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Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

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Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#141

Post by bcrl »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #46
nottorp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how great that is for consumer bandwidth (50Mbps) 50 Mbps is great consumer bandwidth where?

Rural Canada. On a lake shore. 30km from one of Canada's "Top 50" cities. Where I used to live, I had 2 options for internet access. A Wireless ISP that uses a parabolic antenna pointed at a water-tower about ~20km from my home; or a cell-phone based internet connection. The WISP allowed me on average 300kb/s transmissions. The Cell-Phone allowed me between 1.5Mb/s and 7Mb/s (to a max use of 5GB/month). So 50Mb/s is…

Sounds like your WISP isn't investing in the new generation of massive MIMO radios made by companies like Cambium.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#142

Post by staunton »

dylan604 wrote: post #136
IshKebab wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this parody?

Not any more than saying a "proper cloud" will disrupt satellite transmissions is meant to be serious. Is it a cirrus cloud? Is it a cumulus? A cumulonimbus? Which cloud is going to do this blocking?

This really isn't that complicated. You can't do a link through pretty much any cloud where you would say "it's cloudy". If you're not sure, the link still works but a lot worse...

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#143

Post by bcrl »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #48
nine_k wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats, you've reinvented microwave lines, widely deployed in exactly this manner.

The big difference between open air laser and microwave links is that one of them doesn't require licensed spectrum. The costs of doing it will be much lower.

I'm sure regulators will start regulating the 1550nm spectrum once they realize they can start making money off free space optics.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#144

Post by gnopgnip »

robertlagrant wrote: post #121
gnopgnip wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising the financial transaction tax to 0.1%, 1$ per $1000 would eliminate the vast majority of unproductive and rent seeking HFT without negatively effecting liquidity. The US already has an FTT to fund the SEC, implementation should be straightforward. Currently the rate is very low, about 0.002%. Raising the rate would be minimally impactful for longer term investors and generate on the order of $50b a year for t…

What's rent-seeking HFT?

Rent-seeking is an "economic activity to gain wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity". Or put another way it means societies resources are put towards wealth transfer instead of productivity/wealth creation.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#145

Post by pravus »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #76
ortusdux wrote: post #13

Current fiber optic cables transmit signals at 2/3rds the speed of light. Modeling has shown that starlink's laser backbone would allow it to beat deep-sea cables in some situations. This article estimates a NYSE -> FTSE reduction from 76ms to 43ms. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is a HFT bidding war going on. https://archmeregreenarch.org/1456/news/starlink-and-the-ris... There is a newer version of fib…

Am I the only one who thinks HFT should be forbidden? Stocks and investments are a nice thing to have, since you can buy a share of a company you believe in, they get the money, do stuff, you get dividends and in the end can sell the stock after some time too. HFT changes these "beliefs in company" to "beliefs that the stock will go up", and the timeframe of those "beliefs" is sometimes in milliseconds. This turns cl…

> HFT changes these "beliefs in company" to "beliefs that the stock will go up"

No, this is the part most everyone gets wrong about HFT. These systems make money off of volume, not price. They don't care if the price is going up or down. All they care about is that they can capture a small price delta by facilitating a trade faster than someone else and they are willing to do so for smaller fractions of a cent which makes them more attractive to all market participants, including you and your retirement funds. Their concerns are orthogonal to investors and they compete with other HFT firms and market makers.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#146

Post by moffkalast »

posnet wrote: post #20
ortusdux wrote: post #13

Current fiber optic cables transmit signals at 2/3rds the speed of light. Modeling has shown that starlink's laser backbone would allow it to beat deep-sea cables in some situations. This article estimates a NYSE -> FTSE reduction from 76ms to 43ms. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there is a HFT bidding war going on. https://archmeregreenarch.org/1456/news/starlink-and-the-ris... There is a newer version of fib…

The question isn't whether satellite links can beat deep-sea cables, it's whether they can beat shortwave. https://sniperinmahwah.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/shortwave-tr...

How can that scale when they need to increase trading volume? Radio has jack shit in terms of bandwidth.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#147

Post by gnopgnip »

karkari wrote: post #124
gnopgnip wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising the financial transaction tax to 0.1%, 1$ per $1000 would eliminate the vast majority of unproductive and rent seeking HFT without negatively effecting liquidity. The US already has an FTT to fund the SEC, implementation should be straightforward. Currently the rate is very low, about 0.002%. Raising the rate would be minimally impactful for longer term investors and generate on the order of $50b a year for t…

Is the $50b/year figure estimated after assuming the 'unproductive and rent seeking' HFT volume is eliminated?

Yes, that estimate is with the greatly reduced HFT volume. And it may not be 100% accurate, HFT and trading in general could move to another market without these taxes and/or switch to a type of derivative with a lower/no tax. Like the UK, for swaps. But these other markets are smaller and not really a replacement. And these other markets may pass similar taxes in the future.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#148

Post by giantrobot »

NohatCoder wrote: post #73
eqvinox wrote: post #65

This sure sounds useful, but "might remove need for deep-sea cables" is quite silly. Anything they do to cram bandwidth into their laser link can reasonably also be applied to fiber optical cables. Except the fiber optical cables come in bundles of 12 to 144 with absolutely no separation issues. Replicating that over open space (air or vacuum), if reasonably possible at all, will chug significant amounts of power in…

On top of this I really doubt the claim about working in bad weather. Some weather will work, sure, maybe at reduced speeds. But if there is a proper cloud in the way, the near-visible 1550 nm light will be scattered completely.

I believe the idea is that the ground link is still radio but the interconnect between the satellites is a laser. While radio can be affected by weather, the "works in bad weather" is a long solved issue.

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#149

Post by gnopgnip »

paulsutter wrote: post #110
gnopgnip wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising the financial transaction tax to 0.1%, 1$ per $1000 would eliminate the vast majority of unproductive and rent seeking HFT without negatively effecting liquidity. The US already has an FTT to fund the SEC, implementation should be straightforward. Currently the rate is very low, about 0.002%. Raising the rate would be minimally impactful for longer term investors and generate on the order of $50b a year for t…

do you have a link, love to learn how it worked out in other places

https://www.bnymellon.com/content/dam/bnymellon/documents/pd... has a good review of several countries laws

Re: Lasers enable satellite internet backbone, might remove need for deep-sea cables

#150

Post by DylanDmitri »

elif wrote: post #104
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who thinks HFT should be forbidden? Stocks and investments are a nice thing to have, since you can buy a share of a company you believe in, they get the money, do stuff, you get dividends and in the end can sell the stock after some time too. HFT changes these "beliefs in company" to "beliefs that the stock will go up", and the timeframe of those "beliefs" is sometimes in milliseconds. This turns cl…

HFT isn't even that harmful. What's harmful is brokerages that hold large portions of financial instruments who take advantage of customers' live buying and selling with delayed swaps, intentional front running, etc. This is how the stock market was bullied before HFT, options markets, trading bots, etc enabled 'everyone' to do skeezy arbitrage and not just market makers. The only meaningful way to limit the efficacy…

How about forcing public markets to bucket trades within say 2 second windows, executing best matches at the end of each period. Low friction and reduces value of millisecond latency advantages.
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