[HN Gopher] What do Starlink's latest Ookla results mean for its...
___________________________________________________________________
What do Starlink's latest Ookla results mean for its RDOF winnings?
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 42 points
Date : 2022-06-30 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fiercetelecom.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fiercetelecom.com)
| ortusdux wrote:
| I am still confused about ground station density. As I understand
| it, the ground stations and satellites both use beam-forming to
| direct their signals. Early on I heard conjecture that this would
| limit the number of ground stations that could be deployed in a
| given area. At best, this would have required splitting up
| bandwidth between ground stations in dense areas. Could this
| account for the lower than expected speeds?
|
| I had actually gone so far as to assume that the early semi-
| randomness of their beta testing was partly explained by this
| limitation after hearing countless complaints of "my neighbor got
| theirs, where is mine?". I also assumed that they were going to
| make hybridized 5G ground stations for deployment in dense areas.
|
| Those assumptions were dashed when I stayed at a VRBO with a
| starlink connection, and noticed that both the houses on either
| side also had their own dishes. I chatted with a neighbor, and we
| both ran a speed test at the same time, yielding ~90/15.
| tzs wrote:
| I tried to do a few months ago some back of the envelope math
| about Starlink.
|
| They are aiming for 12 000 satellites. A given satellite at the
| altitude Starlink uses should be visible at any average time
| from about 3% of the surface of the Earth. That would on
| average be 360 satellites visible from a given spot if they
| were all spread out uniformly throughout the sky. But the
| orbits are such that they don't go far north or south. There
| will be more visible in the areas they can serve and few to
| none visible outside those areas. I don't know how big the
| concentration into the service area is, so I'm just going to
| guess and say 1 000 visible to a given customer at a given
| time.
|
| Their next generation satellites are specced at having 80 Gbps
| bandwidth to the ground, which is enough for 800 simultaneous
| downloads at the full advertised speed.
|
| But most users do not go all out downloading all the time. I've
| read that most Comcast users only reach about 1/4 of Comcast's
| monthly data cap, which corresponds to an average use of 1
| Mbps, which is 1/100th of the advertised Starlink speed.
|
| Assuming Starlink users also use an average over time of just
| 1% of their advertised maximum, we get one satellite could
| support 80 000 users. Taking into account 1 000 satellites
| visible at any one time from any one average user location, and
| the area covered by those satellites, I got that Starlink could
| handle on average 11 users per square mile or 4.4 users per
| square kilometer.
|
| Note that this doesn't mean that there can't be spots with
| higher user density. Just that the average density over the
| service area would need to not exceed that. Islands of density
| in a sea of very sparsely populated land would be OK.
|
| My calculations assumes that any user could use any visible
| satellite. I think they are more constrained than that which
| probably means my allowable density estimates are a little
| high.
| ncmncm wrote:
| They publish a different number of satellites in every single
| place I have read. Some places they say 19000, some even
| more.
|
| Guessing that in places where the cost of keeping the
| constellation filled out is considered, they quote smaller
| numbers, and for subscribers per satellite, higher numbers.
| Diederich wrote:
| What conclusions if any can you draw from this?
| zizee wrote:
| Whilst I agree with most of what you wrote, you need to
| adjust your thinking on this bit:
|
| > ... most Comcast users only reach about 1/4 of Comcast's
| monthly data cap, which corresponds to an average use of 1
| Mbps ...
|
| Household internet consumption, on average, varies greatly
| during the day. Most bandwidth usage is from streaming video,
| and that is mostly done when people are awake, and for a lot
| of people only in the evenings.
|
| Your 1% calculation is made with the assumption that usage is
| constant, and is spread evenly across every minute of the
| day/month. In reality it is mostly all happening in a six
| hour period (that's an educated guess). Starlink would have
| to service this peaky traffic, your numbers are 4x out.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| A ground station isn't a client terminal. Ground stations are
| what provide the upstream link to the internet.
|
| Client terminals are more like cell modems.
| invisible wrote:
| Starlink seems to be impacted by obstructions but can still
| function and this would impact Ookla's numbers significantly. I
| don't think it falls on SpaceX to go trim the tree that is
| impacting a customer's speed. The silliest part to me is that
| Ookla is ignoring latency -- it's not mentioned in the article at
| all. Other satellite providers are literally >600ms while
| Starlink is <100ms.
| happyopossum wrote:
| Pretty sure this is just a hit piece directly or indirectly
| influenced by Viasat. Ookla results mean nothing to RDOF, nor do
| any results today mean anything for a 2028 goal.
|
| If anything, it's a great sign that v1 of a new service (which is
| only ~15% deployed) is even close to the RDOF commitments. V2
| satellites and p2p laser will be inlay before 2028, along with
| far more terrestrial POPs, which will all improve service.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Totally agree this is a hit piece; pretty much everyone who has
| taken federal money to deliver rural broadband has done far
| worse than Starlink. That being said...
|
| > V2 satellites and p2p laser will be inlay before 2028, along
| with far more terrestrial POPs, which will all improve service.
|
| Is this something that there is more evidence for than just
| "Musk says so" since he is notorious for promising results on
| unrealistic timelines.
| phnofive wrote:
| See today's FCC ruling^ which calls this out for your answer:
|
| "We conclude that grant of SpaceX's requests for ESIM
| authorizations and Kepler's request for ESV authority, including
| for operations in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band, as conditioned and set
| forth herein, will serve the public interest by enabling SpaceX
| and Kepler to offer expanded broadband capabilities and serve
| unserved and underserved areas."
|
| ^ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31938789
| anewpersonality wrote:
| Who supplies the "carrier"/backbone for Starlink?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Any fiber carrier serving that hub locale.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Depends on location. They have arrangements with Google to
| share networking from their datacenters, so presumably those
| form a large portion of the backbone in the US.
| Retric wrote:
| Starlink only needs to reach 100/20 in select locations by 2028
| not maintain that level of service to all US customers.
|
| Looking at their current coverage map they likely applied
| specifically in low density areas so they could be largely
| meeting their obligations today.
| gvb wrote:
| The "Rural Digital Opportunity Fund" (RDOF) was created
| specifically to provide internet access to low density areas.
| Retric wrote:
| Yes, but it's broken up into thousands of different areas and
| Starlink didn't agree to provide service to every single one.
|
| Looking at this map: https://www.starlink.com/map about half
| of the US is at maximum capacity but because the RDOF has
| such granularity they could pick and pick the lest congested
| areas for their bids.
|
| PS: The granularity is reasonable when you consider a Texas
| ISP might have agreed to build out capacity in Texas but not
| North Dakota.
| gvb wrote:
| "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted
| SpaceX permission to fly 12,000 Starlink satellites" [1]
|
| "As of early January 2022, SpaceX had launched more than 1,900
| Starlink satellites overall."[ibid]
|
| They've launched only 15% of the satellites that they are
| authorized to launch and they are launching more at a pretty
| rapid pace. I doubt they are too worried about meeting their
| bandwidth requirements.
|
| [1] https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html
| ncmncm wrote:
| Numbers matter.
|
| The more subscribers they add, the less bandwidth is available
| for each. Adding more birds does not increase overall
| bandwidth, it just decreases the number of subscribers using
| each bird. But only a tiny fraction of birds are in range of
| _any_ subscribers, at any time, so all the subscribers are
| piled onto those few, and most of them on even fewer.
|
| To be a viable business, able to pay for and launch new birds
| at the rate they age out and burn up, they need to grow the
| number of subscribers way, way faster than they can add birds,
| until bandwidth available per subscriber gets very low.
|
| Money available to pay for buying and launching birds is only a
| fraction of income, because they also need to pay for trunk
| bandwidth, add hub stations, and subsidize terminals, which
| cost way more than the entry price. Trunk bandwidth cost
| increases with subscriber count.
|
| Most potential subscribers who _could_ afford the service have
| better terrestrial service already. So it is far from clear,
| even if they could supply the bandwidth for as many subscribers
| as they will need, that they can get that many. They could get
| more by cutting prices, but then take in too little to keep
| their constellation filled out.
|
| Government subsidies could paper over the difference, but most
| subscribers will be in countries other than the few writing
| checks.
| gvb wrote:
| > The more subscribers they add, the less bandwidth is
| available for each. Adding more birds does not increase
| overall bandwidth, it just decreases the number of
| subscribers using each bird. But only a small fraction of
| birds are in range of any subscribers, at any time, so all
| the subscribers are piled onto those few.
|
| "SpaceX's initial application to the Federal Communications
| Commission stated that each Starlink satellite would have the
| capacity for 17 to 23 Gbps" [1]
|
| a) More satellites means fewer subscribers on each satellite
| to share the 17-23Gbps bandwidth per satellite. If (when)
| they get the satellite-to-satellite communications going,
| that will offload a lot of relay traffic from the satellite-
| earth links freeing up that bandwidth to be used by
| subscribers as well.
|
| b) StarLink is already limiting subscriptions based on
| service area and satellite coverage. When The Man comes
| measuring, they should be OK.
|
| [1] https://www.govtech.com/network/experts-closing-the-
| digital-...
| ncmncm wrote:
| At issue is whether it is viable without subsidy from non-
| subscribing taxpayers. Betting not. Betting he is relying
| on subscribers having enough political muscle to make that
| happen indefinitely.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Musk has said that the current version of Satellite V1 is
| "financially weak", that V2 is necessary to achieve their
| bandwidth goals.
|
| > The consequences for SpaceX if we can not get enough
| reliable Raptors made is that we then can't fly Starship,
| which means we then can't fly Starlink Satellite V2 (Falcon
| has neither the volume nor the mass to orbit needed for
| satellite V2). Satellite V1, by itself, is financially weak,
| while V2 is strong.
|
| > In addition, we are spooling up terminal production to
| several million units per year, which will consume massive
| capital, assuming that satellite V2 will be on orbit to
| handle the bandwidth demand. These terminals will be useless
| otherwise.
|
| https://spaceexplored.com/2021/11/29/spacex-raptor-crisis/
| ncmncm wrote:
| In other words, he agrees with my assessment. I conclude
| that he is counting on those subsidies continuing
| indefinitely. He might strong-arm other governments to pony
| up so their politically better-served citizens or subjects
| can use it, at the expense of non-subscribers.
| Aea wrote:
| The standards will be weakened until compliance improves.
| ncmncm wrote:
| This.
| NDizzle wrote:
| My experience, lately (the last ~2 months) is that Starlink is
| oversold. I switch to my backup LTE connection during prime time
| evening hours in order to stream anything at a reasonable clip.
| Perhaps it is my base station that's overwhelmed, but I'm not
| that impressed anymore.
| jcims wrote:
| It's going to be a moving target. Just guessing I would say I
| average 90/10 in Ohio as of late. Last summer it was 180/30 or
| so.
|
| The thing is they have <3,000 operational satellites from a
| planned constellation of >30,000, so it's currently oversold
| but capacity is a moving target.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Given that the cable companies pocketed huge amounts of money for
| rural expansion without ever delivering, I doubt the RDOF
| winnings will be clawed back.
| guardiangod wrote:
| >Even with that boost, the service still only delivered
| downstream rates of 90.55 Mbps, leaving it well short of the
| 144.2 Mbps median posted by the industry as a whole.
|
| >All of this data begs the question: What happens if Starlink
| can't meet the 100/20 Mbps speed obligations attached to its
| Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) projects?
|
| Am I the only one who raise my eyebrows? What's the median for
| wireless internet delivery? What does that has to do with RDOF's
| completion requirement (by 2028)? How is StarLink doing at this
| point comparing to the other RDOF winners in terms of deployment?
|
| From the actual Ookla article-
|
| >while Starlink download speeds were slower than fixed broadband
| for all providers combined in the U.S. (144.22 Mbps) and Canada
| (106.86 Mbps).
|
| Oh 144.22 Mbps is the industry median of _wired_ broadband. Well
| no shi* wireless is slower. Starlink can always deploy more
| satellites to service the demand. Is this a hit piece on
| Starlink?
| akozak wrote:
| Setting aside the high cost of growing the constellation, I'm
| not sure they can just add more satellites even in theory. As I
| understand it Starlink has performance tradeoffs wrt to density
| of ground stations. Others on HN would probably know more
| though.
| exclusiv wrote:
| Starlink took govt funds and is obligated to deliver 100/20 at
| a minimum.
|
| I own 2 starlinks at different locations and I can tell you 1
| of those locations is consistently MUCH under that.
|
| That being said, I am pleased with starlink at one location as
| it absolutely blows away the next best available option.
| [deleted]
| jpgvm wrote:
| The regional speed differences are due to Starlink current
| reliance on ground stations and terrestrial backhaul. If they
| can get sat-sat links working and transition their backhaul
| onto those links that will no only eliminate the regional
| performance differences but likely also be faster than any
| terrestrial options over long distances.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Sat-sat links only save them some landline bandwidth cost,
| allow them to serve airliners over oceans and deserted
| areas, and enable lower trans-continental latency for
| select super-high-paying customers (i.e. hedge funds and
| maybe military). They do not improve bandwidth overall.
| kjksf wrote:
| It does (or at least can) improve a bandwidth of any give
| satellite due to load balancing.
|
| Let's say you're in SF, served by a satellite that is
| currently over SF.
|
| You're talking to a server in NY.
|
| Your data has to go up to a satellite and come down from
| satellite to a base station.
|
| Currently this uses 2x bandwidth for this one satellite.
|
| But let's say SF satellite is maxed out but there
| currently is a satellite over Nevada desert with a spare
| capacity.
|
| With inter-satellite links and proper routing, your data
| could go up in SF and come down in Nevada dessert, making
| more bandwidth available in SF.
|
| The satellites have a full coverage of US area but there
| are large parts of land where there's very little use of
| available bandwidth.
|
| If SpaceX builds enough base station scattered around US,
| they could almost 2x the bandwidth available in areas
| with high density of customers.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Limiting bandwidth is the downlink to terminals. Probably
| the birds will have edge service contracts to proxy
| content, saving on uplink from hubs.
|
| They might even be equipped to broadcast identical real-
| time content (e.g. world cup) once for all terminals
| following. (Anyway I would make that work, in their
| place.)
| wmf wrote:
| I'm pretty sure you have it backwards; the current
| configuration of going through one satellite is always
| going to be faster [edit: higher throughput] than going
| through multiple satellite hops.
| jpgvm wrote:
| It's possible for it to be faster over long distances
| because light travels faster in vacuum than in glass
| fibre and likely less hops in space vs terrestrially
| where transit would need to go via several carriers to
| reach far destinations.
|
| That is putting aside ground stations located in areas
| which themselves have poor transit which is the main
| problem with regional variability of performance I would
| imagine, though could also be congestion if they are
| oversubscribing in those regions. i.e too much density of
| terminals.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Lower latency is very, very far from the same thing as
| more bandwidth. Certain customers can benefit from the
| difference in latency. Not you, though.
|
| Starlink will make those who would benefit (hedge funds,
| mainly) pay through the nose to get it. And, pay _even
| more_ to keep somebody else from getting it. Probably
| they will charge a huge premium for 1ms faster than
| fiber, and 100x more for each ms better than that.
|
| You may be certain they will not use that extra income to
| provide you better value.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Their stated plan is to enable the inter-satellite links
| for all customers. This will allow them to reach many
| more customers with lower operational costs. This would
| probably allow for more profit than just charging a few
| customers a premium for lower latency service.
| wmf wrote:
| Enabling the inter-satellite links for all customers
| doesn't guarantee they'll use much more expensive cold-
| potato routing though. It makes no sense to cross the
| ocean on 20 Gbps lasers when you could use a 20 Tbps
| fiber cable.
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| Honestly, I'm surprised that managed 90Mbps. Beaming internet
| from satellites iis not really a great idea because you are
| essentially doubling the wireless bandwidth required for a
| given level of service. Wireless cell service has the big
| advantage of only needing to use bandwidth for the link from
| the tower to the client while satellites require a link to the
| client and a link back to the ground station. There's also the
| fact that putting a bunch of compute into a satellite is going
| to be way more expensive due to weight, power and cooling in
| space not to mention increased cosmic ray interference.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| It's highly directed radio signals, though, so it's spatially
| separated.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Doesn't help, really.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Sure it does. The most directed RF signal is a wire...
| ncmncm wrote:
| No. A separate wire has its own transceiver. They still
| have to share the transceiver among all subscribers. Beam
| forming saves on transmitter power and receiver S/N
| stats. If it were all just for you, that could improve
| your bandwidth. But it is not.
|
| Lots of people would like you to think otherwise. Now you
| know better.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >What's the median for wireless internet delivery?
|
| Who cares? If they signed up for
|
| >100/20 Mbps speed obligations attached to its Rural Digital
| Opportunity Fund (RDOF) projects
|
| they have to deliver. The article has a valid point.
| Retric wrote:
| They have to deliver that in specific areas by 2028 not
| nationwide today.
|
| Assuming they avoided bidding on areas their network is
| currently contested they might already meet their
| obligations.
| rjbwork wrote:
| I'm on T-Mobile's home internet. With just the modem chilling
| in my room, i can get about 200/20. I've bought an external
| antenna that I'm going to be hooking up to the modem and
| mounting on top of my house soon. Testing it in my front yard I
| was able to get 350/25. Latency/Jitter was also significantly
| better with that antenna.
|
| I'm not super rural, but we have literally no other internet
| options, are on septic/well water, and are about 10 minutes
| from the nearest store by car.
| fatnoah wrote:
| Heck, my upload with a fixed broadband provider in the US was
| 10Mbps! Starlink's cited performance would match that.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Anyone who has lived with rural internet will be blown away by
| 90MB. This is an incredibly high bar.
| wdb wrote:
| Even in Central London (UK) that's fast internet. I can't get
| 90MB in Zone 1
| 867-5309 wrote:
| through your phone line
| ketzo wrote:
| It's an incredibly high bar _that SpaceX explicitly said it
| would meet in order to receive more government funds_.
|
| It's not an arbitrary threshold.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > that SpaceX explicitly said it would meet
|
| By 2028? So where exactly is the sky falling?
| lostlogin wrote:
| They will, and they are judging by reviews.
|
| It's a bit nitpicky but that B needs to be a lowercase one.
| bayindirh wrote:
| They're beaming almost 100mbps from the space to surface of the
| earth, to us, mere consumers, and they're the worst because
| they're slower than some wired solutions?
|
| I'm seriously worried about the pollution they create for
| astronomers, but that's seriously absurd.
|
| Do I need to repeat? They're beaming this from space, to your
| home.
| yellowapple wrote:
| And not just to your home. I'm very strongly considering
| ponying up the money for Starlink to be able to work while
| camped out in the middle of nowhere.
| Alupis wrote:
| The receiver doesn't seem to be easily portable, say on a
| backpacking trip or something. Perhaps that will change in
| the future though.
| yellowapple wrote:
| True, but I've got a pickup :)
| xbar wrote:
| I'm expecting an official cybertruck-bed-based antenna
| dish.
| skykooler wrote:
| The RV receiver fits in a backpack, though you'll need to
| carry a fairly heavy battery to power it for a while.
| mikestew wrote:
| "fits in a backpack", with the implication that it will
| consume the internal volume of said backpack. That does
| not make it a solution for parent's "backpacking trip",
| unless you wish to sleep on the ground in the clothes you
| wore. And you ate before your left. The "heavy battery"
| was just icing on the cake. You know some backpackers saw
| the handles of their toothbrush to impress other
| backpackers^W^W^Wsave weight, right? :-)
|
| That's not to say Starlink or a competitor can't get
| there eventually. I already have pocketable/backpackable
| device that can shove data up and down a satellite link
| (Garmin InReach), it's just dog-slow, and that's likely
| down to the antenna and transmitter power if I were to
| guess. Someone with more RF smarts than I can probably
| cook up a foldable antenna, perhaps boost the power a
| bit, I dunno. But the PoC is there, it just needs
| iteration.
| [deleted]
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I do this. Anywhere I can drag my trailer. I have a
| favorite location up in the mountains that gets no signal
| of any kind, but now that I have Starlink I can get perfect
| Internet there. So instead of going up for a weekend to
| relax, I go up for a week at a time, work during the day,
| and come home on the weekend to top up supplies.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Yep, that's exactly the sort of routine I have in mind.
|
| Longer-term, I'm hoping for that favorite location to be
| a piece of land I actually own, in which case my goal is
| to setup a semi-permanent "base" with solar, Starlink,
| and a yurt or somesuch.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Friend of mine does that and works from ultra-remote
| southwesterns deserts when so inclined.
| [deleted]
| Already__Taken wrote:
| I'm serious that with rent costs increasing, starlink live
| roaming might see a real boost in live-aboard sailors
| jonah wrote:
| Until they have their inter-satellite links working, you
| and the downlink station have to both be visible to the
| same satellite.
| kenchan wrote:
| Mine is arriving today and I'm SUPER stoked. Bye AT&T
| forever!
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| It's not only the pollution. The world is "unwillingly"
| giving up space spots to a company that can use those
| satellites as technological weapons. What happens when a
| Chinese/India/Russia(Insert any non-Anglo "bad" country)
| decides to emulate them , I would happily bet my left kidney
| the _commentariat_ here would not be so happy.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| If Russia wants to use satellites as technological weapons,
| I don't think they're going to ask the FCC for permission.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Would they provide a usable broadband alternative to the
| broomstick-up-butt treatment I get from the telcos?
|
| Hell yes I'd take them. Oh they'd steal my data? Well, so
| does everyone on this site and the telco I have now.
|
| Consider this, Mr Geopolitical power. Do you want the US
| with this weapon, or sit on our ass and let China deploy
| one now that SpaceX has shown how powerful it is?
|
| This is the single greatest Western soft power weapon since
| the iPhone. And you're begrudging it? Come on.
| ncmncm wrote:
| This is not the US. This is a privately held corporation
| answerable to nobody. Whose benefit do you imagine they
| will exercise their power on behalf of? Yours? US
| voters'?
| filoleg wrote:
| > This is not the US. This is a privately held
| corporation
|
| Just like all other ISPs. As well as tech companies.
|
| What's your point? That Starlink is bad because it isn't
| a government-owned entity? Or are you opposed to the idea
| that a non-government entity can provide a strategic
| advantage/soft power to the US government?
|
| Asking because neither of those two points seem to be
| able to withstand much scrutiny.
| ncmncm wrote:
| My point is simply that anyone expecting Starlink will
| treat you better than AT&T does, and to act on behalf of
| the US, is very unfamiliar with both history and Elon
| Musk.
|
| A hell of a lot of Tesla customers paid $thousands for
| self-driving, since, what, 2016? Tesla just laid off its
| whole self-driving department. What are the odds they
| will now issue refunds? Care to bet?
| filoleg wrote:
| > A hell of a lot of Tesla customers paid $thousands for
| self-driving, since, what, 2016? Tesla just laid off its
| whole self-driving department. What are the odds they
| will now issue refunds? Care to bet?
|
| Refunds for what? Every feature I bought the car with is
| still there. Even got the FSD beta access last month
| after being on the waitlist for a while. Updates still
| keep getting pushed, fixes and adjustments still get
| deployed on a regular basis. The self-driving program
| isn't ending, the development is still ongoing and alive,
| so I am not sure why I should be expecting a refund for
| that.
|
| Also, get your news right. The people they recently laid
| off were mostly working on labeling data, they were not
| actual self-driving engineers. Labeling data is a pretty
| common and manual type of a task. I am actually surprised
| they've been doing it in-house for so long, as opposed to
| contracting it out. Not trying to justify that layoff,
| but claiming that it indicates the end of their self-
| driving program is ridiculous at best (and disingenuous
| at worst).
|
| > anyone expecting Starlink will treat you better than
| AT&T does, and to act on behalf of the US, is very
| unfamiliar with both history and Elon Musk
|
| You can make that statement about literally any company,
| and it is always a fool's errand to guess instead of
| evaluating that specific thing in question. You can say
| the same about Google, but I've been a happy Google
| Fiber/Webpass customer for the past few years. I can say
| nothing but good things about it, after many years of
| terrible experience with Comcast/Xfinity, and a few much
| better (but still worse than Google Fiber/Webpass) years
| with WaveG (WA area fiber provider).
|
| In this specific case with Starlink, you don't need to
| guess either. If you live in an area where they provide
| service, you can sign up and compare it to any currently
| existing internet solutions for areas with no high-speed
| internet (rural and far-from-major-cities areas), which
| is the primary use case that Starlink was designed for.
|
| Back to the original point about "private tech company as
| a soft power for the US government is a ridiculous idea."
| In the present day, we got Ukrainian Vice PM tweeting[0]
| his expression of gratitude towards the US government and
| Starlink for providing connectivity during their current
| crisis. What is this if not a proof of that soft power US
| can exhibit through private tech companies?
|
| 0. https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/15327439910
| 658170...
| concordDance wrote:
| US corporations are significantly controlled by US laws.
| These laws can do things like stopping them serving enemy
| countries. (The recent Russia sanctions are an example)
|
| That is power.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| I am latin-American Mr "I think Anglo is the world
| default", in our region the US has been a much more
| pernicious force in history than China,by several orders
| of magnitude. I understand we are just simple apes that
| love to think tribally (the logical part of our brain is
| shut off) but I would expect one is aware enough to
| understand there are other "tribes", specially when
| worldwide one's group does not reach double digits as %
| of population.
| weaponizedlinux wrote:
| Playing the "Holier-than-thou and I think Americans are
| assholes" card combo by itself is not countering their
| point.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It is correct that Starlink is not motivated to act for
| your benefit, any more than for this individual. Your
| interlocutor has long experience with such things. So do
| we, really; are Starlink's incentives aligned any
| different from AT&T's?
|
| A few years back, AT&T took a half $billion from US
| taxpayers to build out fiber to rural neighborhoods. One
| comes to within 1/10 mi of my house. But they were not
| obliged to light any of it. They did not. That fiber sits
| dark, more than a decade on.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| Check out the section "Technology-Neutral Service Tiers"
| https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/factsheet SpaceX bid for "above
| baseline". They still seem to be doing much better than other
| auction winners though.
| mbesto wrote:
| Ya, I was thinking the same thing.
|
| This article seems like it's written by a PR/lobbying firm for
| BigTelCo / Satellite providers.
| ProAm wrote:
| Not really, they are being subsidized by US tax payers to
| provide a service and they are not meeting the terms of the
| contract/agreement. None of Elon's empires would be
| successful without US tax payers so I think the article is
| merely trying to hold them accountable.
| happyopossum wrote:
| No, they haven't violated any contracts...
|
| They have until 2028 to meet the 100/20 numbers _in
| specific areas_. Ookla 's testing was not specific to those
| areas, and was not done in 2028.
|
| But let's not let facts get in the way of irrational anger
| ProAm wrote:
| It's not anger but I think the article (while probably
| written by a competitor or lobby) is reminding the public
| that Musk often makes empty promises and we should not
| let him continue to be subsidized by the US tax payer for
| an inability to deliver on time and on budget. I now see
| Musk also complaining about 5G interfering with Starlink.
| It's all a game, which is fine, but I dont want to pay
| for billionaires entertainment.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| SpaceX chose to target the 100/20 benchmark, and bid on that,
| and because of that, their success is measured against that.
|
| The part that is a bit hit-piecey is this quote from Viasat:
|
| "even if SpaceX were to deploy a full, 4,408-satellite Starlink
| system, that system would fall short in satisfying SpaceX's
| RDOF commitments."
|
| The full Starlink satellite system doesn't have 4,408 sats.
| That's just the Gen 1 constellation. They have committed to
| completing the Gen 2 constellation, with an additional 7,518
| sats, which each provide many times more bandwidth than the Gen
| 1 sats, by 2027, well in time for the RDOF.
| joshcryer wrote:
| Ookla's speed test shows the entire network, not RDOF
| subscribers alone. It should be easy enough for Starlink to
| give RDOF subscribers the slated speeds. So yeah I think the
| article is click bait. Especially since Ookla showed
| _improvement_ year on year for Starlink.
| singlow wrote:
| Is Ookla an official data source for the RDOF evaluation? How
| does Ookla know what the average speed is? It only knows the
| average speed of users that do a speed test and most people only
| do it when they are suspicious of a problem or testing a new
| setup that is likely not yet fully configured. Typically I use it
| when I am installing new hardware and I might get 10 bad results
| and then 1 good result. Once I get the good result I stop. 100
| days go by that I don't need to check it at all until I have a
| slow connection and then I do a speed check and see that it is
| slow. Seems like it would be highly biased towards testing under
| the poorest conditions.
| gostsamo wrote:
| No, in b2b setting, checking internet speed happens on regular
| bases in order to monitor network performance or to confirm
| compliance with the SLA. Have you ever wondered how they do
| their money when the browser test is free?
| samcrawford wrote:
| There isn't an "official data source" for RDOF evaluation. ISPs
| are required to carry out measurements in the markets where
| they've accepted funds. Measurements are carried out on a
| sampled subset of their customers, and a large set of frequent
| measurements has to be produced from each customer.
| Measurements have to be conducted to servers in specific
| locations (you can't just test to a server two miles down the
| road inside the ISP's network). The requirements are pretty
| rigorous and not straightforward to meet (e.g. if a customer
| switches their router off for a day, then that can disqualify
| their measurements entirely - you need a sample every hour,
| every day for at least a week in the quarter). They need to
| submit these measurements to USAC at the end of the quarter, to
| demonstrate that at least X% of measurements met the target of
| Y (it varies by metric).
|
| Generally speaking, crowdsourced measurements (whereby you have
| loads of users but each running very few tests) aren't well
| suited to these requirements.
|
| I'm oversimplifying things here, but more details on the
| requirements can be found at https://www.usac.org/high-
| cost/annual-requirements/performan...
|
| Source: I work in this space
| karmicthreat wrote:
| It mean pretty much nothing. SpaceX has 10 years (2028) to get
| things up and running. If Starship isn't running in a year or two
| SpaceX has more trouble than just the RDOF competition. 2.0
| Starlink sats are theoretically a 10x capacity improvement and it
| NEEDS Starship for launch. Falcon can't lift it.
| noahtallen wrote:
| 2028 is in 6 years, which is a 40% closer than 10 years. But
| other than that I agree
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| That's a decade in Elon Musk time! :-)
| [deleted]
| Bubble_Pop_22 wrote:
| Starlink is a huge waste of money. Laying optical fiber from
| point A to point B will always be cheaper and faster and doesn't
| saturate valuable orbital space which is a scarce resource.
|
| It's a service tailored to suit the needs of yacht owners, cabin
| owners and the RV enthusiasts. Quite simply: tech-bros,
| cryptomillionaires etc.
|
| Musk always targets these types because they are the ones having
| lots free time on their hands and the biggest social megaphone
| provided by their rich bank account. They can use such megaphone
| to shove down working class people's throats a marketing campaign
| and a stock promotion for a service they'll never use or need.
| Not to mention subsidies.
|
| Same identical thing happened with Tesla
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Viasat argued in the aforementioned filing that "even if SpaceX
| were to deploy a full, 4,408-satellite Starlink system, that
| system would fall short in satisfying SpaceX's RDOF commitments."
|
| Well, if their direct competitor says so, case closed!
| doogerdog wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Musk overall, but Starlink is pure gold for us
| in rural America. Before this, my best option was 25Mbps for
| $125/mo.
|
| I installed mine about 5 months ago. You really need to put it in
| a location that has no obstructions for the antenna's oval of
| coverage. The speed varies a lot but overnight and mornings I get
| downloads of 90 to 180Mbps. Afternoon and evening the range is 60
| to 110Mbps. I measure these speeds myself from actual transfers
| of large files over the course of about one hour. Now and then I
| check to see what Ookla - SpeedTest - or Cloudflare report. They
| never agree with each other, even when running concurrently.
|
| The FCC is not going to use Ookla data. The antennas are self
| installed. Many will be slowed down by obstructions, bad cabling
| etc. As mentioned above, many people only test when they have
| trouble. Once the trouble is fixed the new speeds are not added
| to the Ookla database.
|
| Viasat is in a sad position. I don't see how they have a future
| at all. I think they only have two satellites that were launched
| by cheap Proton rockets. With Russia gone, they would have to pay
| much more for any future launches. The one thing they can do is
| spread fear to keep their business afloat a little longer.
| dboreham wrote:
| I built my own WISP which I have run for 20+ years, to get
| myself connectivity. Now I'm seriously considering dismantling
| it because Starlink is almost as fast and way cheaper and less
| maintenance.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Are Falcon 9 launches more expensive than Proton?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| What a joke, Starlink is the best remote service for broadband,
| and there are no others. Please don't say "HughesNet" or some
| geosync service with a straight face.
|
| Of course the FCC and its zombie representatives from legacy
| telco will be assholes to Starlink, but nothing else will
| actually get you service from a warzone, fire zone, a distant
| mountain range, central Africa, etc.
|
| If legacy telco was in charge of starlink, the FCC would make the
| standards whatever they wanted.
|
| The other telcos take years and years of rural broadband funding
| from Congress and just BRAZENLY pocket it and tell the American
| people: "Fuck you, see how much we own the government? THIS
| MUCH".
|
| Starlink provides a paradigm-changing useful service and you get
| crap headlines straight from the lobbyist/astroturfer's mouth.
| Why can't we have nice things? This.
|
| Starlink could double or triple their price and they would
| probably have all their subscribers filled.
|
| Think about what Starlink means to Africa, central asia, interior
| australia, remote south africa. The economic/information access
| to those areas without tens of thousands of 5G towers and laying
| thousands of miles of fiber.
|
| The amount of humans this brings silicon valley's big companies
| into contact with probably increased a by a billion or more. They
| should be sending billions of dollars to SpaceX to get the
| flotilla deployed ASAP.
| haswell wrote:
| Nowhere does the article claim that the Starlink service is
| poor, or that other services come close.
|
| The RDOF auction had specific criteria, and as noted in the
| article, participants could bid at four tiers: 25/3, 50/5,
| 100/20 and 1000/500 Mbps. Simply put, Starlink bid at 100/20,
| and they have an obligation to meet that in order to qualify
| for the fund.
|
| There's plenty of evidence that they can do just that, albeit
| with some open questions about how things will go as they
| continue to roll out the network and take on more subscribers.
|
| I don't understand the anger throughout the rest of this
| comment. Geos that qualify for RDOF funding are just a subset
| of Starlink's market, and arguably any Internet provider
| bidding for those funds should be held to the standard set when
| bidding for those funds.
|
| It's fine (and justified, IMO) to be angry about how crappy
| telcos have been for years, and their misuse of funding is
| certainly upsetting, but are you suggesting that Starlink
| should somehow be absolved of their responsibilities because of
| past transgressions by legacy telcos?
|
| > _Why can 't we have nice things? This._
|
| What is the nice thing here that we cannot have? Why?
|
| > _Think about what Starlink means to Africa, central asia,
| interior australia, remote south africa._
|
| I think the value of Starlink is tremendous hard to estimate,
| especially in these traditionally underserved regions. But how
| does the RDOF funding conversation have anything to do with
| that?
| ncmncm wrote:
| Most of Africa and central Asia cannot afford a terminal.
| Australian outback is too sparsely populated to matter,
| economically.
|
| You seem to imagine Starlink will be motivated to behave better
| than other telecomm companies. I have no clue why you imagine
| this. I expect the more power they amass, the more they will
| use. On their own behalf, not yours.
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