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

#481

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:07 AM UTC

manquer wrote: post #335

bargl wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constellation is moving but they are moving in a formation. Meaning you have a rotation of 2-4 satellites above your head at any give time. Each satellite can service a radius the size of Wyoming. So you have a limit on the number of satellites and the number of customers per satellite. The article says 5 million in the USA. That makes sense given what I'm thinking. That's about 100,000 per state, but it's not go…

Their current plans talk about a constellation of 40,000 says. While there is limit to number of connections per sat that applies to any routing equipment really, there is not much limit to how many sats can be there . Sure spectrum is limited today ,however if 5million people use it already, other spectrum could be freed up for this purpose , if there is demand . The constellation today is not ready for high density…

That's not how it works. The FCC doesn't just free up massive spectrum from other places. We're talking about 500MHz chunks that just don't exist. The FCC favors cell technologies, so if anything, they would take it away from them.

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

#482

Post by james_s_tayler » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

BigJono wrote: post #439

dylan604 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move one more island over to New Zealand. The animal kingdom is much more friendly.

Rubbish. I went to New Zealand once and the fucking mozzies were the size of a golf ball. I'll take the one redback encounter every 5 years in Australia thanks.

Well as a kiwi I remember at the tender age of 11 going to Australia for the first time and finding a stick insect on the footpath about as long as my forearm the first time we left the hotel. That was fun.

Actually I lived there a couple years in my late teens and you look up at the power lines and see big spiders in them but that's about it.

I've been far more terrified of my encounters with Suzumebachi and Mukade in Japan.

And the one time I went to the USA I nearly had a panic attack as soon as I left the hotel and didn't spend more than 2 hours outside the whole 6 days I was there cos the idea of a lot of poor, disenfranchised, mentally unstable people with guns just freaks me out.

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

#483

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #229

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.

There are underlying physical limitations to spectral efficiency. The best modulation schemes in use today can hit about 60 bits per second per hz of bandwidth. Meanwhile, single fibers top out above 40 terabit. To duplicate the bandwidth of just a single fiber link with a radio downlink, you'd need over 600 ghz of available spectrum. That'd require advances pushing deep into the thz gap, but beyond that, the physics…

For what it's worth, satellite is typically around 1-4 bits per second per Hz.

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

#484

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

manquer wrote: post #345

pier25 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Encoding and compression software and hardware continue to improve. But these would apply to both wired and wireless, no?

If encoding tech is specific to wireless then not really , just like improving cable medium , number of cable pairs etc will not improve wireless , better transmitter or receiver will not impact wired

What encoding technology is specific to wireless? (Hint: none)

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

#485

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

shaklee3 wrote: post #475

Dylan16807 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were promised of sub 20ms are clearly not going to happen. What? How do we 'know' that? This is only a beta, and we don't know how carefully the testing was done, and we don't know how far away the servers were from the ground stations. And some users already managed results of 20ms.

Because the speed tests show it, and there are no inter satellite links. In fact, because of the limited coverage in a very specific area, is highly likely that what you're seeing is on the lower end of latency for the final system since they will have more hops.

Beta speed tests show that this is the best they can possibly do?

And I think you're being ridiculously unfair about hops there. If you're in a situation where your data could spend 20ms on starlink's network and 40ms on the ground, and they route it so it spends 30ms on starlink's network and 15ms on the ground, would you complain about that?

It seems clear to me that the 20ms number was about how much latency is unavoidable on starlink, the number you get without extra hops, because hops should be pure benefit. It's not like 20ms was supposed to include the path all the way to arbitrary servers, because that's blatantly impossible with the Earth being 130 light-milliseconds around.

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

#486

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:12 AM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #441

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…

I'm pretty sure it could with that DIDO technology that Rearden Labs produced. The think the sub company they started it under was Artemis. I always thought they're tech would work very well with satellite constellations.

Artemis was vaporware. It never made it into the field.

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

#487

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #263

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…

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

That's not comparable to sending a signal from space.

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

#488

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

elnik wrote: post #20

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)

I wonder what happens on a cloudy day.. currently the satellite based DTH television displays a cloud and refuses to work. Technically is there a work around to that?

Existing satellite internet doesn't go out with clouds, and only with heavy rain.

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

#489

Post by shaklee3 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #485

shaklee3 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the speed tests show it, and there are no inter satellite links. In fact, because of the limited coverage in a very specific area, is highly likely that what you're seeing is on the lower end of latency for the final system since they will have more hops.

Beta speed tests show that this is the best they can possibly do? And I think you're being ridiculously unfair about hops there. If you're in a situation where your data could spend 20ms on starlink's network and 40ms on the ground, and they route it so it spends 30ms on starlink's network and 15ms on the ground, would you complain about that? It seems clear to me that the 20ms number was about how much latency is un…

You are arguing against exactly what Elon had said at launch. I'm not being unfair with a beta. I've lived this industry for a while; latency will go up with congestion. Let's revisit this comment in a year.

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

#490

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Aug 15, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

shaklee3 wrote: post #489

Dylan16807 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beta speed tests show that this is the best they can possibly do? And I think you're being ridiculously unfair about hops there. If you're in a situation where your data could spend 20ms on starlink's network and 40ms on the ground, and they route it so it spends 30ms on starlink's network and 15ms on the ground, would you complain about that? It seems clear to me that the 20ms number was about how much latency is un…

You are arguing against exactly what Elon had said at launch. I'm not being unfair with a beta. I've lived this industry for a while; latency will go up with congestion. Let's revisit this comment in a year.

Which statements of his am I arguing against?

Also if buffers are configured to be very small then congestion does not have to add more than a fraction of a millisecond of latency. Bufferbloat is endemic but it is not unavoidable.