4 ms·

One customer I weirdly haven't seen mentioned is high frequency traders. Shouldn't Starlink's latency be lower than that of cables?

mercora 6y ago
would that help them though? i mean it appears to me they are already as close as possible to avoid latency and use microwave links and stuff so that is pretty hard to beat i guess. the only thing i can easily imagine being beneficial is getting information across the globe faster but then i lack the skills to see how one profits from that, ie. being closer would still be better, no?
- virgilp 6y ago
  Arbitration. If you can see an asset being traded cheaper in Australia than in the US 10ms before everybody else does - you basically pocket the difference at 0 risk.
- paranoidrobot 6y ago
  Mark Handley has done a bunch of videos analysing this on his channel[0]. The TLDR is that there is a lot of room for Starlink to beat existing terrestrial options IF they can get the laser links working on-orbit. This video[1] shows estimates using what was known about proposed configurations in 2018 [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-k1j7M2-hBfXeECd9YAQ_g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-k1j7M2-hBfXeECd9YAQ_g [1] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=237 https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=237
rich_sasha 6y ago
How would they be faster than microwave / laser terrestial towers, that already travel around the great arc?
- AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
  Well, unless you can build a line-of-sight microwave/laser tower that can see over the oceans, Starlink's intercontinental links will be faster once the inter-satellite communications lasers are fully integrated. Also the speed of light in a vacuum is faster than the speed of light in air.
- marsokod 6y ago
  You can't really cross oceans with microwaves though. So a London from can gain a competitive advantage against other London firms on Wall Street exchange.
  - rich_sasha 6y ago
    It’s interesting. At this kind of distance, I wonder how topologies of cables and satellite constellations compare. Cables run relatively straight under the sea. If they are optic fibre, they run at a lower speed than light in vacuum. Satellites are in space, so communicate pretty much at speed of light, but probably not in a straight line, depends where the satellites are. HFTs are indeed great at gaming such things, will be interesting to see what happens.
sempron64 6y ago
Probably not too useful for high speed traders as they can afford and are technically sophisticated enough to relocate their systems closer to the exchange, but I know that enterprise software that suffers heavily due to latency in APAC regions. Lower-latency connectivity from those regions to EU/US datacenters will be a small game-changer for many businesses.

mercora 6y ago

would that help them though? i mean it appears to me they are already as close as possible to avoid latency and use microwave links and stuff so that is pretty hard to beat i guess. the only thing i can easily imagine being beneficial is getting information across the globe faster but then i lack the skills to see how one profits from that, ie. being closer would still be better, no?

virgilp 6y ago
Arbitration. If you can see an asset being traded cheaper in Australia than in the US 10ms before everybody else does - you basically pocket the difference at 0 risk.
paranoidrobot 6y ago
Mark Handley has done a bunch of videos analysing this on his channel[0]. The TLDR is that there is a lot of room for Starlink to beat existing terrestrial options IF they can get the laser links working on-orbit. This video[1] shows estimates using what was known about proposed configurations in 2018 [0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-k1j7M2-hBfXeECd9YAQ_g https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-k1j7M2-hBfXeECd9YAQ_g [1] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=237 https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=237

rich_sasha 6y ago

How would they be faster than microwave / laser terrestial towers, that already travel around the great arc?

AlgorithmicTime 6y ago
Well, unless you can build a line-of-sight microwave/laser tower that can see over the oceans, Starlink's intercontinental links will be faster once the inter-satellite communications lasers are fully integrated. Also the speed of light in a vacuum is faster than the speed of light in air.
marsokod 6y ago
You can't really cross oceans with microwaves though. So a London from can gain a competitive advantage against other London firms on Wall Street exchange.
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  It’s interesting. At this kind of distance, I wonder how topologies of cables and satellite constellations compare. Cables run relatively straight under the sea. If they are optic fibre, they run at a lower speed than light in vacuum. Satellites are in space, so communicate pretty much at speed of light, but probably not in a straight line, depends where the satellites are. HFTs are indeed great at gaming such things, will be interesting to see what happens.

sempron64 6y ago

Probably not too useful for high speed traders as they can afford and are technically sophisticated enough to relocate their systems closer to the exchange, but I know that enterprise software that suffers heavily due to latency in APAC regions. Lower-latency connectivity from those regions to EU/US datacenters will be a small game-changer for many businesses.