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Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

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Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#81

Post by foxyv »

anuila wrote: post #79
Aldipower wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you are wrong. The speed of light is not constant. :) The speed of light depends on the medium, where the reference (or max speed) is the speed of light in vacuum. The speed of light in a diamond is only half of the speed in vacuum for example! This is why the latency of the low orbit satellites is lower then the cable bound connection.

IANAS but from what I understand, the speed is constant, but it appears to travel more slowly due to the atoms found along the way, which absorb and reemit the photon. In the case of the fibers, the light just bounces on the walls of the tube, effectively lengthening the distance it has to travel. It's like saying that I did not drive a 50 mph simply because I took a longer detour: I still drove 50 mph, but I did not…

> In the case of the fibers, the light just bounces on the walls of the tube, effectively lengthening the distance it has to travel.

This is incorrect, the reduced speed of light is due to the properties of the material through which the light is traveling. The material has in fact changed the speed of light.

The wave equation of light is dictated by the permittivity and permeability of the material through which it propagates. This is just a property of electromagnetic waves. Only the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant. Or more accurately, the permeability and permittivity of a vacuum.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#82

Post by oneplane »

fabian2k wrote: post #24
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

At least the US has the excuse of being huge, which does make it much harder to provide good coverage. We don't have that excuse here in Germany. The situation isn't entirely terrible in Germany, but extremely variable depending on your location. I have 1Gbit for 40 EUR per month, but there are certainly places that aren't even remote that get no reasonable broadband.

It's an excuse all the same; if you can put electricity and phone lines on every address, fiber isn't that much harder. It' just that major ISPs in the US are sociopaths and don't like the margins you'd get with such a setup. Slow, overbooked connection hubs and for-profit-DPI and data collection (and sales) on an ISP level is the norm. Even net neutrality isn't something the government is capable of accepting and enforcing.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#83

Post by ingenium »

Darmody wrote: post #27
pabl0rg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the EU are you in?

Spain

Yeah, Spain is interesting. Or at least the way it's done in Barcelona. I don't know who owns the fiber (the city?), but it seems that fiber was run to every building/apartment, and when you sign up for service with one of the ISPs, they just give you a combo ONT+router and presumably plug the other end of the fiber line into their OLT. I'm guessing all the ISPs have their OLTs together so they can swap the lines appropriately.

That being said, it seems the networks have a lot of congestion at the neighborhood level (equivalent to oversubscribed DOCSIS nodes), at least in my experience in several neighborhoods in Barcelona. This became much more visible when COVID hit and Netflix and such had to limit quality in Europe as a result.

I only have experience with Movistar and Vodafone fiber, I Haven't used Orange's so I'm not sure if they're any better.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#84

Post by anoncake »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #52
Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

> highly developed countries like the US or Germany In Germany this is due to regulation. Deutsche Telekom has no incentive to lay cables, as they will have to share the infrastructure with competitors at a price that makes doing so unattractive.

No, it's due to privatization. The Bundespost would simply lay cables because they're needed, without any silly market games.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#85

Post by johntb86 »

ingenium wrote: post #83
Darmody wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain

Yeah, Spain is interesting. Or at least the way it's done in Barcelona. I don't know who owns the fiber (the city?), but it seems that fiber was run to every building/apartment, and when you sign up for service with one of the ISPs, they just give you a combo ONT+router and presumably plug the other end of the fiber line into their OLT. I'm guessing all the ISPs have their OLTs together so they can swap the lines app…

Don't they use PON there? Seems expensive to have to run an individual fiber line to every household, rather than sharing a single fiber (with branches).

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#86

Post by 0xy »

milankragujevic wrote: post #29
0xy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to not see fibre internet as a waste of money right now given 4G/5G costs coming down dramatically. For me personally, 4G is extremely fast and cheap while being, importantly, low-latency. Even gaming and other latency sensitive applications are possible on 4G/5G. Why not just roll out 5G networks? Eventually, 5G will outperform fibre on a cost and speed basis (for a long time my FTTH home internet was slow…

I disagree. 4G is severly limited in capacity so speed will vary everywhere, and same will apply to 5G too. Fiber has incredible capacity and can be upgraded by changing OLT and ONT equipment on both sides. It can also run multiple protocols. 2 Gbps XGPON2 is starting to roll out in my country and it's a rather simple upgrade (but costly). If your ISP isn't offering gigabit on fiber, it's purely motivated by greed an…

I have GPON FTTH, as in I can see the fiber strand coming into my apartment. If I call providers and offer to buy beyond 1Gbps for ANY PRICE, even on enterprise plans, they can't do it.

The network is not technically capable of it.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#87

Post by milankragujevic »

0xy wrote: post #86
milankragujevic wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. 4G is severly limited in capacity so speed will vary everywhere, and same will apply to 5G too. Fiber has incredible capacity and can be upgraded by changing OLT and ONT equipment on both sides. It can also run multiple protocols. 2 Gbps XGPON2 is starting to roll out in my country and it's a rather simple upgrade (but costly). If your ISP isn't offering gigabit on fiber, it's purely motivated by greed an…

I have GPON FTTH, as in I can see the fiber strand coming into my apartment. If I call providers and offer to buy beyond 1Gbps for ANY PRICE, even on enterprise plans, they can't do it. The network is not technically capable of it.

It doesn't necessarily mean the network is not technically capable, they probably just don't have a plan with faster speeds.

GPON is 2.4/1.2 Gbps and it's shared with multiple users so it's incredibly unlikely that any part if the core infrastructure is limited to Gigabit. Only the CPE is.

You can deploy 2 Gbps service on GPON though the quality will be low-ish, or you can run multiple versions of xPON standards on a single fiber network and offer > 1 Gbps to users who you switch to XGPON2. Others stay with existing CPE and plans and GPON as if nothing changed.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#88

Post by bcrl »

Darmody wrote: post #23

What blows my mind is how a lot of parts in highly developed countries like the US or Germany don't have access to a broadband internet connection. We had a lot of investment from the EU to install optical fibre everywhere, even in small towns. Now we have even small companies that only operate locally with very, very competitive prices.

Canada has the same problem. Prior to COVID-19, the banks I talked to really didn't like the risk profile of fibre builds. Real estate was the be all and end all. Want an interest only million dollar commercial real estate loan? Sure! Broadband infrastructure? Nope, that's too risky. As a small provider, you need to get to somewhere north of 500 customers just to break even, and then you need your next $5-10 million to keep building. Governments think that point in time funding programs are the solution, but they're not. Small communities need access to long term amortization of construction costs, similar to other government programs for large infrastructure projects that are available to municipalities. It's a real challenge to get anywhere in underserved communities.

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#89

Post by fomine3 »

anuila wrote: post #79
Aldipower wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you are wrong. The speed of light is not constant. :) The speed of light depends on the medium, where the reference (or max speed) is the speed of light in vacuum. The speed of light in a diamond is only half of the speed in vacuum for example! This is why the latency of the low orbit satellites is lower then the cable bound connection.

IANAS but from what I understand, the speed is constant, but it appears to travel more slowly due to the atoms found along the way, which absorb and reemit the photon. In the case of the fibers, the light just bounces on the walls of the tube, effectively lengthening the distance it has to travel. It's like saying that I did not drive a 50 mph simply because I took a longer detour: I still drove 50 mph, but I did not…

Also fun: low latency fiber is made in space.

https://upward.issnationallab.org/the-race-to-manufacture-zb...

Re: Starlink Beta Has Outperformed Most Internet in the US

#90

Post by fomine3 »

navaati wrote: post #69
Yoofie wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Starlink has always marketed itself as a service provider for remote and hard to service areas. I'm not sure why people here keep thinking they will provide service to urban areas.

Sometimes you have not-great connection even deep in the city. I’m in a city touching Paris right now, 60k persons on a 1.5 by 1.5km square, one of the densest part of France. Well I have a shit ADSL (not VDSL !) connection, despite everyone else in the street having FTTH, because the HOA of my building won’t bother…

On your situation, 4G/5G should be a solution rather than Starlink.
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