8 ms·

The consumer side will be a phased array “pizza box” that automatically locates satellites and aims the signal, and should work on vehicles as well as stationar

The consumer side will be a phased array “pizza box” that automatically locates satellites and aims the signal, and should work on vehicles as well as stationary installations The most important implication of the low altitude is low latency. As low as (or potentially lower than) in-ground fiber. It will be the first good satellite internet.

new_realist 7y ago
To the metro fiber is about 2 ms. This is 15-25 ms (I've seen conflicting numbers).
- gbear605 7y ago
  Yeah, but then another 15-25ms for sat to server while your fiber is another 60ms to server.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    Why is the satellite --> server end lower latency than standard fiber?
    - paulsutter 7y ago
      The speed of light in a fiber is only about 2/3 of the speed of light in a vacuum. Plus satellite to satellite is line of sight vs zig-zagging around property rights-of-way in the ground.
  - hunter2_ 7y ago
    Why is that? I assume you mean a server so far away that the number of hops (switches, etc) is higher on land than over the air? Without a large hop count difference, I don't see why air vs ground fiber would be terribly different. Air takes a direct path but with LEO satellite there's some height, and fiber takes a slightly less direct path but without height and with switches.
    - tlb 7y ago
      Light only moves at about 60% the speed of light in glass fiber. (Specifically, it goes at C / refractive index)
- coder543 7y ago
  "to the metro fiber" doesn't really matter. That's just the last-mile latency. Starlink will be bouncing your packets to earth relays. For all we know, those relays could be directly attached to AWS datacenters. "15-25ms" could be the entire end-to-end latency, not just the "last mile" latency. Even with your pessimistic estimations that the "15-25ms" is just the last-mile of an equivalently long haul across the internet, we're not talking about some unmanageable increase in latency like geostationary satellite internet has.

new_realist 7y ago

To the metro fiber is about 2 ms. This is 15-25 ms (I've seen conflicting numbers).

gbear605 7y ago
Yeah, but then another 15-25ms for sat to server while your fiber is another 60ms to server.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  Why is the satellite --> server end lower latency than standard fiber?
  - paulsutter 7y ago
    The speed of light in a fiber is only about 2/3 of the speed of light in a vacuum. Plus satellite to satellite is line of sight vs zig-zagging around property rights-of-way in the ground.
- hunter2_ 7y ago
  Why is that? I assume you mean a server so far away that the number of hops (switches, etc) is higher on land than over the air? Without a large hop count difference, I don't see why air vs ground fiber would be terribly different. Air takes a direct path but with LEO satellite there's some height, and fiber takes a slightly less direct path but without height and with switches.
  - tlb 7y ago
    Light only moves at about 60% the speed of light in glass fiber. (Specifically, it goes at C / refractive index)
coder543 7y ago
"to the metro fiber" doesn't really matter. That's just the last-mile latency. Starlink will be bouncing your packets to earth relays. For all we know, those relays could be directly attached to AWS datacenters. "15-25ms" could be the entire end-to-end latency, not just the "last mile" latency. Even with your pessimistic estimations that the "15-25ms" is just the last-mile of an equivalently long haul across the internet, we're not talking about some unmanageable increase in latency like geostationary satellite internet has.