5 ms·

This is amazing. I know there will be latency issues, but for majority of web browsing, videos, etc, it shouldn't matter. We are entering the era of spacenet a

This is amazing. I know there will be latency issues, but for majority of web browsing, videos, etc, it shouldn't matter. We are entering the era of spacenet and the future looks bright. Imagine having devices as small as phones or set-top boxes that can directly access internet using satellites. It would lead to a revolution in many industries.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
moritonal 6y ago
Could you expand on which industries will be improved? My normal life is covered entirely by 4G, with 5G now appearing. I guess you mean things like internet on planes, shipping internet, off-shore rigs? But what things can't they do at the moment because of prohibitorily slow/costly satellite internet?
- Torkel 6y ago
  Here's one: Teleoperation / autonomy in remote areas. Forestry. Mining. Not sure how big this, objectively speaking money-wise, but for teleop/autonomy it sure does enable new things when there is true 100% coverage everywhere on earth.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    > it sure does enable new things when there is true 100% coverage everywhere on earth But there won't be. Not with Starlink at least. Even at their envisioned full constellation size of 40000 satellites, coverage won't be 100%. The Arctic and Antarctic regions won't have any coverage at all, for example.
  - Thlom 6y ago
    Already being done with existing satellite services. Starlink is cool and al, but satellite internet isn't new. Both forestry, mining and farming is utilising existing satellite services for monitoring and operations. Starlink is better than all existing services, but with some drawbacks. Like it will be really expensive to provide service in really remote areas until sat to sat relay is possible as there must be a ground station within 500 km radius of the satellite. This means that to provide service in the Amazonas SpaceX will have to build ground stations in the Amazonas. To provide service in the Pacific and Atlantic SpaceX will have to deploy several floating ground stations in the middle of the oceans. Again, not taking anything away from Space X. Starlink is really cool and will be a wake up call for the satcom industry, but satcom is not a new thing and Starlink have significant drawbacks for the time being.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  Logistics - Tracking cargo, without interruption, in real-time, across the world. Shipping - Same as logistics, but across oceans. Real-Time weather data, from solar powered sensors, spread across the world. Real-Time video for tracking endangered wild-life. I think different people can come up with more ideas. The difference between satellite and cellular networks is coverage. Imagine if a nature loving adventurer fell into a ravine and can just video call authorities about his location and condition.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    The latter is pretty well handled by existing devices such as SPOT: https://www.findmespot.com/en-gb/ https://www.findmespot.com/en-gb/ Edit: Starlink looks fantastic but maybe not for that particular scenario, at least not any time soon.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
    Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom. SpaceX hasn't designed for mobile/vehicle mounted ground stations either. Shipping: already done via AIS Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features. SpaceX is not building this. Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat. I swear people have taken the usual Elon hype with this and gone to absolutely absurd lengths. This is not your iphone suddenly works globally. This is not a star trek communicator. This is an alternative to sat internet like Dish network et all. Is your hiker really gonna be hauling around a giant freakin' dish? It's going to be a premium priced broadband service for rural customers and institutions that can afford it. If you know anything about the market you know DoD is gonna be the customer they focus on.
    - kumarvvr 6y ago
      >Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom Imagine being able to see live video, or AI enhanced video (movement detection, etc). A lot more bandwidth will open up many areas for innovation. Imagine being able to get real-time data of patients being transported in planes or ground vehicles. >Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features. But there is not much data about wind patterns, directions, barometric pressure, etc. Satellites can observe on a macro level. If you can combine that with micro level ground data, perhaps predictions for weather would be more accurate. >Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat. Perhaps, but periodic photos, would be possible, and that would be enough for many innovations. >I swear people have taken the usual Elon hype Even I have the after taste of Hyperloop. However, this is different because there are billions being spent to send actual satellites to space. That is not hype. I would not cast aside Elon's vision so easily, especially if he has committed and spent so much on the idea and is actually building out the infrastructure. >This is not a star trek communicator. But Imagine if you could have one. >Is your hiker really gonna be hauling around a giant freakin' dish? Would it be too far fetched to think that those can be shrunk down, perhaps to the size of a suitcase or a backpack? >It's going to be a premium priced broadband service for rural customers and institutions that can afford it. If you know anything about the market you know DoD is gonna be the customer they focus on. Sure, that would be one revenue source. But many innovations in the world are made possible due to what is available. Would an app store be possible without the iPhone? But, when the iPhone was made, the app store, as a concept was at best, a theoretical idea in Jobs' mind.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  Imagine the military setting up an internet base station and releasing remote controlled drones for surveillance or military operations. Having satellite based high speed internet would be a game changer for remote locations. Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Currently, not possible, but with high speed satellite based internet, it could be. Imagine an electrical engineer being able to help his colleagues in Africa, with specific issue, over VR or Video calls, enabled by Satellite based internet. I can see a number of possibilities and opportunities.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    > Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Highly unlikely for many reasons: latency too high, cost of equipment way too high, only very few hospitals are even equipped for remote surgery even in the West, let alone underdeveloped countries... > Imagine an electrical engineer being able to help his colleagues in Africa That's already possible even without satellite-based internet and doesn't require it at all. The only point I agree with is the military - surveillance and remote controlled drones could benefit from greatly from low-latency high-bandwidth satellite internet.
    - adventured 6y ago
      > only very few hospitals are even equipped for remote surgery even in the West, let alone underdeveloped countries... You're talking about today, which is the lowest potential time scenario. How about the time frame of 15-20 years from now? It'll take years just to fully build out Starlink's constellation, then many more years to fully spread its use. Remote surgery will continue to expand, becoming increasingly common, and the prices will come down. As that process unfolds, you will increasingly see the major robotic-assisted surgery companies donate (or otherwise massively subsidize) equipment to poorer nations, exactly as is done with very expensive drugs now. Also, while today robotic-assisted surgery costs are very high (dominated by companies like Intuitive or Stryker), China and others will eventually fully knock down that door and flood the market with lower cost systems that are 85% good enough and will become very widely used. It's also more likely that it'll be highly skilled doctors in one less developed nation doing work in another less developed nation. That will help keep the costs down more than the parent's example. US doctors will likely do most of their remote work within the US (other than charitable work), where they can command far higher fees.
- Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
  Plantations! No longer will they be isolated little fiefdoms where the company manager is judge, jury and executioner.
  - neolog 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with these remote plantations, where can I read about them?
    - Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
      Palm Oil in remote Kalimantan and Irian Jaya have very little oversight. One of my family members is a plantation manager.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Tons of areas have either no 4G at all or the signal is too weak to work fast.
- paul_f 6y ago
  Restart my production web server from a cruise ship.
tsherr 6y ago
In my experience (multiple clients in rural area) low speed (1.5 Mbps) with low (50 to 80 ms) latency will outperform 40Mbps/800 ms latency connections for video. Web browsing, of course, isn't really affected by latency.
- vardump 6y ago
  "Web browsing, of course, isn't really affected by latency." Web browsing involves a lot of ping-pong traffic pattern that multiplies latency.
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Web browsing can be super slow if you have a high latency. Between the DNS requests, the TCP handshakes, the TLS handshakes, it takes forever before you start receiving the actual content.
- Liquid_Fire 6y ago
  When you say video, do you mean video conferencing? I don't see how latency would affect video streaming significantly, other than the initial buffering time. In fact I would say high latency affects general web browsing much more than video streaming.
- Acinyx 6y ago
  Where are you getting the 800 ms latency though? That's what Geo stationary satellite internet provides due to the physical distance they have to operate at (35786KM), but Starlink and OneWeb and other mega constellations are operating at 550KM which easily gets you below 100ms and likely close to 30 ms without sat to sat comms.
eru 6y ago
I'm not sure that's revolutionary outside of very rural areas or in a desert. Smart phones and set-top boxes etc can already access the internet without satellites, and often with much better latency. What would satellites add for urban or sub-urban applications? I do appreciate the extra competition that satellite internet brings. Especially in parts of the world with suppressed competition (like the US..) this could have huge practical effects without having to be a big deal in any technical sense.
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  Smart phones use 4G networks. And now there is another alternative. Cellular networks have limited coverage. Imagine tracking a truck traveling across the US, or a ferry, across the English channel. Currently, that's not possible with 4G. But with a satellite driven internet system, it very well could be. As for urban and sub-urban applications, not much.
  - tomtomtom777 6y ago
    I don't think it is possible or planned to use StarLink directly from a mobile phone. You will need a ground station to communicate that isn't going to fit in a pocket.
    - kumarvvr 6y ago
      True, for now. There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick. Maybe we will not see such miniaturization, but I can safely assume that a small backpack size device should be light and last long enough for meaningful high speed internet with StarLink.
      - eru 6y ago
        > There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick. And that was already advanced. Portable phones used to be so unwieldy, car phones used to be a thing!
- 6y ago
tfehring 6y ago
Genuine question - why is it a given that there will be latency issues? It looks like the satellites are only ~350 miles, or a little less than 2 light-milliseconds, from Earth's surface.
- Torkel 6y ago
  Preconceptions. Satellite internet have traditionally been slow+laggy. Starlink is not. Yay first principles :)
- kumarvvr 6y ago
  The issue is with overall latency. User -> Satellite -> multiple hops between satellites (as they are orbiting earth and the right one has to be selected to relay data to -> earth DNS servers -> multiple hops across internet -> satellite -> user Additional latency is introduced due to satellites and the grid between the satellites, as well as complications from rotation of satellites.
  - Tuna-Fish 6y ago
    > User -> Satellite -> multiple hops between satellites (as they are orbiting earth and the right one has to be selected to relay data to -> earth DNS servers -> multiple hops across internet -> satellite -> user All of that in general is comparable to the costs incurred on the ground from any other kind of network. > complications from rotation of satellites As far as a single routed packet is concerned, the satellites are stationary.
  - sneak 6y ago
    Starlink does not at this time use any intersatellite communication links, despite having talked about it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

moritonal 6y ago

Could you expand on which industries will be improved? My normal life is covered entirely by 4G, with 5G now appearing. I guess you mean things like internet on planes, shipping internet, off-shore rigs? But what things can't they do at the moment because of prohibitorily slow/costly satellite internet?

Torkel 6y ago
Here's one: Teleoperation / autonomy in remote areas. Forestry. Mining. Not sure how big this, objectively speaking money-wise, but for teleop/autonomy it sure does enable new things when there is true 100% coverage everywhere on earth.
- qayxc 6y ago
  > it sure does enable new things when there is true 100% coverage everywhere on earth But there won't be. Not with Starlink at least. Even at their envisioned full constellation size of 40000 satellites, coverage won't be 100%. The Arctic and Antarctic regions won't have any coverage at all, for example.
- Thlom 6y ago
  Already being done with existing satellite services. Starlink is cool and al, but satellite internet isn't new. Both forestry, mining and farming is utilising existing satellite services for monitoring and operations. Starlink is better than all existing services, but with some drawbacks. Like it will be really expensive to provide service in really remote areas until sat to sat relay is possible as there must be a ground station within 500 km radius of the satellite. This means that to provide service in the Amazonas SpaceX will have to build ground stations in the Amazonas. To provide service in the Pacific and Atlantic SpaceX will have to deploy several floating ground stations in the middle of the oceans. Again, not taking anything away from Space X. Starlink is really cool and will be a wake up call for the satcom industry, but satcom is not a new thing and Starlink have significant drawbacks for the time being.
kumarvvr 6y ago
Logistics - Tracking cargo, without interruption, in real-time, across the world. Shipping - Same as logistics, but across oceans. Real-Time weather data, from solar powered sensors, spread across the world. Real-Time video for tracking endangered wild-life. I think different people can come up with more ideas. The difference between satellite and cellular networks is coverage. Imagine if a nature loving adventurer fell into a ravine and can just video call authorities about his location and condition.
- arethuza 6y ago
  The latter is pretty well handled by existing devices such as SPOT: https://www.findmespot.com/en-gb/ https://www.findmespot.com/en-gb/ Edit: Starlink looks fantastic but maybe not for that particular scenario, at least not any time soon.
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom. SpaceX hasn't designed for mobile/vehicle mounted ground stations either. Shipping: already done via AIS Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features. SpaceX is not building this. Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat. I swear people have taken the usual Elon hype with this and gone to absolutely absurd lengths. This is not your iphone suddenly works globally. This is not a star trek communicator. This is an alternative to sat internet like Dish network et all. Is your hiker really gonna be hauling around a giant freakin' dish? It's going to be a premium priced broadband service for rural customers and institutions that can afford it. If you know anything about the market you know DoD is gonna be the customer they focus on.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    >Logistics: already done via gps receivers and low bandwidth spot style satcom Imagine being able to see live video, or AI enhanced video (movement detection, etc). A lot more bandwidth will open up many areas for innovation. Imagine being able to get real-time data of patients being transported in planes or ground vehicles. >Real Time Weather: already done by satellites with the required features. But there is not much data about wind patterns, directions, barometric pressure, etc. Satellites can observe on a macro level. If you can combine that with micro level ground data, perhaps predictions for weather would be more accurate. >Real Time Video: again, there's no way you're getting animal scale images out of a starlink scale sat. Perhaps, but periodic photos, would be possible, and that would be enough for many innovations. >I swear people have taken the usual Elon hype Even I have the after taste of Hyperloop. However, this is different because there are billions being spent to send actual satellites to space. That is not hype. I would not cast aside Elon's vision so easily, especially if he has committed and spent so much on the idea and is actually building out the infrastructure. >This is not a star trek communicator. But Imagine if you could have one. >Is your hiker really gonna be hauling around a giant freakin' dish? Would it be too far fetched to think that those can be shrunk down, perhaps to the size of a suitcase or a backpack? >It's going to be a premium priced broadband service for rural customers and institutions that can afford it. If you know anything about the market you know DoD is gonna be the customer they focus on. Sure, that would be one revenue source. But many innovations in the world are made possible due to what is available. Would an app store be possible without the iPhone? But, when the iPhone was made, the app store, as a concept was at best, a theoretical idea in Jobs' mind.
kumarvvr 6y ago
Imagine the military setting up an internet base station and releasing remote controlled drones for surveillance or military operations. Having satellite based high speed internet would be a game changer for remote locations. Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Currently, not possible, but with high speed satellite based internet, it could be. Imagine an electrical engineer being able to help his colleagues in Africa, with specific issue, over VR or Video calls, enabled by Satellite based internet. I can see a number of possibilities and opportunities.
- qayxc 6y ago
  > Imagine being able to conduct a robot controller surgery in Africa, by a doctor in the US. Highly unlikely for many reasons: latency too high, cost of equipment way too high, only very few hospitals are even equipped for remote surgery even in the West, let alone underdeveloped countries... > Imagine an electrical engineer being able to help his colleagues in Africa That's already possible even without satellite-based internet and doesn't require it at all. The only point I agree with is the military - surveillance and remote controlled drones could benefit from greatly from low-latency high-bandwidth satellite internet.
  - adventured 6y ago
    > only very few hospitals are even equipped for remote surgery even in the West, let alone underdeveloped countries... You're talking about today, which is the lowest potential time scenario. How about the time frame of 15-20 years from now? It'll take years just to fully build out Starlink's constellation, then many more years to fully spread its use. Remote surgery will continue to expand, becoming increasingly common, and the prices will come down. As that process unfolds, you will increasingly see the major robotic-assisted surgery companies donate (or otherwise massively subsidize) equipment to poorer nations, exactly as is done with very expensive drugs now. Also, while today robotic-assisted surgery costs are very high (dominated by companies like Intuitive or Stryker), China and others will eventually fully knock down that door and flood the market with lower cost systems that are 85% good enough and will become very widely used. It's also more likely that it'll be highly skilled doctors in one less developed nation doing work in another less developed nation. That will help keep the costs down more than the parent's example. US doctors will likely do most of their remote work within the US (other than charitable work), where they can command far higher fees.
Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
Plantations! No longer will they be isolated little fiefdoms where the company manager is judge, jury and executioner.
- neolog 6y ago
  I'm not familiar with these remote plantations, where can I read about them?
  - Mengkudulangsat 6y ago
    Palm Oil in remote Kalimantan and Irian Jaya have very little oversight. One of my family members is a plantation manager.
chrisco255 6y ago
Tons of areas have either no 4G at all or the signal is too weak to work fast.
paul_f 6y ago
Restart my production web server from a cruise ship.

tsherr 6y ago

In my experience (multiple clients in rural area) low speed (1.5 Mbps) with low (50 to 80 ms) latency will outperform 40Mbps/800 ms latency connections for video. Web browsing, of course, isn't really affected by latency.

vardump 6y ago
"Web browsing, of course, isn't really affected by latency." Web browsing involves a lot of ping-pong traffic pattern that multiplies latency.
speedgoose 6y ago
Web browsing can be super slow if you have a high latency. Between the DNS requests, the TCP handshakes, the TLS handshakes, it takes forever before you start receiving the actual content.
Liquid_Fire 6y ago
When you say video, do you mean video conferencing? I don't see how latency would affect video streaming significantly, other than the initial buffering time. In fact I would say high latency affects general web browsing much more than video streaming.
Acinyx 6y ago
Where are you getting the 800 ms latency though? That's what Geo stationary satellite internet provides due to the physical distance they have to operate at (35786KM), but Starlink and OneWeb and other mega constellations are operating at 550KM which easily gets you below 100ms and likely close to 30 ms without sat to sat comms.

eru 6y ago

I'm not sure that's revolutionary outside of very rural areas or in a desert. Smart phones and set-top boxes etc can already access the internet without satellites, and often with much better latency. What would satellites add for urban or sub-urban applications? I do appreciate the extra competition that satellite internet brings. Especially in parts of the world with suppressed competition (like the US..) this could have huge practical effects without having to be a big deal in any technical sense.

kumarvvr 6y ago
Smart phones use 4G networks. And now there is another alternative. Cellular networks have limited coverage. Imagine tracking a truck traveling across the US, or a ferry, across the English channel. Currently, that's not possible with 4G. But with a satellite driven internet system, it very well could be. As for urban and sub-urban applications, not much.
- tomtomtom777 6y ago
  I don't think it is possible or planned to use StarLink directly from a mobile phone. You will need a ground station to communicate that isn't going to fit in a pocket.
  - kumarvvr 6y ago
    True, for now. There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick. Maybe we will not see such miniaturization, but I can safely assume that a small backpack size device should be light and last long enough for meaningful high speed internet with StarLink.
    - eru 6y ago
      > There was a time when a cell phone was the size of a brick. And that was already advanced. Portable phones used to be so unwieldy, car phones used to be a thing!
6y ago

tfehring 6y ago

Genuine question - why is it a given that there will be latency issues? It looks like the satellites are only ~350 miles, or a little less than 2 light-milliseconds, from Earth's surface.

Torkel 6y ago
Preconceptions. Satellite internet have traditionally been slow+laggy. Starlink is not. Yay first principles :)
kumarvvr 6y ago
The issue is with overall latency. User -> Satellite -> multiple hops between satellites (as they are orbiting earth and the right one has to be selected to relay data to -> earth DNS servers -> multiple hops across internet -> satellite -> user Additional latency is introduced due to satellites and the grid between the satellites, as well as complications from rotation of satellites.
- Tuna-Fish 6y ago
  > User -> Satellite -> multiple hops between satellites (as they are orbiting earth and the right one has to be selected to relay data to -> earth DNS servers -> multiple hops across internet -> satellite -> user All of that in general is comparable to the costs incurred on the ground from any other kind of network. > complications from rotation of satellites As far as a single routed packet is concerned, the satellites are stationary.
- sneak 6y ago
  Starlink does not at this time use any intersatellite communication links, despite having talked about it.