Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 607 posts

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

#141

Post by grahamburger »

Alupis wrote: post #76
grahamburger wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems VDSL2 can achieve maximum throughput at run lengths under 1000ft from the DSLAM, and maximum performance degrades after that over distance. That sounds sufficient for most of the people complaining of slow access right now in the US I would guess that this isn't right, but honestly I don't have the data either. My rough guess would be that only around 5-15% of people have very quickly after the max length,…

Part of the reason this type of network isn't already built, is likely most folks living in very remote places simply don't need or want 1Gbps internet (or even DSL) - or at least don't know they want it. There are folks with dial-up connections still, unfortunately, and not always because they have no other option. The more technically-inclined people here on HN wanting to work remotely and stream multiple 4k videos…

I don't think you're wrong here, but I would phrase it a little bit differently. I've worked in a lot of pretty rural areas, and from what I've seen in the last 10 years or so even folks in very rural areas want a lot of the same things from their service as techies do. Also, even places like the Bay Area with huge amounts of exactly the HN demographic the residential Internet infrastructure isn't exactly great and isn't improving very rapidly.

My take on the situation is that what most people want is more Internet for the same or less money. That means the only way to get infrastructure improvements is with competition. If AT&T did a bunch of upgrades and then gave their customers better service for the same price their customers would take it, but the customers aren't going to pay more than they're paying now and they're only going to leave if there's something better.

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

#142

Post by closeparen »

jedberg wrote: post #73
Alupis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think they serve different purposes. Satellites serve areas where they can't run wires or it's insanely expensive for too few people. Think very rural areas and war torn areas. Imagine being able to get unblocked internet in China by using satellites? Or in Belarus. Or the middle of Amazon (rainforest)?

Possession of unauthorized satellite equipment is as good as getting caught red-handed at a dead drop. A paranoid security state wouldn't blink at executing every such person as a spy.

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

#143

Post by bearjaws »

Alupis wrote: post #125
bdamm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 2…

> Even just as a reliable alternative Starlink would be a big boon to rural users Starlink is susceptible to cloud cover, rainstorms, lightning and other things that would interfere with signal quality (or render it unusable for periods of time). Seems buried lines (either POTS for DSL, Coax for Cable, or Fiber) is the best solution. We just need to figure out how to incentivize it being built.

As someone who lived 50 minutes inland in Florida, no way.

Our DSL and cable options were limited, Comcast said they offered cable, but when they got to the line near the house, the signal was so poor they were unable to make it work without 50k in labor.

Then ATT came with DSL, the connection has routine outages for hours at a time. There is a technician servicing the DSLAM pretty much every week, there is literally no way ATT makes money where I used to live. Everyone owns 20+ acres, there's basically 10 homes in 1 square mile. And then the Hurricanes... Every 4 years all of the lines get blown down and it takes ATT 1-2 months to get it back online... There is way too many advantages for satellite in rural areas.

If I had to guess, there was over 200 outages (anything over 10 minutes IMO is an outage) in the 6 years I lived there.

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

#144

Post by Alupis »

LinuxBender wrote: post #127
Alupis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That seems more like a plan [1] to ensure that people can get an affordable line if they want it. I can't find any laws saying that all homes require a phone line. It also appears that recent discussions in the government were about changing money allocation from pots lines to internet specifically. I suppose we would need a land developer here to chime in. [1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service

I've dug everywhere and can't turn up anything definitive.

The language, however, of "guaranteed access to an affordable line" does seem to imply a TELCO will have to run a line to your property at your request? Without fees (since that wouldn't be affordable)?

Perhaps, in practice, this resulted in all new construction having lines run since that was cheaper than doing it ad-hoc upon demand.

> I suppose we would need a land developer here to chime in.

Yes, hopefully someone out there knows more! Honestly curious now, since I had always assumed this was how it was.

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

#145

Post by RandomBacon »

jedberg wrote: post #96
gamblor956 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep bringing that up as a common use case, but how do you propose that people in China or wartorn countries will get their hands on the modems they would need to use Starlink?

US government airdrops?

There are a bunch or articles that talk about people using balloons to send material to North Korea.

The Human Rights Foundation even collects flash drives to load them up with content to smuggle into North Korea: https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org

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

#146

Post by Alupis »

DudeInBasement wrote: post #139
Alupis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even afford it? People earning an equivalent of a couple USD a day, or nothing at all, aren't going to be able to afford to pay some US corporation for fast internet. Fast internet probably isn't even a concern in wartorn countries, honestly. Let's be honest - Starlink is almost exclusively going to be used by people living in rural areas within developed nations.

Implying the US government won't pay for the cost of an open internet where people can search for 'bad people square'

I'm not sure I understand your comment.

Why would the US Government (aka. Taxpayers) pay for internet use in other nations?

We already have expensive problems domestically that people would rather spend that coin on.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

stingraycharles wrote: post #114
bdamm wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#148

Post by SEJeff »

rubber_duck wrote: post #132
SEJeff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Encoding and compression software What does that have to do with bandwidth ?

Sending less data over starlink (which is not tcp/ip btw).

I’d you can make 10Mb suddenly only require 900k of actual raw bandwidth by say adding a fpga or something then you can increase throughout to the users.

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

#149

Post by Alupis »

RandomBacon wrote: post #145
jedberg wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US government airdrops?

There are a bunch or articles that talk about people using balloons to send material to North Korea. The Human Rights Foundation even collects flash drives to load them up with content to smuggle into North Korea: https://flashdrivesforfreedom.org

For private groups, or individuals, sure you can get away with this.

For a government to do this? How could that not lead to an armed conflict?

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

#150

Post by e12e »

jliptzin wrote: post #40
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…

Your math assumes all 100 million customers will be downloading at 10Mbps at the same time, all the time. Obviously that is not the case.

Not "all the time", but at any one time - at the same time (eg: watching superbowl - but of course any kind of multicast/broadcast is a little different).

At any rate, it's mostly about the bandwidth each satellite has to route. I don't know what the likely number of subscribers for any one LEO sattelite will be? Will it really be on the order of 100 million notalso served by 4g cellular, dsl and other broadband?

Say for new York state its a large area and population total but the area where you might want/prefer satellite service isn't very densely populated?

Post reply on HN