Talk about overcomplicating.

Probably because a plus code is harder for someone to screw up. Find the place on Google Maps, copy the plus code. Rather than entering lat/lon coords... except did you get the sign right, or maybe you flipped lat/lon, or got a significant digit out.

Clicking on a map location in Google maps shows a context menu where the first entry is the latitude and longitude, click that and it copies it to the clipboard. No need to use a Google specific encoding.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#73

Post by freedomben » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA.

I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later.

My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to 150-200 Mbps (which is awesome for downloads). Latency is consistently in the low 30ms. I get some downtime every day, so it really is a "beta" like they say. I have a backup WISP.

Setup was literally take dish out of the box, insert into tripod (included), plug in cables, connect to the wireless routers SSID and activate with the starlink app. After that I put the included router into storage and plugged in my Protectli[1] running CentOS. Everything works great. My only complaint is the CGNAT, but given the difficulty associated with procuring IPv4 addresses, it's understandable.

[1] I love this thing. Highly recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0741F634J/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

Re: Setting up Starlink

#74

Post by Denvercoder9 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

labcomputer wrote: post #70

Reventlov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

« A bigger dish would not lower latency but may increase signal strength leading to better throughput. » A better signal strength would probably lead to better modulations being used, therefore, less transmission and reception time, and a better latency, or am I wrong ? (at least that's the case for Wi-Fi: the better the signal strength, the lower the transmission time so the better the latency).

Latency in this case is dominated by time-of-flight to the satellite. At 100 Mbps with a 40 ms latency, there are about 2 megabits in the air between the ground station and CPE.

> Latency in this case is dominated by time-of-flight to the satellite.

Is it though? Starlink orbits at 550 km, time-of-flight from ground to satellite to ground would be only 3.7ms, twice that makes ~20% of the roundtrip latency.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#75

Post by tester756 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:32 PM UTC

>Unfortunately, since Annie's farm was 60 miles (100 km) away from my house, she seemed to be outside my assigned 'cell' of coverage:

It cannot be changed somewhat dynamically? e.g by call to SpaceX?

>(she works remotely for Reputation)

How's that relevant?

Re: Setting up Starlink

#76

Post by 7e » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

Can you compare with T-Mobile’s 5G home Internet plan? Similar numbers advertised, $60 a month, no caps.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#77

Post by Robotbeat » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #75

>Unfortunately, since Annie's farm was 60 miles (100 km) away from my house, she seemed to be outside my assigned 'cell' of coverage: It cannot be changed somewhat dynamically? e.g by call to SpaceX? >(she works remotely for Reputation) How's that relevant?

I think the license SpaceX has for the terminals is for fixed locations, although SpaceX is applying for mobile terminals (ie for trucks, RVs, etc).

Re: Setting up Starlink

#78

Post by freedomben » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #69

oxplot wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that one can use any router with the dish. Basically the dish provides you with a NATed private IP which you can assign to the WAN interface of your router of choice and go from there.

Oh, that's interesting. Is the router then completely just a commodity thing that has no specific Starlink functionality at all? Edit: Some reddit posts suggests the Starlink App doesn't work if you don't use the router. But also that the app isn't terribly useful outside of the "obstructions view", which is mostly a one-time need during installation.

That's correct. The starlink app only works when using the included router. The app is useful if you like to see numbers and graphs of dropped packets, throughput, etc, but otherwise isn't needed.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#79

Post by house9-2 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #2

Wow, I'm impressed! I thought it would take more than a decade to implement when it was announced, but it's here and it works. Just amazing. 100/16 Mbps is pretty decent I guess, hopefully it doesn't go down as the number of users goes up. The latency is great imo, 40ms using satellites? I don't think anyone has achieved that before. Would a bigger dish work better or not?

> 100/16 Mbps is pretty decent I guess

Its fantastic, can't wait until this is available where I live. Currently paying $200+ a month for 20Mbps from local wireless company.

2 miles North from here there is AT&T fiber and Comcast available, 5 miles South there is Comcast (150Mbps) but I'm in a small community of homes where only options are satellite or fixed wireless.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#80

Post by nevi-me » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

paranoidrobot wrote: post #40

andrepd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just coordinates? Talk about overcomplicating.

Probably because a plus code is harder for someone to screw up. Find the place on Google Maps, copy the plus code. Rather than entering lat/lon coords... except did you get the sign right, or maybe you flipped lat/lon, or got a significant digit out.

Interestingly, the plus code for me is almost working. It's sending me to another place once I've put in the location on the site.

It's a good start though, I'll try other close plus codes until I get it right. Would still have been better to use coordinates.