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

#261

Post by busterarm » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #256

busterarm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for an ILEC providing cable/dsl/fiber service and just the rough napkin math around SpaceX's launch costs makes it look significantly cheaper. Besides the whole digging and laying cable costs, last mile work is expensive. You have to employ huge crews. Construction crews constantly dig up & cut your infrastructure "by accident" and the cost of recovering the fines from them is as much as the fines pay out. H…

The SpaceX approach also completely bypasses a ton of the nonsense local bureaucracy, stonewalling by existing ISPs, etc that a company would have to deal with to put in cables, towers, etc in the first place, saving both time and money.

Yup. This is actually one of the more important factors for consumers that is underestimated.

I've been pegged at 1000% excitement since I first found out about this project a year ago. This is the best thing to happen to this service industry since probably ISDN.

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

#262

Post by wolco » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #190

bronco21016 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is you're basing your argument solely on the physical act of running cable/wires everywhere. When you look at the cost of just hiring a crew to dig the ground or string wire on a pole you are correct. It's significantly cheaper and more reliable. However, add in the human factor, government. The mess of rules, regulations, and right-of-way make it considerably more expensive to run wires everywhere.

The cost of hiring a crew to dig up the ground runs to hundreds of dollars per foot. At $1MM for a satellite that can serve thousands of people is a lot cheaper.

If they all lived in the same location. If the cost is hundreds per square foot and each customer is 1000ft away from each other than thecosts become hundreds of thousands per address.

Line of sight or cell tower might work but when it doesn't a satellite will.

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

#263

Post by jiofih » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

xenadu02 wrote: post #25

jasonpeacock wrote: post #12

Honestly, this is just awesome. It's a working demonstration of high-speed satellite internet, showing this approach is a viable solution for "anywhere on Earth" internet. For all those people who don't have broadband available, this will be life-changing. It'll only get better from here, welcome to the future :) (and remember that perfect is the enemy of good)

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…

100Gbps microwave links have been shown on land. If you take that as a theoretical limit, 12k satellites can give you 1200Tbps.

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

#264

Post by radlad » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

chris_overseas wrote: post #202

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #168

"...that said, we’ll make sure Starlink has no material effect on discoveries in astronomy. We care a great deal about science." Elon Musk A long exposure of Comet NEOWISE by Photographer Daniel Lopez: https://imgur.com/a/rDI1Onn N.B. The white streaks are Starlink constellation passthrough trajectories Starlink currently has 597 orbiting satellites they plan for more than 12k to be deployed. Amazon just got an appro…

That NEOWISE photo was 17 photos deliberately stacked to emphasise the problem rather than minimise it, so it's not really a fair datapoint. Astrophotograhy stacking software will generally remove items that don't appear in all photos in the stack rather than retain them (previous discussion on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23926699 ). That said, I love taking photos of the night sky myself and had…

> it is a real issue - just not quite as crazy as it looks from that photo

Aren't they planning to add a bunch more satellites?

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

#265

Post by bryanlarsen » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #225

What's the limit for how many internet users can use Starlink at the same time?

50Gbps aggregate per satellite (actually 25 since you have to go up and down). 12000 satellites in the constellation. Those satellites will be over the ocean or unoccupied land most of the time, so estimate about 1% utilization ratios to be conservative. Standard ISP oversubscription allocations allow about 1Mbps per customer.

That math gives me 300M customers.

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

#266

Post by znpy » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

francis_t_catte wrote: post #151

mc32 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s better than the DSL AT&T provides in some parts of SF where “you’re too far from the CO, you’re maxed out at 12”.

LOL, try Verizon-level of rural infrastructure neglect. I paid for a guaranteed 3,300Kb/s down, 768Kb/s up. I usually got 900Kb/s down, and 150Kb/s up. to quote the linesman who had the shit job of patching together the literal 1930's(!) phone lines," I was told by corporate to absolutely not replace any lines unless they're taken out by a drunk or a tree. the cable on that spool I pull behind my truck is going to go…

Lol here in .it I get a 1 Gbps ftth connection for 24,95 €/month

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

#267

Post by hello_tyler » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

That's great. The pings not even that bad..

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

#268

Post by dreamcompiler » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #148

rubber_duck wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Technology only improves compression ratios to a certain point, and we passed that point with lossless compression decades ago. We're approaching that point with lossy compression now.

Going beyond that point requires the laws of physics (more precisely, the laws of information theory) to change, and that's not going to happen.

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

#269

Post by znpy » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

nix23 wrote: post #165

francis_t_catte wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, try Verizon-level of rural infrastructure neglect. I paid for a guaranteed 3,300Kb/s down, 768Kb/s up. I usually got 900Kb/s down, and 150Kb/s up. to quote the linesman who had the shit job of patching together the literal 1930's(!) phone lines," I was told by corporate to absolutely not replace any lines unless they're taken out by a drunk or a tree. the cable on that spool I pull behind my truck is going to go…

Man that's bad, here in Switzerland my Line was upgraded to 10Gbs from 1 and i was mad that the router just had four 1Gbs and one 2.5Gbs cable ports...so i had to buy the business model router with fiber LAN (witch i like much more..thinner cables).

Nice, what canton are you in?

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

#270

Post by quink » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

SyneRyder wrote: post #254

quink wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra, on a fully owned and operated fibre-to-the-premises network. I live in a decade old estate half an hour from the centres of the third and sixth largest cities in the country. The maximum upload speed currently on sale on that network is 1 Mbps. And it’s a monopoly. Inequality in Internet access aside, that maximum is below the average fixed upload speed of 170 out…

> I am with one of the world’s biggest telcos, Telstra... You have my condolences :( That's so bizarre to have that kind of low speed on fibre, though. I'm half an hour by car / bus from the 4th biggest city, and I'm reliably getting 10Mbps upload over the copper lines. (I was getting the full 20Mbps of my plan, until NBN recently botched the repair of a temporary line fault - their repair guy even said it was the le…

It’s “Telstra Velocity”. It just got a special exemption to not make it operate like the NBN renewed because, and I paraphrase the federal government’s words: “because they couldn’t be arsed and if we didn’t renew it they’d turn off the Internet and blame it on us”. I too would like to have regulatory exemptions extended indefinitely with the excuse being that I can’t be arsed, but elected officials can just tell people to use mobile data instead like my local one did. Charging taxpayers more than $30,000 over a year.

No other providers are available. Technically OCCOM and probably still Exetel, but they can’t offer faster speeds and have to charge more than even Telstra.

My most recent communication with the federal communications department included this wonderful phrase:

> “Please note that this legislation applies only to the capabilities of the network. The plans offered to individual consumers may be limited to slower speeds.”