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

#281

Post by francis_t_catte » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #266

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…

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

I was paying in excess of $112 US a month for the priviledge of DSL that had about a 60% uptime on fair weather days, and 0% uptime on rainy days.

I also forgot to mentiom how my DSL speeds got that low; one section of telephone wire on my rural street had literally no usable pairs left (they had all corroded into nothing). the linesman had to reroute our phone line about 1.5miles out of the way in the opposite direction of the CO to get us reconnected. after that, if you picked up the phone, all you'd hear was a ghostly whistling instead of a dial-tone. the only reason I still had a 'working' DSL connection was from modifying the firmware on my D-Link DSL modem to do horrifying things. :|

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

#282

Post by yencabulator » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

asldkjaslkdj wrote: post #57

bargl wrote: post #45

Starlink internet is not meant to replace hard line internet. There is no getting around the physics of cable being so much cheaper/easier. Even terrestrial cell towers are more efficient and cheaper than satellites. This is 100% meant to supplement existing infrastructure not to replace it. You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your h…

I think you're underestimating the number of people that live in places where cell companies don't want to be arsed to build a tower.

Cell companies are also the last people you want to get your "main internet" from. Bandwidth caps, throttling, accounts shut down because actually what they meant is that "unlimited" means "200 GB/month".

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

#283

Post by gamegod » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:38 PM UTC

labster wrote: post #108

ianai wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The reason we don't use space observatories as much anymore is because we have adaptive optics now and don't need them. The concerns of astronomers are real. It's not for Starlink to ruin our ability to observe the sky for all of humanity. Incredible entitlement.

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

#284

Post by choeger » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:39 PM UTC

medion wrote: post #272

CarelessExpert wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, one of the barriers to my moving to a more rural area and working remotely was broadband access, but Starlink could very well solve that problem...

In Australia I moved to a very rural place, buying a house based on where I could get wireless broadband as part of our nationwide broadband rollout - I now live in a beautiful remote place overlooking the ocean with 50/20mbps Internet. Before here, I lived in another rural place near the ocean, however there was no broadband and 4G was too expensive. I ended up making friends with someone who had a 1gbps fibrelink 1…

Ok you got me with "overlooking the ocean". I will admit, I was a little bit envious. But then I recalled the great Terry Pratchett quote that you are living on a continent where pretty much every animal, except for maybe some sheep, is equipped with some venom and actively trying to kill you. Plus some of the plants. So I guess it's fair play.

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

#285

Post by Frondo » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

mmm_grayons wrote: post #278

macintux wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if you’re able to work from home, you can self-isolate pretty much anywhere, and drive wherever you need to get food. If urban environments start seriously breaking down due to a food supply chain problem, rural areas won’t be safe from desperate people. Anyway, both approaches have their pros and cons, but as someone who has a fairly severe back problem and not much inclination to try to live off the grid,…

> rural areas won't be safe from desperate people At least for America, most city folk don't seem to understand just how armed their rural counterparts are. They'd be pretty darn safe.

I don't know if rural folks may realize how well-armed we are in the cities. Nearly everyone I know has a gun, and none of us is the crowd you'd normally associate with gun owners in cities.

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

#286

Post by vardump » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

AmbientNomad wrote: post #230

eddieh wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Viasat is already available and provides 12-100 Mbps service. Viasat only uses 4 satellites. HughesNet provides up to 25 Mbps service and I think has 5 satellites. Caveat: Of course I've never used either service myself, so I can not speak to the actual download speeds vs advertised speeds.

I live in a rural area where both of these services are available. They both come with seriously outdated data caps. Hugesnet, if I recall, charges $150/month for their fastest tier, but after 50gb, your speed is reduced to 300kbps. I haven't experienced either service, but I regularly read that they are riddled with disconnects and spotty service. Currently we're paying a ridiculous amount, $200/month, to Unlimitedv…

"I have some serious concerns about Starlink..."

Curious, what kind?

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

#287

Post by Frondo » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

shiftpgdn wrote: post #236

macintux wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if you’re able to work from home, you can self-isolate pretty much anywhere, and drive wherever you need to get food. If urban environments start seriously breaking down due to a food supply chain problem, rural areas won’t be safe from desperate people. Anyway, both approaches have their pros and cons, but as someone who has a fairly severe back problem and not much inclination to try to live off the grid,…

A friend of mine who served in Afghanistan said that the Afghanis living in the mountains had no idea America had invaded and no idea about a war or 9/11. At first they had thought the Americans were Russians. I think you over estimate how big America is and how remote some places can be.

I've traveled through some pretty remote places in both hemispheres, and the US has nothing on isolation compared to the mountains in Central Asia. Remoteness won't really protect people here, not like it would there.

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

#288

Post by bargl » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:42 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #248

bargl wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>last mile work is expensive. What do you mean there?

SpaceX isn't doing the install work work on these Starlink kits. They just sell you some hardware. If you're a terrestrial-based internet provider, you need a fleet of installers and they also have to do constant maintenance work. They have salaries and they make (lots of) overtime pay. At a lot of the smaller companies (like the one I worked at) they have pensions. We had a lot of guys who started with the company o…

SpaceX can't scale regionally, they have to scale globally. The nature of their satellites is that if they want to accommodate 2x as many users in a city they have to double their capacity.

The push I'm discussing is the cost to get a baseline internet out there for 10k people per 100 miles.

I'm assuming the cost per last mile is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. If that's true right now the majority of our population is in cities so SpaceX will have trouble reaching them.

That's the core of my point. For Starlink to hit everyone in a city they'd have a huge amount of wasted capacity in rural areas.

Satellites also degrade naturally over time. They have a set lifetime and don't all last that long. Cables under the ground tend to last longer even if they require spot fixes. I'm assuming that bandwidth wise, the cables are more efficient at least until getting manufactured equipment to space becomes even more cheaper.

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

#289

Post by francis_t_catte » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

iagovar wrote: post #218

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…

Don't you have unlimited data plans in the US? Or local Wimax ISPs?

doesn't matter if there's no LTE (or even 4G) out there.

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

#290

Post by graham_paul » Fri, Aug 14, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

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.

To me that frustration comes from a lack of understanding that living in a sparsely populated area comes with the good (less people around) and the bad (worse infrastructure)