3 ms·

Isn't Starlink's main customer the USA army?

• dkarp 6y ago
  Early on there was also a lot of talk about High Frequency Trading firms being a prime customer. Once they have inter-satellite laser links, the latency over large distances can be significantly less than via undersea fiberoptic cables. I believe this is to do with the difference in speed of light in the cable and also indirect path that light takes as it bounces along a cable. Over inter-continental distances, the benefit is magnified.
  • paul_f 6y ago
    100% correct. Lower latency comms for HFT, worth a fortune.
  • vidarh 6y ago
    Even if you did line-of-sight links on the ground, and had a "perfect" route that didn't require deviating to avoid any obstacles, the curvature of the Earth means you'd need far more relays introducing latency.
    • wscott 6y ago
      But speed of light in space is faster than the speed of light in fiber making it an overall win. And high-speed traders will pay a lot for a millsecond.
      • vidarh 6y ago
        Absolutely - you'll be able to get both fewer hops and higher speeds for a single hop.
  • londons_explore 6y ago
    Laser links can bring in the HFT traders, but having laser links might lock starlink out of some markets. Some governments would be happy to let a foreign company run internet services for their people if they can guarantee the data must flow through a ground station within the country. If the satellites have lasers though, the government cannot guarantee that, and therefore may ban the service entirely.
• LinuxBender 6y ago
  Yes, they are the first big customer. Civilians do the beta testing. It's a win-win for everyone.