SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

[AudubonB]

Here is a photo during construction, you can use it when ever you have to say your not going over board with wiring.

Of course I am the silly person that towed a 50 ft boom lift with our Model X to do a point to point wireless project....

Wiring
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Friend on the boom lift attaching the UBNT gear to our old house
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Towing the boom lift back up to the Phoenix area from Tucson
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-Harry

Veering off topic, but I had to share that tow-behind boom to my good friends in the crane business. I'd no idea such a spider existed. Wonder what its usable lift weights are. Might have to get one just to place holiday lights!

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Here is a photo during construction, you can use it when ever you have to say your not going over board with wiring.
...
-Harry

I see a distinct lack of conduit. If I was doing new construction, I'd put in conduit everywhere for easy future upgrades.

 

[banned-66611]

And I have to imagine that distances will be like Airline Routes on StarLink, while fiber will be just fat pipes from city to city that will lbe potentially heading the wrong direction to get to some long-haul connections and again at the other end, while the StarLink routing will be direct, potentially take it over the north pole using laser links and then directly down to the beam at the destination. Or does there need to be a gound station in the mix?

The satellite-to-satellite laser links might not be real. They haven't actually demonstrated them yet, and I don't believe that the current satellites have the capability.

 

[Matias]

The satellite-to-satellite laser links might not be real. —-I don't believe that the current satellites have the capability.

They don’t

 

[Matias]

That assumes that they will route longer distance traffic over laser link. Even if they get the laser links working one day they will have limited bandwidth and most traffic will likely be just sent back down to the surface for routing.

Having said that these days it's less important as most stuff is cache on a CDN somewhere near you anyway.

Excuse my ignorance, but why would laser links have limited bandwidth?

 

[scaesare]

Here is a photo during construction, you can use it when ever you have to say your not going over board with wiring.

Of course I am the silly person that towed a 50 ft boom lift with our Model X to do a point to point wireless project....

Wiring
View attachment 616677

Friend on the boom lift attaching the UBNT gear to our old house
View attachment 616678

Towing the boom lift back up to the Phoenix area from Tucson
View attachment 616679

-Harry

A man after my own heart. My house was already finished when we bought it, but had an unfinished basement, which I wired the heck out of, as well as fished a bunch of additional first floor runs. Also ran a service conduit to the outside of the house and have a chase up to the attic from the basement.

 

[Cosmacelf]

of course I put in 121 drops of Cat6A in a ~2,000 SQ FT house.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Different sub topic:
Given the very mixed product quality and service provided by Tesla, is anyone else concerned about how dealing with Starlink will be?

Delivering Internet service sucks. A huge number of "problems" people have is with their f-upped WiFi. They blame the ISP for everything. Indeed, most customers think their ISP is responsible for delivering pristine WiFi into the furthest away lathe and plaster constructed bathroom in the house. I do not envy any ISP's customer service department.

Starlink will have its challenges. Given that a single tree branch whipping around in the wind is enough to interrupt service, Starlink should make sure to set expectations accordingly. So far, they've started well by calling their beta "better than nothing". Keep the marketing and expectations honest.

 

[banned-66611]

Excuse my ignorance, but why would laser links have limited bandwidth?

Because they don't confine the light like fibre does. Currently the fastest space based laser comms systems are only peaking at about 10Gb/sec, which is low end consumer grade fibre speed.

 

[banned-66611]

No, it does not. Watch the videos. Even with ground routing long distances are still faster with Starling.

That makes no sense due to the latency of sending the signal up and then back down again. Only in extreme edge cases is that going to be faster than taking a direct route over ground.

 

[banned-66611]

SpaceX's Starlink internet shows fast speeds during early tests, capable of gaming and streaming

"Capable", the favourite weasel word of ISPs everywhere, along with "up to". I'm going to suggest to my ISP that I pay them "up to" the number it has on my bill.

Truth is nobody really knows at this point, and won't know until the service has a decent number of subscribers.

 

[Matias]

Because they don't confine the light like fibre does. Currently the fastest space based laser comms systems are only peaking at about 10Gb/sec, which is low end consumer grade fibre speed.

I’m just a layman. But isn’t laser beam already itself confined?

 

[Cosmacelf]

I’m just a layman. But isn’t laser beam already itself confined?

I think the beams are designed to spread out. You want the spot size of the beam on the receiving end to be relatively big since tracking it between two moving objects isn’t easy. I would imagine there are a host of other engineering problems and considerations as well.

 

[Matias]

I think the beams are designed to spread out. You want the spot size of the beam on the receiving end to be relatively big since tracking it between two moving objects isn’t easy. I would imagine there are a host of other engineering problems and considerations as well.

I did quick googling and laser spreads a little by itself. Normal value is 3 mrad. According to this, a beam wich is 1mm wide would be 300 metres ad 100 kms distance

pseudonomen137's JScript Diameter Calculator

 

[bxr140]

Office pool for 2020 starlink launches? I’ll say 17.

Are we playing closest to the pin or Price Is Right rules?

Well, how'd everyone do? My math says 14 starlink launches happened in 2020, with no more on the books.

Anyone have any thoughts on the pandemic handicap? My vote is for "3".

 

[mongo]

New article that includes some Starlink planned deployments to underserved areas I was not aware of.
SpaceX Starlink rollout continues to uplift rural schools, Native Americans

 

[banned-66611]

Amazon is testing their rival system which claims 400Mbps and "low latency". As ever the laws of physics make both claims dubious.

Amazon’s answer to SpaceX Starlink delivers 400Mbps in prototype phase

 

[HVM]

"the average internet connection speed [in USA] was 18.75 Mbps"
Ten times better than average is not mediocre just by definition. But what ever.

 

[Lindamon]

At the risk of speaking for everyone here, it would be useful for you to provide actual supporting logic when making claims. Near as I can figure:

1. You have not established that Starlink is mediocre by today's standards. Again, it is not; the latency is more than adequate for low latency applications, and there is no evidence that latency demands in the near future will become materially more stringent. Again, the notional speed of 100mbps, even in an "up to 100mbps" scenario, is more than adequate for today's standards and there's no evidence to suggest that average demand in the near-mid future will exceed that level, and certainly not in the next 5 years, which is +/- when this current generation of Starlinks will go EOL.
2. You have avoided quantifying load/speed/demand in the near future. Again, please explain what you think average load will be in the future. It seems as though you think you <ahem> understand this subject matter thoroughly, so a parametric projection should be no problem, yeah?
3. You have avoided addressing the cost of fiber. Again, how much will it cost to run fiber to everyone in the US, or a region...or honestly, any relevant geographical metric anywhere in the world.

You seem to fully dismiss (or not understand) the intended user base for Starlink; but instead of me making further assumptions on your understanding how about you explain who's actually going to be using Starlink? Then, iffn you wouldn't mind, please re-address the above in the context of the actual Starlink user base.

(Spoiler alert, its for people with shitty or no internet)

I am one of those folks with crappy internet service. We depend on a tower in our neighborhood to beam to another tower two miles away, and then I believe another tower several more miles away before it gets to a hard system of cable, or whatever it is. It’s better than Hughes net, as weather doesn’t affect it, though they shut down the tower equipment if a hurricane is imminent.

We also have regular outages, monthly at the least, for hours at a time, and sometimes days, and streaming in the evening can be slow when everybody is home. We don’t game online, and I have no idea what the latency is, but I’m sure it is slow. We pay $90/monthly for this service. We also depend on it for decent phone service, without it we have 1-2 bars from Verizon, and I doubt 5g is coming out here anytime soon, nor is cable or fiber anywhere on the horizon

I am signed up for when Starlink comes available as they move south with service. It may turn out to be as bad or worse than what we have, obviously there is no way to be sure, but I am ready for an alternative, if only it is more dependable.

 

[scaesare]

No it doesn't.

Actually more like 2/3rds.... but are you ignoring the larger point that the 150% speed advantage in a vacuum helps offset the additional distance incurred by the ground/sat round-trip?