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Comment by 0xWTF | Hacker News Reader

I still think engineering for slow internet is really important, and massively under appreciated by most software developers, but ... LEO systems (like Starlink, especially StarLink) essentially solve the core problems now. I did an Arctic transit (Alaska to Norway) in September and October of 2023, and we could make FaceTime video calls from the ship, way above the Arctic Circle, despite cloud cover, being quite far from land, and ice. This was at the same time OP was in Antartica. Whatever that constraint was, it's just contracting for the service and getting terminals to the sites. The polar coverage is relatively sparse, but still plenty, due to the extraordinarily low population.

https://satellitemap.space/

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> I still think engineering for slow internet is really important, and massively under appreciated by most software developers, but ... LEO systems (like Starlink, especially StarLink) essentially solve the core problems now.

I don't think that this is a valid assessment of the underlying problem.

Slow internet means many things, and one of them is connection problems. In connection-oriented protocols like TCP this means slowness induced by drop of packets, and in fire-and-forget protocols like UDP this means your messages don't get through. This means that slowness might take multiple forms, such as low data rates or moments of high throughput followed by momentary connection drops.

One solid approach to deal with slow networks is supporting offline mode, where all data pushes and pulls are designed as transactions that take place asynchronously, and data pushes are cached locally to be retried whenever possible. This brings additional requirements such as systems having to support versioning and conflict resolution.

Naturally, these requirements permeate onto additional UI requirements, such as support for manually synching/refreshing, displaying network status, toggling actions that are meaningless when the network is down, rely on eager loading to remain usable while offline, etc.

I'd say these days it's more common to deploy in ap-southeast-1 (Singapore) rather than Japan to cover most of APAC.

Delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) seeks to address these kind of problems, using alternative techniques and protocols: store-and-forward, Bundle protocols and Licklider Transmission Protocol. Interesting stuff, enjoy!

> I don't think that this is a valid assessment of the underlying problem.

Inmarsat is an insecure, 2 Mbps (at best) connection with satellites at 22236 miles above Earth and a latency of about 900-1100 ms.

Starlink is a secure, 100 Mpbs (typical) connection with satellites at 342 miles above Earth and a latency of about 25 ms.

Odds of getting a video link on Inmarsat are low, and even if you do, it's potato quality. Source - have been using these systems operationally since the 1990s.

There’s a diner in SF I frequent. I usually sit 15 feet from the door, on a busy retail corridor, with Verizon premium network access. My iPhone XS reports two bars of LTE but there’s never enough throughout for DNS to resolve. Same at my dentist’s office. I hope to live in a post slow internet world one day, but that is still many years away.

(The XS does have an Intel modem, known to be inferior to the Qualcomm flagship of the era)

I think this is a tough because a lot of bands have been repurposed for 5G and an Xs doesn’t support any of those.

I get 400 Mbps down standing at the door of that same diner. My understanding is that 4G bands are repurposed for 5G in rough proportion to the usage of 4G vs 5G devices at that tower, plus there’s some way to use a band for both. In any case I was having these indoor performance issues back in 2019. I’m pretty sure it’s an Intel issue, and any Qualcomm modem would be fine.

I see this in my french city, there's a particular spot on my commute where my phone (mediatek) will report 2 bars of 5G but speeds will actually be around 3G. I've also noticed other people on the tram having their videos buffer at that spot, so it's not just me. The carriers do not care, of course.

I think there's just some of these areas where operational conditions make the towers break in some specific way.

I mean, they're not breaking, they're just overloaded. Solution is generally to add more towers, but that's expensive.

What do we pay them for if not to build out our telecom towers?

It's very much not an overloading issue. This always happens, even at 3 AM.

How do LEO satellite help me when a commuter train full of people connecting to the same AP enters the station I'm in? I live in one of the most densely populated places on Earth, chock-full of 5G antennas and wifi stations. Yet I still feel it when poorly engineered websites trip up on slow/intermittent connections.

Pole doesn't have Starlink. McMurdo does. There are reasons.

Polar coverage from GEO satellites is limited because how close to the horizon GEO satellites are from Pole. Pole uses old GEO satellites which are low on fuel and have relatively large inclinations... then you can talk to them for ~ 6 hours per 24.

Schedule: https://www.usap.gov/technology/1935/

Idealistic! I think a lot of countries are going to block starlink in the future by interfering with the signals, much like the success some countries are having interfering so heavily with GPS. Their governments won't want uncensored web, or an American company being the gateway to the internet. They'll maintain whatever territorial networks they have now and the speed question is still relevant.

Also the number of people worldwide whose only access to the internet is a $100 android phone with older software and limited CPU should be considered

Even if people want to / are allowed to, I'm trying to imagine how well starlink could plausibly function if 2 billion people switched from their sketchy terrestrial service to starlink.

As a luxury product used by a few people, maybe it "solves" the problem, but I don't think this is a very scalable solution.

Slow Internet isn't just remote places, it also crops up in heavily populated urban areas. It's sad that you had better connectivity above the Arctic circle than the typical connectivity with hotel WiFi. Bad connectivity also happens with cellular connections all over the place.

doesn't take much stress to make starlink exacerbate packet loss levels way above docsis. it's ok for off-grid but not for the majority.

Starlink has its own networking issues thanks to a lot of latency jitter and 0.5% or more packet loss. See the discussion from last month: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40384959

The biggest issue for Starlink at the poles is, as you say, very sparse coverage. Also I suspect Starlink has to usually relay polar packets between satellites, not just a simple bent pipe relaying to a ground station.

What ship were you on and was it the northwest passage? We haven't had good luck north of 80 degrees with starlink.

FYI, Space Norway will launch two satellites this summer on a Falcon 9 that will be going in a HEO orbit, among the payloads on the satellites is a Viasat/Inmarsat Ka-band payload which will provide coverage north of 80 degrees. Latency will probably be GEO+, but coverage is coverage I guess. :-)

LEO internet won't be practically usable for another decade for loads of us who are not living in a country the US DOD favors.

Not really the point of your post, but that sounds like a really cool trip. What were you doing up there?

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