There are plenty of non-technical consumers who have had a very unwilling education in what latency is and how it differs from speed.
We could use objective reporting of internet speeds in finer detail. Any ideas?
Original comment:
--HughesNet's average latency is now 62ms, 58 ms jitter,--
https://broadbandnow.com/HughesNet-speed-test
--That's quite reasonable.--
And that's assuming perfect conditions and ignoring the rest of the normal latency encountered online. It's physically impossible to have a latency lower than ~480ms with geostationary satellites.
t=0 You send out ICMP request
t=120ms it hits the satelite
t=240ms it arrives at the ground station, ICMP reply occurs
t=360ms hits satelite
t=480ms arrives back at the originating machine
1) You're pinging a device on satellite in GEO (one you don't have LOS to)
2) You're pinging a device that's also connected via a different GEO 120 degrees away from the first
in this case you'll
t=0 You send out ICMP request
t=120ms it hits the satelite
t=240ms it arrives at the ground station 1
t=280ms arrives at ground station 2
t=400ms hits satelite #2
t=520ms arrives back at the destination
t=640ms response arrives at sat #2
t=800ms response arrives at ground station 2
t=840ms response arrives at GS#1
t=960ms response arrives at sat #1
t=1080ms response arrives back at originating machine
t=0 You send out ICMP request
t=120ms it hits the satelite
t=355ms hits satelite #2
t=475ms arrives at destination
t=595ms response arrives at sat #2
t=830ms response arrives at sat #1
t=950ms response arrives back at originating machine
I'm afraid you are drastically underestimating how much it actually costs to install fiber.
Regarding the 3rd world, Facebook offered India free internet with strings attached, and IIRC they rejected it. That idea wasn't too popular there or here.
Would Musk be given a pass for offering discounted or free internet to 3rd world countries, and what strings would investors suggest he attach?
Why would he want to do that? Facebook wanted to do that, because that would drive more users to their platform. SpaceX wants to use Starlink in order to bankroll BFR[0], so what they want is to simply sell the service at a price point that generates them enough money. It's not beneficial to them to discount it, make it free, or play other shenanigans.
--
[0] - Or whatever it's called now; it'll always be the BFR in my heart.
Because granting internet fast lanes to certain content providers is a way to generate revenue.
Zero-rating is already happening [1].
If money is your only goal, that's completely rational. However, that's not how I've typically heard people champion Musk. He's been lauded as a progressive person whose aims are meant to serve humanity, not merely his wallet. Supposedly.
Some would make the argument that if everyone worked with only their wallet in mind, we'd be better off. I wouldn't.
> Elon seems to be more idealist than most
Elon is not an idealistic engineer, he is a businessman. He actively misleads about products he must have been told will not meet the timelines he promotes.
> about the fate of humanity
Not sure where you get this idea. The way he talks about AGI taking over the world is creepy. He thinks it's inevitable, nevermind that we have no idea how to design anything close to AGI.
That said, internet already tends to be the infrastructure demand best satisfied in developing countries. Building cell phone towers is much easier than building roads, and with cheap labor and no purchasing power comes cheap internet.
Let's see whether it is net-neutral internet or not, then judge. My guess is it will have exclusive offers to content distributors in order to lower cost.
I think your parent also meant the developed world.
In devloping countries it's sometimes much easier to get fibre. No or very little infrastructure means no old copper wires lying around. You can go fibre instantly this way.
Every satellite internet offering targets rural settings, ships and planes. StarLink is no different, just that they will be competitive in a wider range of such settings.
We need to do both, as Seattle has proven with its sporadic availability of gigabit fiber and the shutdown of third parties attempting to bring it here.
In fact, doing the latter IS doing the former.
I'll throw stones as much as I like, thanks.
Due to the mandatory client base skew, the city is causing them to redline middle and high income areas of the city. Fiber is in Georgetown and Rainer Valley, but your SoL in Fremont's built up areas and in Sand Point.
Universal coverage should have been mandated, but its easy to end up like Kenmore (which required total Fios coverage from Verizon, now Frontier) and has seen Finn Hill go unserviced for years. Enforcement of the franchise contract is just as critical as initial negotiation.
Outside of a few select areas, most of Seattle only ever saw ADSL (or no DSL in parts of the north end) as we didn't allow large VDSL2 cabinets in the public ROW. I think this has caused Centurylink to build fiber in the city, as they've rarely overbuilt VDSL2 areas like Bellevue, Kent & Auburn.
Nope. I live square in the middle of it, can't get double digit mbps download speeds from them.
I've noticed they seem to offer ADSL (6mbps) after 6pm or so at addresses that already have fiber, presumably their prequal database for fiber goes offline for a few hours a day.
They say it's available just a few blocks over. That's been the case for a long time and they can't seem to get it about 0.25 miles further. Been that way for years.
It threatens the existing entrenched providers everywhere. They can't hide from it. They will have no choice but to respond. They face a scenario losing tens of millions of access customers over time to this approach. And the existing options are priced so high in the US, it provides a big fat margin opportunity for Starlink & Co. to target (and ride for the benefit of paying for the buildout).
We had to go to space to route around the cable oligopoly, beyond their local crony jurisdictions.
Also can you support the premise that their customers would be concentrated in major metros, when the biggest beneficiaries will be outside of metros where broadband options are drastically worse (which is why the primary market for HughesNet the past two decades has not been concentrated in major metros).
Access providers in metros can soundly compete with Starlink. They'll lower prices, increase speeds, improve bundles, etc. Their infrastructure and customers are already in place there, they won't just ignore Starlink, they'll compete. That heavily limits the upside potential for the Starlink concept in metros. It's everwhere else, mostly lacking any real broadband, that Starlink & Co will face minimal competition and will particularly lure customers. It's why HughesNet still has over a million customers today.
I've seen a lot of people claim - with very little supporting evidence thus far - that the market is extremely limited due to capacity restraint.
While you're proving out your claim, if you don't mind given that you've got a strong handle on the market ceiling, please provide what you believe to be the maximum subscriber potential for Starlink - and the approach in general - in the US over time.
The MIT work linked in this thread calculates a total worldwide capacity in the ~20 Tbps range for Starlink.
0. http://www.mit.edu/~portillo/files/Comparison-LEO-IAC-2018-s...
Yes, life is a great teacher.
HughesNet sends me a post card every quarter or so. Sure I live in the middle of nowhere and would seeming be likely to want it. What makes me laugh is even the old people in the area who you'd think wouldn't know how to use a computer will warn friends, neighbors and community not to use them. They may not know the term latency, but they know that the quality of calls are poor and they know uploading videos from their phones takes way too long.
LTE may have put a dent in that model though.
In addition you’ve usually got only 1-2 networks in deep rural.
Source : I run an MVNO.