Why do you believe the inter-satellite links are not working?
The laser based inter-links still not working has been subject on various conferences like AngaCOM etc.
But in my case: I have simply tried it *). And every Starlink user can do it, too: Use traceroute. And if you think "they might be hiding the hop-to-hops between Sats!", you can dig deeper using MTR behind the modem or simply rooting the modem itself.
Last time I have connected to a v3 Sat however was ~6 months ago. Maybe an active user reading this can try today?
The simpler answer is intra-constellation communication is a bleeding-edge technology. It's an extraordinary challenge for which extraordinary proof is needed to show success, not the other way around. SpaceX has solved most of the gating technical problems. But getting it to work reliably enough that it becomes more economic than ground-based backhaul will take time.
Ergo they are served via laser.
Cook Island
Ascension Island
Iran
Venezuela
Cuba
Galapagos/Easter Islands
Vanuatu
Eastern Ukraine
Syria
Lebanon
Iraq
Iqaluit
Antarctica, as South as the South Pole
Tristan de Cunha
The range of the ground stations are under 1500 miles and I really don't know where people are getting the idea that the lasers don't work.
Maybe because v1 and v2 did not even have working lasers on the hardware level...?
The idea is coming from "reality", Starlinks own reporting, industry talks, tech press etc.
Anyway, to shorten this we can agree that we have different definitions of what one expects from having a dedicate backbone. I would expect seamless handover amongst other things, which I have never ever seen, and unless you show me a video recording of a 24h Starlink session with MTR running I simply will trust the data I have over a random claim.
As said elsewhere in this thread: It is extremely hard to find detailed benchmarks from happy Starlink users. Next to all positive content is paid content. And a quick look at trustpilot & co clearly hint that there a huge chunk of Starlink customers might be unhappy. And even if it's just because their online gaming sessions getting interrupted on every Sat hand-over, which exists in reality, but not in your mind :)
Seriously, if you have access to any benchmark data sources, please gimme. I'm not here for "winning" an argument. Data, Data, Data.
You can also fly to one of the many Islands (or Iqaluit) I've mentioned and do your testing.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-laser-system-is-beaming...
It's quite fascinating, there's people who's only (or first) experience with Starlink is via lasers and there's people on the Internet who'll tell you it doesn't work (I forgot to mention Georgia and Kazakhstan)
You really will hear everything on the Internet.
Sorry, that's not a path I am willing to follow. Religion is not my cup of tea.
I've also mentioned several places you can travel to do your own testing.
If you want to believe Tristan de Cunha or the Falkland Islands or Bhutan or Antarctica can be served by anything other than lasers, (get a map) I don't know what else to call that but religion.
I'm not giving more weight to anything. I've pointed you in the right direction but I don't think even internal tools from SpaceX would change your mind even though geography should be enough.
Here's the data you've been asking for and dodging like I didn't post.
Is there any input whatsoever that could change your foregone conclusions? If not, what's the point of this discussion?
He can go to or recruit a user in territories that can be only served via laser in 2025,(I've listed 10 at least so far) install a computer that boots to desktop and remotely test his theories.
His base argument is no one can hold a phone call or run a game without interruptions every 120 seconds on Starlink if they are served via lasers (two more countries, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia) not because of packet drops but because of session terminations. Now I can understand the possibility of broken middle boxes, but the thing is we'd see the effect in our applications before even bringing out any network analysis tools.
He's also skipped the users doing BGP over the lasers. Doesn't BGP have sessions?
Why did this country https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=602234895877639&vanity=61560... switch to a product that's so bad it's unusable
Did those islands have Starlink until lasers?
I'm very fascinated especially given the existence of community gateways on several islands that can only be served by lasers regardless of the presence of ground stations.
Iridium has been successfully doing it for a quarter of a century now.
The empirical way to test for the existence of ISLs would be to go to the middle of an ocean, safely out of reach of any ground station, and see what happens. If you get a connection, that can only be due to ISLs.
It seems like your actual complaints are with network/routing stability, and you're drawing invalid conclusions from there.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/1eg4e4d/starlink_...
Have a look at the downtimes of the system.
A simple way to verify that their inter-sat links are not working and/or are not used is to simply sit and wait: If you are switched from one Sat to the next, you get new "session" and previous NAT state is lost. If this would be a meshed backbone, that would not happen.
How's service delivered to the South Pole?
Iqaluit?
As long as your traffic is terminated at the same POP, you won't get any session terminations.
And Starlink tells you when your public IP changes anyway
How can this be ridiculous? Is it ridiculous because the data does not match your believes...? Confirmation bias?
It's Data. And it hints, amongst other things that they have seen the same that I am seeing on every single Starlink installation I got my hands on so far: There is no active handover, and no shared state between Sats.
And you are referring to the wrong layer, talking about the ground station. Of course that does not move, and does not forget about your IP. Wrong layer.
It's about the Satellites (!) not doing an active handover and not sharing L2 state, like it would the case for any meshed network, no matter if cellular or WiFi. The analogy here would be a WiFi access point or a cell tower, and you roaming from one to the next while having a phone call, not having any drop-outs. That's the industry standard for Wireless. Starlink isn't there (yet).
If you don't think that true data is true, check ARP table of the MAC of your gateway IP changing after handover.
You appear to be a happy Starlink user - so do you care to share some 24h benchmark with us to prove your claims? I would highly appreciate that!
So far sadly none of the "But it works!" people has been able or willing to provide a benchmark on their own setup. `
Again: I am not here to win and argument. But to change my conclusions, I need data that hints at my conclusions potentially being wrong. As explained elsewhere in this thread, due to lack of serious benchmarks, most of this is based on anecdotical data points.
That person has posted an install in a moving vehicle with the antenna inside.
Do you think I can't read or what?
The ground stations don't handle user IP addresses or even IP packets.
They are strictly layer 2 from the user perspective and traffic is terminated at POP's.
Here's a scientist that does actual work, not the nonsense you've been posting as "data".
https://www.reddit.com/user/panuvic/submitted/
I gave you his email.
I've pointed out to you where you can travel to test laser service yourself.
I'm not saying "but it works"
I pointed out to you places that can't be served without laser connectivity.
It's like asking me to prove the earth isn't flat.
You also clearly do not know what Layer 2 on the ISO/OSI model is.
But you are in total rage mode.
Triggered because the actual data invalidates what your cult says? :)
Sorry, will ignore you from now on. Again: Religion is not my cup of tea, bold claims on powerpoint presentations neither, I prefer to use data. We simply do not share a model of the world that is compatible to discuss these kind of things. No harm done, but no thank you :)
I gave you more than one link. I gave you an email to a prof.
I started working at a Telco at 13 and got my CCNA there ages ago within a summer break.
You've demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic geography.
Go get your money back from your tutors.
So, yes, confirmation bias.