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Comment by shaklee3 | Hacker News Reader

Yup, and Starlink was also going to provide a 1Gbps service with a very low failure rate (now we know both of those aren't true). That article cites no sources, and SpaceX has not publicly said they've successfully tested cross-links. Even if they had, it only matters when they're actually being used.

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What is the failure rate issue they are having? I haven't seen anything about that. Is this referring to their early satellites being decommissioned? Does that matter as long as their coverage stays the same since those were early prototypes and they are replacing them so quickly?

https://planet4589.org/space/stats/megacon/starbad.html

Ignoring the "0.9" satellites, this says 694 out of 713 launched so far are good. Is 97% success bad?

97% success is very bad when the number of satellite is so high that it causes space junk, yes. See here: https://twitter.com/ProfHughLewis/status/1312021242900295688

Thankfully these are all in LEO and the vast majority are under a controlled decay, and those that are not currently were most likely placed in a specific orbit to decay safely first per your starbad link.

The failure rate is low, everything else is just FUD spread by the competition who no they can't win in a fair fight. And how do you know 1Gbps is not achievable? Just because the first couple test publically available test didn't doesn't mean much really.

The have said that they have launched with laser links, however not that it was successfully tested them.

The existing satellite providers could provide a 1Gbps plan, but it's not economically feasible. Any of the multiple Gbps communications satellites could do that. SpaceX can also do it, but it's not economically feasible based on everything we know about the cost of the system. I know Elon gets a pass on pretty much anything he says, but it's not okay to continually make claims that will clearly not be true.

The difference is that Starlink will have 10000+ satellites and traditional systems have far, far, far, far less. Saying 'its not viable for <old system>' and concluding its not viable for Starlink is a terrible line of argument.

I would assume the base performance is not that much, but it clearly not some crazy number for the Starlink system.

The number of satellites has nothing to do with my hard the inter satellite links are. higher bandwidth links are much more expensive and harder to get right (harder meaning never been done at those rates). It's fine that you are in the camp of anything as possible, but that doesn't mean that it really is.

Often you don't even have to go threw inter satellite links, often it makes more sense to go down to the closes base stations. Specially if those base stations are right on the roof or next to the datacenters of the major companies. SpaceX base stations will likely be colocated with exchanges and that is also where many caches are (Netflix, Google and so on).

Even if you use inter satellite links, Starlink has many links and can schedule the path depending on demand on the network.

I'm not sure what you are even arguing, its very likely possible to get 1Gb, if SpaceX will over this, or only over it for limited time for extra price is clearly jet unknown. But saying 'current GEO satellites don't offer it so Starlink will not' simply doesn't work as an argument.

> harder meaning never been done at those rates

So nobody has done it so its not possible? That the worst argument ever. Laser link technology is at the very beginning. I think SpaceX had enough of 'experts' claiming things aren't possible even when physics doesn't at all show this to be the case.

No. If you have enough inter satellite links, it is almost always better to use those unless there is congestion. It's simple math.

You misread my other response. The reason I believe SpaceX will not offer 1G plans, except at a ridiculously high price, is because it's not profitable. GEO satellites could do it now if they wanted to, and their cost per bit is far lower than SpaceX.

Nobody has ever said physics is limiting this. Just because they were able to land a rocket doesn't magically make an entirely separate section of the company capable of doing things that haven't been done before. And the technical parts aren't even the biggest argument. The biggest argument is still that if they do not get government money, it is not financially feasible.

And I don't know what you are talking about with being co-located next to "exchanges", since that is extremely vague. The known POPs they are using thus far are not major ones. And because The satellites are so close to the Earth, they need many, many gateways in rural areas to keep the bandwidth high.

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