7 ms·

Please tell me that this means Comcast will go out of business. Oh man. The excitement I would feel at watching them go down...

stjohnswarts 9y ago
Good luck with those ping times if you're a gamer.
- foota 9y ago
  I believe they plan to improve upon current satelite internet latency by using lower satelites.
- hesdeadjim 9y ago
  Their satellites will be low-earth orbit and have latencies ~50-70ms supposedly. Current internet satellite systems are much, much higher in orbit and thus have horrendous lag. What remains to be seen is what packet loss will be like with environmental disturbances. That latency is perfectly fine for gaming, but bursts of 20%+ packet loss will quickly flip it back to "sucks for gaming" territory while still being perfectly fine for browsing or Netflix.
  - doh 9y ago
    I was just looking at Iridium and they seem to have very low latency of around 40ms roundtrip [0] but very small throughput. If SpaceX (or whoever else) can address the latter, then 40ms will challenge any ISP. If you combine this with the adoption of new protocols like HTTP/2, the user experience will be definitely comparable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Medium_and_Low_Earth_Orbits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Medi...
    - walrus01 9y ago
      In real world practice Iridium's current satellites (not the next generation) have latency from 700ms to 1400ms to the gateway. It's also 2400 baud for data, something like 2400baud+1200bps of FEC for voice. Actually kind of amazing that they can fit intelligible voice through that bitrate with voice codec technology that was finalized 19 years ago. The raw RF latency of Iridium in its present state does not correspond with the network topology at layers 2 and 3.
- linkmotif 9y ago
  If this turns Comcast into a niche provider for gamers then Comcast is definitely over.
  - doh 9y ago
    Comcast is no more just a dumb pipe. Thanks to their acquisitions they would, in case of this scenario, simple reinvent themselves as a content producer (which they already are).
    - larkeith 9y ago
      Comcast as a content producer means I don't have to deal with Comcast as a broadband monopoly, which is more than enough for me.
wongarsu 9y ago
There is only so much spectrum to go around. Even with tight beams, providing high speed to everyone in a densely populated area is much easier to do with fiber than with any radio-based system. In many regions this will be serious competition to comcast, but in cities traditional ISPs won't go away in the next 30 years.
- lev99 9y ago
  Cities are gaining a higher proportion of the population over time too. It's clearly the better market. Everywhere on Earth is going to get a big bandwidth increase, expect for cities (and places not allowed for political reasons). It's an advancement that will continue to help fewer and fewer people.
walrus01 9y ago
Satellite can be amazing tech. But it's still not going to be the best viable option for high bandwidth connections in medium to large sized cities. As companies like centurylink build GPON and 10GPON based FTTH networks (example: Capitol, Hill, Seattle) it's quite possible to do 900 x 900 Mbps symmetric, though slightly oversubscribed, residential connections. DOCSIS3.1 over old copper coax cable, with enough RF channel bonding, can also do 300 to 900 Mbps downstream, again slightly oversubscribed. With much less upstream because the RF channels are usually allocated asymmetrically at a ratio of 10:1 or thereabouts. This is by no means going to hurt Comcast. Comcast (and similar companies like Wave, RCN, Charter, Shaw, etc) are building DOCSIS3.1 and also overbuilding their own networks with fiber. They have the established right of way through major cities, both on pole and underground, and can incrementally build a FTTN/FTTdP architecture with existing copper, and will eventually overbuild everything with singlemode fiber to the customer. What this will be revolutionary for is small towns, remote/rural areas. In the US as an example the market for ISP last mile connections that is presently served by either WISPs, or in places where no WISP exists, two-way Ku/Ka-band VSAT terminals (HughesNet, ViaSat, etc). The capacity constrains on traditional geostationary consumer grade VSAT services result in terrible things (TDMA oversubscription that pushes latency to 1150ms during peak hours), and things like 20GB/month transfer quotas. That's for a typical $100/month, 24 or 36-month term with the latest generation of Viasat's services. For polar regions this will be a big deal because they are presently almost entirely dependent on geostationary C and Ku-band satellite capacity. On ships: Very relevant and has the potential to capture a ton of market from Inmarsat's I-4 and I-5 series satellites and tech, and Iridium's upcoming maritime products. With a sufficient number (thousands!) of polar orbit satellites it can cover mid ocean areas very effectively.
- thebigspacefuck 9y ago
  The newest Viasat plans are 100 Gb soft data cap for 100/mo at 50 Mbps https://www.exede.com/plan-results/gold50/ https://www.exede.com/plan-results/gold50/
  - walrus01 9y ago
    Yes, but same general idea. It's 100GB, not 100Gb. Compared to terrestrial based networks it's not much - very easy to do far more than 100GB/mo with a land based WISP that offers last mile connections of 15 Mbps down x 6 Mbps up. The oversubscription for consumer grade VSAT services is an economic necessity, based on the fact that with current technology and launch costs, it's a $150 to $200 million project to build and launch a new 5000-6000 kilogram high powered satellite into geostationary orbit. It will have an estimated 15 year usable lifespan. viasat-2 weighs 6400 kg: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/viasat-2.htm http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/viasat-2.htm

stjohnswarts 9y ago

Good luck with those ping times if you're a gamer.

foota 9y ago
I believe they plan to improve upon current satelite internet latency by using lower satelites.
hesdeadjim 9y ago
Their satellites will be low-earth orbit and have latencies ~50-70ms supposedly. Current internet satellite systems are much, much higher in orbit and thus have horrendous lag. What remains to be seen is what packet loss will be like with environmental disturbances. That latency is perfectly fine for gaming, but bursts of 20%+ packet loss will quickly flip it back to "sucks for gaming" territory while still being perfectly fine for browsing or Netflix.
- doh 9y ago
  I was just looking at Iridium and they seem to have very low latency of around 40ms roundtrip [0] but very small throughput. If SpaceX (or whoever else) can address the latter, then 40ms will challenge any ISP. If you combine this with the adoption of new protocols like HTTP/2, the user experience will be definitely comparable. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Medium_and_Low_Earth_Orbits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Internet_access#Medi...
  - walrus01 9y ago
    In real world practice Iridium's current satellites (not the next generation) have latency from 700ms to 1400ms to the gateway. It's also 2400 baud for data, something like 2400baud+1200bps of FEC for voice. Actually kind of amazing that they can fit intelligible voice through that bitrate with voice codec technology that was finalized 19 years ago. The raw RF latency of Iridium in its present state does not correspond with the network topology at layers 2 and 3.
linkmotif 9y ago
If this turns Comcast into a niche provider for gamers then Comcast is definitely over.
- doh 9y ago
  Comcast is no more just a dumb pipe. Thanks to their acquisitions they would, in case of this scenario, simple reinvent themselves as a content producer (which they already are).
  - larkeith 9y ago
    Comcast as a content producer means I don't have to deal with Comcast as a broadband monopoly, which is more than enough for me.

wongarsu 9y ago

There is only so much spectrum to go around. Even with tight beams, providing high speed to everyone in a densely populated area is much easier to do with fiber than with any radio-based system. In many regions this will be serious competition to comcast, but in cities traditional ISPs won't go away in the next 30 years.

lev99 9y ago
Cities are gaining a higher proportion of the population over time too. It's clearly the better market. Everywhere on Earth is going to get a big bandwidth increase, expect for cities (and places not allowed for political reasons). It's an advancement that will continue to help fewer and fewer people.

walrus01 9y ago

Satellite can be amazing tech. But it's still not going to be the best viable option for high bandwidth connections in medium to large sized cities. As companies like centurylink build GPON and 10GPON based FTTH networks (example: Capitol, Hill, Seattle) it's quite possible to do 900 x 900 Mbps symmetric, though slightly oversubscribed, residential connections. DOCSIS3.1 over old copper coax cable, with enough RF channel bonding, can also do 300 to 900 Mbps downstream, again slightly oversubscribed. With much less upstream because the RF channels are usually allocated asymmetrically at a ratio of 10:1 or thereabouts. This is by no means going to hurt Comcast. Comcast (and similar companies like Wave, RCN, Charter, Shaw, etc) are building DOCSIS3.1 and also overbuilding their own networks with fiber. They have the established right of way through major cities, both on pole and underground, and can incrementally build a FTTN/FTTdP architecture with existing copper, and will eventually overbuild everything with singlemode fiber to the customer. What this will be revolutionary for is small towns, remote/rural areas. In the US as an example the market for ISP last mile connections that is presently served by either WISPs, or in places where no WISP exists, two-way Ku/Ka-band VSAT terminals (HughesNet, ViaSat, etc). The capacity constrains on traditional geostationary consumer grade VSAT services result in terrible things (TDMA oversubscription that pushes latency to 1150ms during peak hours), and things like 20GB/month transfer quotas. That's for a typical $100/month, 24 or 36-month term with the latest generation of Viasat's services. For polar regions this will be a big deal because they are presently almost entirely dependent on geostationary C and Ku-band satellite capacity. On ships: Very relevant and has the potential to capture a ton of market from Inmarsat's I-4 and I-5 series satellites and tech, and Iridium's upcoming maritime products. With a sufficient number (thousands!) of polar orbit satellites it can cover mid ocean areas very effectively.

thebigspacefuck 9y ago
The newest Viasat plans are 100 Gb soft data cap for 100/mo at 50 Mbps https://www.exede.com/plan-results/gold50/ https://www.exede.com/plan-results/gold50/
- walrus01 9y ago
  Yes, but same general idea. It's 100GB, not 100Gb. Compared to terrestrial based networks it's not much - very easy to do far more than 100GB/mo with a land based WISP that offers last mile connections of 15 Mbps down x 6 Mbps up. The oversubscription for consumer grade VSAT services is an economic necessity, based on the fact that with current technology and launch costs, it's a $150 to $200 million project to build and launch a new 5000-6000 kilogram high powered satellite into geostationary orbit. It will have an estimated 15 year usable lifespan. viasat-2 weighs 6400 kg: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/viasat-2.htm http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/viasat-2.htm