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Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

arstechnica.com

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Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#101

Post by ShakataGaNai »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #15
supernova87a wrote: post #7

What is the pricing? No one ever seems to answer this all-important question...

Shotwell has said that it will be competitive with existing Internet pricing at $80. She didn't say it would be $80, but competitive with that pricing. Read that as you will. I'm sure that's only the starting price, that you'll be able to pay a lot more for more bandwidth.

$100-150/mo for satellite based service would be totally reasonable (depending on data caps, etc). When you figure the average home (wired) internet connection is in the $80/mo range, cell phones start around there too.

The people who need this service are the ones whom are so far out that they have no option for DSL, Cable or even 4G tethering.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#102

Post by bserge »

gamblor956 wrote: post #82

For comparison, DSL is 1.5 Mbps. 4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally starts at 50Mbps. Cable internet is usually 25 Mbps, and up to 1 Gbps if you're willing to pay, and fiber is up to 10 Gbps if you're lucky enough to live in an area with fiber built out to your home. So in other words, Starlink is useful if you live too far away from a major residential center to have acc…

So, I'm on 4G right now, getting 45/25 Mbps, in what is considered a rural area (20km from the city).

I lived in Birmingham, UK, a way more populated area, and got ~40/30 on 4G, as well.

I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#103

Post by keanebean86 »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #53

Anyone complaining about this has never experienced the frustration of rural living when it comes to internet. This is absolutely amazing, and it will just get better. Even a reliable 10mbps would be a godsend in many places.

My grandma in rural Arkansas would get 26.4 kbps over dialup. Cell service is passable outside so she could get a house mounted antenna but the data caps are so low it's not worth it. Sat internet was crazy expensive last time I checked.

Also she refuses to learn computers so I gave up trying to get her internet but that's not related to this conversation.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#104

Post by rtsil »

Alupis wrote: post #36
xenadu02 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having this kind of network is a good thing but the idea that any kind of satellite or wireless can replace wires is just fantasy. Delivering just 10Mbps to 100 million customers is over 900 Tbps. There is absolutely no way a satellite network can clear that kind of downlink bandwidth. And that's just a tiny fraction of the market. Physical cables/fiber represent several orders of magnitude more capacity and always w…

And even in remote areas, building out VDSL2 networks with relatively decent speeds (200Mbps down and 100Mbps up[1]) would be better, honestly. Most homes already have a phone line and can support a DSL network... and in some countries a phone line is mandated by law, so the infrastructure already exists. But, DSL is not nearly as "sexy" as thousands of satellites... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL#:~:text=VDS…

> And even in remote areas, building out VDSL2 networks with relatively decent speeds (200Mbps down and 100Mbps up[1]) would be better, honestly.

I live in the suburbs of Paris and the length of the phone line is still too long for VDSL2 (it's only available for distance less than 1 km) so I am not sure how feassible that is in rural areas.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#105

Post by tetha »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #53

Anyone complaining about this has never experienced the frustration of rural living when it comes to internet. This is absolutely amazing, and it will just get better. Even a reliable 10mbps would be a godsend in many places.

Reliable 10mbps is a stable full hd stream and 5ish mbps to spare. Easily one stable video call or two at lower quality.

It'll be annoying if you want to download the latest AAA shooter coming in at dozens and dozens of gigabytes, sure. But you can do a lot at 10mbps as 1-2 people needing the uplink. That's really nice.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#106

Post by bargl »

jedberg wrote: post #92
bargl wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't have the same problems as everywhere else. You said it took 10 years to get fiber, there are rural places where that's not an option. There are places where there is no sewer and houses must have septic. There are places where there is no water and houses must have wells / rain capture. Those are the target audience for this technology. Not people who are waiting to go from 60 -> 100 -> 1000 Mbps. This…

I was specifically addressing your claim that one could just use an LTE hotspot. I'm aware that there are rural communities that have worse infrastructure than the bay area.

You have better access to hotspot data than someone who is further from the nearest cell tower. I'm using a more physical infrastructure discussion to draw an analogy to what you might experience. It might make sense for someone in a city to build a well or water capture system, but in general it's not the same calculation as in more rural areas, where 1 mile of cable may reach 0.5 people vs 20.

What you have could easily be too many people per cell tower in your area, which would be the exact same problem that these satellites will encounter. The physics of adding a cell tower is much cheaper than adding more satellites.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#107

Post by bdamm »

stingraycharles wrote: post #80
hesdeadjim wrote: post #53

Anyone complaining about this has never experienced the frustration of rural living when it comes to internet. This is absolutely amazing, and it will just get better. Even a reliable 10mbps would be a godsend in many places.

Absolutely! As someone who lived in a third world country for 2.5y (2014-2016), I had to resort to satellite internet for semi-reliable uplink. I have to admit that I’m not too familiar with the differences between Starlink and what’s already available, but what I do know is that I had to settle for 4/0.5mbit and was really happy with it. Reliability of the connection was much more important than the throughout.

Main advantage of Starlink over existing satellite is a (much) lower latency. Starlink constellation is flying by with a new satellite overhead every 10 minutes or less, and they're operating just above the atmosphere. Musk has claimed 20ms latency, which if true, would be absolutely a smash victory for rural Internet users everywhere.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#108

Post by labster »

ianai wrote: post #61
grecy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for the Telco that services all of Northern Canada (world's largest operating area for a telco). We installed one of the world's first 3G towers that uses only satellite as backbone. Think fly-in only communities that are thousands of kilometers away from anything in the Arctic. Many of our sites are served by radio backhaul for that reason. The sat backhaul tower is extremely expensive and temperamental. It…

This is what turns me away from the astronomers complaining about the constellations. They’re not interested at all in the community whose problems satnet helps resolve. Society has had plenty of time to run data lines out to the hardest to reach areas and clearly cannot and will not do it any other way.

And in 10 years, Starship should make it possible to put more space observatories in orbit, so it should get better for the professional astronomers eventually. It'll still suck for amateur astronomers and photographers, though.

Although, with the way 2020 is going, we'll probably miss observing the asteroid that kills us all because a Starlink got in the way of the observation.

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#109

Post by otterley »

SEJeff wrote: post #46
xenadu02 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having this kind of network is a good thing but the idea that any kind of satellite or wireless can replace wires is just fantasy. Delivering just 10Mbps to 100 million customers is over 900 Tbps. There is absolutely no way a satellite network can clear that kind of downlink bandwidth. And that's just a tiny fraction of the market. Physical cables/fiber represent several orders of magnitude more capacity and always w…

There is absolutely no way a satellite network can clear that kind of downlink bandwidth. Evergreen comment. Encoding and compression software and hardware continue to improve. The only constant in technology is change. Will we be able to do this sort of bandwith to LEO eventually? Yes. Can we do it this very moment? No one has tried.

Context is important, though. Network performance advances are always relative. If satellite fully-congested download speed improves 10x while hardwire link performance improves 10x, satellite will still be perceived as "too slow" by some segment. Our experience thus far has been that advances in applications tend to consume the bandwidth available. Whether that trend continues remains to be seen. (To be fair, I have never saturated my bidirectional 1GBps fiber link and I don't foresee ever doing so except for very brief periods of time.)

Re: Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

#110

Post by Alupis »

jedberg wrote: post #100
Alupis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will Starlink even be able to legally sell internet services in China? Would they not have to comply with CCP's censorship policies and disconnect people at their will? I strongly disagree with CCP's policies here, but that's not for us to decide.

I was thinking of the opposite use case -- an American traveling to China for work and getting uncensored internet. But I mean once a Chinese citizen gets their hands on the equipment, I'm not sure how China would stop them. I suppose they could have roving bands of listening posts looking for the uplink signals. I'm sure someone could figure out a way to take payments for them. Many rich Chinese citizens already hav…

Pretty sure an American company deliberately subverting another nation's laws to make a profit isn't going to be looked well upon, even if it is unjust CCP laws.

Regarding an American traveling to China - I think you're still beholden to the host country's laws, no? You can't break their local laws just because you're from out of town.

Not to mention the punitive actions CCP could take against Tesla (as they try to build out a business there) to put pressure on SpaceX to stop allowing Starlink access in China. That wouldn't be fair either, but Musk is CEO of both organizations and I'm not sure the CCP would distinguish them separately.

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