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Beta users of Starlink get downloads of 11 to 60 Mbps

arstechnica.com

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

#581

Post by choeger »

justinclift wrote: post #549
choeger wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you've learned not to turn over rocks in your garden You have no idea how ridiculous that sounds to me.

It's the kind of thing you learn as a kid in Australia. It's super common to have "red back" spiders under rocks, logs, or pretty much any object that's stationary on the ground for more than a few days. Red back spiders are poisonous, evil looking little buggers! ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider Funnel web spiders are a thing as well, but they seem to be less common here in Victoria (south eastern Aus…

That is creepy. I could not relax in such a garden, let alone let the kids play in it.

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

#582

Post by Tuna-Fish »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #571
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 60 bits per second per hz of bandwidth Between one transmitter and receiver. Starlink is designed to cheat Shannon by utilizing SDMA on a truly massive scale. Every antenna in the system, both on the satellites and on the ground stations, is a large phased-array antenna, capable of simultaneously emitting different signals on the same wavelength in different directions, and capable of discriminating between multipl…

Phased arrays aren't magic. The directivity of the beam scales logarithmically with array size / element count. The limitations are such that you should think of it as being able to send Nebraska one signal while you send Kansas a different one. You can't get much more specific than that. Elon has been very explicit about starlink never being competitive vs telcos in urban areas. And independent people have done the…

Phased arrays are not magic, but they are better than you make them sound like. When the directivity of the beam scales logarithmically with the element count, it just means you need a whole lot of elements.

The beam sizes are in the FCC filings, and they will be able to fully re-use the frequencies for ground stations that are >20km apart. (Not with the same satellite, you want adjacent beam spots on the ground to come from different satellites, but with literally hundreds above you at any time, that's not a problem.) Availability of bandwidth does not really limit them until the satellite counts are up to really hilarious numbers.

The aggregate throughput numbers in the paper you linked are correct, for the initial FCC filing. Since then they have multiplied the size of the constellation by ~7 and the throughput per satellite by ~3 (for 2.0 satellites). (ISL's are still missing, though.)

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

#583

Post by crocodiletears »

Alupis wrote: post #293
crocodiletears wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for the rest of the nation, but a couple years ago the big ISPs in the midwest started phasing in 1tb data caps.

Pretty hard to eat up a 1TB Monthly Data Cap using a cell phone (the OP's situation).

You're right, totally missed that.

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

#584

Post by tw04 »

IMO, the throughput isn’t what’s impressive, you can get similar-ish speeds from hughesnet. What’s impressive is the latency. The bandwidth should be (relatively) easy to increase over time. If the latency had been 300+ms, that would’ve been a disaster.

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

#585

Post by J0_k3r »

ac29 wrote: post #573
J0_k3r wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this has been done with radio-based meshnets like the puget sound data ring for years, the government hasn't updated the legislation to allow encryption and commercial data on said meshnets, making them useless. we could already be providing free internet to millions if it weren't for the government and their dumb regulations.

I know encryption is controversial, but I cant say I've ever heard someone say that ham radio bands should be allowed to carry commercial traffic (other than people who want to just get rid of those bands all together and auction them off).

you misunderstand. I was saying that a special exception should be made for meshnets and only meshnets, and for no other application on the ham bands.

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

#586

Post by busterarm »

shaklee3 wrote: post #556
busterarm wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I'm saying. Forest for trees. SpaceX isn't doing the installation work. They're not hiring the fleet of techs to do the work.

No satellite companies do that. They are independent contractors.

This thread isn't about what other satellite providers do. It's about the Cable/Fiber/DSL providers. And even when those companies use contractors to do the work (like Spectrum, Comcast, etc), they're still the ones paying those contractors.

Let's keep it on-topic.

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

#587

Post by foota »

grecy wrote: post #515
foota wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine they mean GB/s of capacity, not per GB.

This was back in ~2014, though last I looked into it significant amounts of data from a sat is still many thousands of dollars per GB. (NOT GB/s)

Fwiw I don't buy this. A satellite specced for a gig and being used at say 1/16 capacity (to account for orbit) would make say 100 dollars a second. That's nearly 9 million a day, no way do satellite providers make that much, or there would be a lot more supply.

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

#588

Post by Reason077 »

jagger27 wrote: post #326
Reason077 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your house." Not true for me, and I live 10 minutes walk from the financial centre of a major world city. Because there's no fibre installed to my building, unlimited ~300 Mbps 5G wireless internet is both cheaper and faster than any available fixed alternative. Even if fibre was available, the…

The sad part about what you said is that there is definitely fibre in your area. After all, there’s a 5G tower within spitting distance.

In fact, I'm pretty sure there's fibre running down the road directly outside the front door of our building. Probably multiple different providers! There's conduits under the footpath and I've seen them threading reels of cable down there late at night.

That said, I'm very happy with 5G. There are some key advantages over fibre:

- Cheap. I pay £30/month with no fixed contract terms. Any fibre around that price is slower and comes with a 12 or 24 month minimum contract.

- Very high reliability. If a cell tower goes down, it will simply switch to another one. At my last flat, the cable internet would seem to go down for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes pretty regularly, perhaps every 1-2 months. And that's just the times I was home and noticed!

- Portability. Wouldn't be much use in a large household, but for personal use it's great that I can just pick up my battery-powered router and take it with me for fast WiFi anywhere. Including roaming around Europe (5G roaming in selected countries!)

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

#589

Post by Reason077 »

boyter wrote: post #316
Reason077 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You will almost always get cheaper and faster internet (for both you and the company providing internet) over a cable to your house." Not true for me, and I live 10 minutes walk from the financial centre of a major world city. Because there's no fibre installed to my building, unlimited ~300 Mbps 5G wireless internet is both cheaper and faster than any available fixed alternative. Even if fibre was available, the…

Sydney?

London!

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

#590

Post by shaklee3 »

busterarm wrote: post #586
shaklee3 wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No satellite companies do that. They are independent contractors.

This thread isn't about what other satellite providers do. It's about the Cable/Fiber/DSL providers. And even when those companies use contractors to do the work (like Spectrum, Comcast, etc), they're still the ones paying those contractors. Let's keep it on-topic.

Please reread this thread. This is the comment I was replying to:

> 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

This is not true. SpaceX is absolutely going to be doing most of the installs through independent contractors. The original post implied they just ship you the antenna and the end user can set it up, which is wrong.

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