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

#451

Post by gsich » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:09 AM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #331

yencabulator wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he said. From the article: > While 60Mbps isn't a gigabit, it's on par with some of the lower cable speed tiers and is much higher than speeds offered by many DSL services in the rural areas LOWER?! Cable doesn't even serve non-television use near me. Phone lines can carry 5 Mbps DSL if you're lucky . I happen to have a line-of-sight to a major radio tower so I get wifi from a mom-and-pop ISP, with a 10 Mbps cap…

Modern VDSL can reach around 200mbps at distances something around 3-5 km from exchange. DSL obviously lower but possibly similar to Starlink. All that said you can those speeds with Starlink anywhere, for much less than installing a phone line.

More like 1-2km. I don't know which "modern" VDSL you mean.

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

#452

Post by dzhiurgis » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:13 AM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #204

darkwizard42 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would this improve the internet quality on planes? Just wondering how that could get better... its absolutely crap most of the time

Poor quality of internet on planes is usually due to too many people on the plane trying to do high-bandwidth things at the same time when the connection was never designed for that level of saturation. Domestic flights usually connect to ground-based stations to provide in-flight wi-fi, which probably have similar throughput capabilities to Starlink, so I don't think this would help much. International flights use s…

I'm still a bit puzzled why ground based stations didn't catch on. Seems it should be much simpler - there's tons of towers already, flights paths are predictable and much lesser distance between plane and sat.

That said my experience with internet was very positive - anywhere from free 4K streaming to $20 per 17hr flight enough to do remote SaaS development. I guess US airlines keeps American tradition of depriving people of good internet.

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

#453

Post by dba7dba » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:30 AM UTC

Theoretically one family could even get 2 starlink services if they really needed faster link. No physical line is used so I can totally see some people doing that if they really want to and can afford it.

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

#454

Post by chii » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:34 AM 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.

> It'll still suck for amateur astronomers and photographers

spaceX could just sell time on satellites as a service, and anyone (amateur or professional) can just buy and use that time to photograph anything in super high fidelity and with no atmospheric interference.

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

#455

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:42 AM 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.

Satellite internet well above 10M has been available for many years already. This isn't anything new.

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

#456

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

yencabulator wrote: post #385

dzhiurgis wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern VDSL can reach around 200mbps at distances something around 3-5 km from exchange. DSL obviously lower but possibly similar to Starlink. All that said you can those speeds with Starlink anywhere, for much less than installing a phone line.

Possible != commercially available. I talked to the guy doing DSL installs in my area, he says 5 Mbps max if you get lucky. Starlink is leapfrogging the cable/telco industries by not needing the same infrastructure.

No, it's not. So far you don't know anything about the price or the actual speeds that will be offered. So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were promised of sub 20ms are clearly not going to happen.

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

#457

Post by BenjiWiebe » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:44 AM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #155

SEJeff wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hopefully in 2020 most internet traffic is encrypted. If encrypted traffic is compressible you're doing it wrong.

It would help if it was compressed pre-encryption, by the server.

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

#458

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:45 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #393

thinkcontext wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says the beta testers are seeing 30-90ms.

> The article says the beta testers are seeing 30-90ms. That's actually pretty impressive.

Why is that impressive if the original press announcement said it would be < 20ms?

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

#459

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #330

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.

> and it will just get better. Won't it get worse when it's generally available? More congestion on the same channel means less per-user throughput right?

It's going to get worse. Right now it's completely uncongested. The terminals are not built to handle two satellites at the same time, so the throughput they are getting now is likely close to the maximum that they will be seeing.

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

#460

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 4:47 AM UTC

eddieh wrote: post #222

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.

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've used both services for several years, and they are perfectly fine. I think people have lost their objectivity completely here and somehow think starlink is a new technology that nobody else was capable of making.