Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by wlesieutre » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

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…

The US does have a lot of people in rural areas where 5G coverage won't be good. And even if you have good 4G coverage, take take a look at the 4G home internet plans from Verizon: https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-i...

For $60/month you get 10 GB of data. For $150 you can go up to 40 GB. Overage is billed at $10 for each additional 1GB.

If I did my math right, at 12 Mbps you can chew through the largest monthly data allotment in under 8 hours.

In practical terms, for $150/month you can't even download one AAA game, and even if you buy all your games on disc you'll probably still go over the data cap just downloading mandatory updates.

Starlink hasn't said anything about data caps yet, but there's plenty of room to compete with terrestrial broadband providers on things other than download speed.

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

#112

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #84

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…

> There aren't enough people in the US or EU that live in rural areas far from decent internet connections for Starlink to be more than a tiny fraction of the ISP market. Oh, I'm not sure that's true. 41,000,000 Americans don't have access to broadband [1]. That's the entire population of Canada and then some. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/where-the...

Starlink can't handle that many people, so it's a moot point that there are a theoretical 41 million potential customers.

You can build out landlines far more easily than you can launch satellites; you just need the cable/fiber and some guys to dig a trench. The reason it hasn't happened is because it's not worth the financial investment without government subsidies (and this is why the federal government provides some subsidies for rural broadband buildouts).

Iridium tried to be Starlink a decade or two ago, and they ran into the same problem: the cost of servicing rural and remote areas far exceeds the money you would receive from rural customers without massive government subsidies.

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

#113

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

bserge wrote: post #102

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?

4G is slower in the US, largely due to congestion.

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

#114

Post by stingraycharles » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

bdamm wrote: post #107

stingraycharles wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would have been absolutely awesome. If memory serves me right, my latency was around 150ms on average, which was ok-ish but not great.

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

#115

Post by adventured » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #93

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…

> Delivering just 10Mbps to 100 million customers is over 900 Tbps. 50 Gbps * 12000 satellites is 600 Tbps. Most of those satellites will be over the middle of nowhere at any given time. But those customers don't use 10Mbps 24/7 either.

It also may not be limited to 12,000 satellites. They're seeking approval for up to 42,000.

Oct 2019: "SpaceX submits paperwork for 30,000 more Starlink satellites"

https://spacenews.com/spacex-submits-paperwork-for-30000-mor...

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

#116

Post by gbear605 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #59

just to do some napkin maths, the entire constellation is supposed to be 12k satellites. Some googling gives 20Gbps throughput per satellite, so that'd be about 240k Gbps per second. Now of course the satellites keep exchanging information themselves and not all satellites are everywhere all the time but ignoring that, and let's say you can assume ten times as much bandwidth because not everyone is online at the same…

Gigabit speeds are great, but 80% of the value of Starlink is just getting the 11 Mbps to the people who can't get even that speed in any better way. There are many (millions?) of Americans who don't have that. So let's calculate from that number (or 10 Mbps, to make it easy).

240K Gbps * 1000Gb/Mb / 10Mbps/customer = 24M customers.

I've heard that in most residential cases, people on average use about a tenth of their bandwidth. That gets us up to 240M customers. That's only about a tenth of the world's rural populations [1], but that is still pretty great.

[1]: https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-...

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

#117

Post by bdamm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

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…

Even if DSL can get there, reliability of the connection in rural areas is often very suspect. A tree falls over in a winter storm, a bad crash that takes out an exchange box, a pole just plain falls over due to shifting ground, or maybe construction takes out a main trunk... these problems happen in cities too, but in a city you have maybe 1 km of infrastructure to worry about. In rural areas you could have 100 or 200 km of infrastructure just waiting for a calamity. Even just as a reliable alternative Starlink would be a big boon to rural users.

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

#118

Post by Alupis » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #90

Alupis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also many of the places I have been looking at moving to don't even have POTS lines Where are you, if you don't mind telling. I had thought, perhaps incorrectly, that in the US it was required by law to have POTS lines run to all homes - which led to it being installed during construction.

The land I am looking at is in the south western part of Wyoming. Could you link the law? My understanding is that once a line is run, there is a process to decom the line, but that no line is required for a home. Many homesteaders do not have phone lines or on-grid power. The only requirements I am aware of are around septic systems.

Interesting. I couldn't find the exact law to link to, but did turn up this WaPo article talking about 4 states starting to relax the requirement.

> The universal landline requirement has been repealed in Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. There, new homeowners have no guarantee that they could order phone service at affordable rates, consumer advocates say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rul...

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

#119

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

robotnikman wrote: post #89

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…

The fact that people can actually switch from their current ISP to starlink is a big deal though. Most people just use the internet for social media and video streaming, which starlink provides more than enough bandwidth for

People can switch from their current ISP now, unless they live in a rural area. They can choose between DSL, cable, or go fully mobile and rely on their 4G/5G connection.

Starlink's bandwidth rates only apply to their beta test. Think about that: with minimal users, speed caps out at 60Mbps! 4G can handle that even when the network is fairly congested.

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

#120

Post by gamblor956 » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #111

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…

The US does have a lot of people in rural areas where 5G coverage won't be good. And even if you have good 4G coverage, take take a look at the 4G home internet plans from Verizon: https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-i... For $60/month you get 10 GB of data. For $150 you can go up to 40 GB. Overage is billed at $10 for each additional 1GB. If I did my math right, at 12 Mbps you can chew through…

I get that people are placing their internet hopes and dreams on Starlink being cheap, but the financials they've provided just don't work out to them being any cheaper than any existing ISP unless (a) Starlink receives massive government subsidies (b) signs up a fuckton of commercial partners/sponsors, or (c) runs the network at a huge loss.