4 ms·

No, it's not. So far you don't know anything about the price or the actual speeds that will be offered. So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were

No, it's not. So far you don't know anything about the price or the actual speeds that will be offered. So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were promised of sub 20ms are clearly not going to happen.

Dylan16807 6y ago
> So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were promised of sub 20ms are clearly not going to happen. What? How do we 'know' that? This is only a beta, and we don't know how carefully the testing was done, and we don't know how far away the servers were from the ground stations. And some users already managed results of 20ms.
- shaklee3 6y ago
  Because the speed tests show it, and there are no inter satellite links. In fact, because of the limited coverage in a very specific area, is highly likely that what you're seeing is on the lower end of latency for the final system since they will have more hops.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Beta speed tests show that this is the best they can possibly do? And I think you're being ridiculously unfair about hops there. If you're in a situation where your data could spend 20ms on starlink's network and 40ms on the ground, and they route it so it spends 30ms on starlink's network and 15ms on the ground, would you complain about that? It seems clear to me that the 20ms number was about how much latency is unavoidable on starlink, the number you get without extra hops, because hops should be pure benefit. It's not like 20ms was supposed to include the path all the way to arbitrary servers, because that's blatantly impossible with the Earth being 130 light-milliseconds around.
    - shaklee3 6y ago
      You are arguing against exactly what Elon had said at launch. I'm not being unfair with a beta. I've lived this industry for a while; latency will go up with congestion. Let's revisit this comment in a year.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        Which statements of his am I arguing against? Also if buffers are configured to be very small then congestion does not have to add more than a fraction of a millisecond of latency. Bufferbloat is endemic but it is not unavoidable.
        shaklee3 6y ago
        https://www.shacknews.com/article/118663/spacex-starlink-20ms-latency-is-designed-to-run-online-games-claims-musk https://www.shacknews.com/article/118663/spacex-starlink-20m... He said 20ms, and you are saying it'll be higher, and that's okay. You can't just shrink buffers to get rid of queuing latency. You introduce new problems with scheduling when doing so.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        I'm not saying it will be higher. This first generation of satellites doesn't even have inter-satellite lasers. So those extra hops will never be an issue. It's a moot point. The 20ms number is about the first generation. But some day, when those links exist, if data goes halfway around the world via satellite, it would be stupid to say "gotcha! longer than 20ms!". That's a complete misunderstanding of the context, and complaining about something that makes the data go faster. If someone was going to use multi-hop results to 'disprove' 20ms, they don't even need data. Just look at the speed of light. Bam, already disproven! But that's because it's not what the 20ms number was talking about. He wasn't promising to violate causality.
        shaklee3 6y ago
        Nobody has ever claimed 20ms to go around the world, because that's physically impossible. He did claim ping times would be 20ms, which is patently false, even within CONUS. There is no "second generation" to date. They have not been launched or tested. So the more of v1 that are out, the less v2 you can launch without deorbiting a very expensive part of the fleet.

Dylan16807 6y ago

> So far all we know is that the latency numbers that were promised of sub 20ms are clearly not going to happen. What? How do we 'know' that? This is only a beta, and we don't know how carefully the testing was done, and we don't know how far away the servers were from the ground stations. And some users already managed results of 20ms.

shaklee3 6y ago
Because the speed tests show it, and there are no inter satellite links. In fact, because of the limited coverage in a very specific area, is highly likely that what you're seeing is on the lower end of latency for the final system since they will have more hops.
- Dylan16807 6y ago
  Beta speed tests show that this is the best they can possibly do? And I think you're being ridiculously unfair about hops there. If you're in a situation where your data could spend 20ms on starlink's network and 40ms on the ground, and they route it so it spends 30ms on starlink's network and 15ms on the ground, would you complain about that? It seems clear to me that the 20ms number was about how much latency is unavoidable on starlink, the number you get without extra hops, because hops should be pure benefit. It's not like 20ms was supposed to include the path all the way to arbitrary servers, because that's blatantly impossible with the Earth being 130 light-milliseconds around.
  - shaklee3 6y ago
    You are arguing against exactly what Elon had said at launch. I'm not being unfair with a beta. I've lived this industry for a while; latency will go up with congestion. Let's revisit this comment in a year.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Which statements of his am I arguing against? Also if buffers are configured to be very small then congestion does not have to add more than a fraction of a millisecond of latency. Bufferbloat is endemic but it is not unavoidable.
      - shaklee3 6y ago
        https://www.shacknews.com/article/118663/spacex-starlink-20ms-latency-is-designed-to-run-online-games-claims-musk https://www.shacknews.com/article/118663/spacex-starlink-20m... He said 20ms, and you are saying it'll be higher, and that's okay. You can't just shrink buffers to get rid of queuing latency. You introduce new problems with scheduling when doing so.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        I'm not saying it will be higher. This first generation of satellites doesn't even have inter-satellite lasers. So those extra hops will never be an issue. It's a moot point. The 20ms number is about the first generation. But some day, when those links exist, if data goes halfway around the world via satellite, it would be stupid to say "gotcha! longer than 20ms!". That's a complete misunderstanding of the context, and complaining about something that makes the data go faster. If someone was going to use multi-hop results to 'disprove' 20ms, they don't even need data. Just look at the speed of light. Bam, already disproven! But that's because it's not what the 20ms number was talking about. He wasn't promising to violate causality.
        shaklee3 6y ago
        Nobody has ever claimed 20ms to go around the world, because that's physically impossible. He did claim ping times would be 20ms, which is patently false, even within CONUS. There is no "second generation" to date. They have not been launched or tested. So the more of v1 that are out, the less v2 you can launch without deorbiting a very expensive part of the fleet.