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Is "no data caps" sustainable for Starlink? In my city, we had a wimax provider set up shop a while back (10 years now, I guess?). At first the promised, and d

Is "no data caps" sustainable for Starlink? In my city, we had a wimax provider set up shop a while back (10 years now, I guess?). At first the promised, and delivered on, high speed and no data caps. Then more people started signing up, and clogging up the network, and they ended up imposing throttling and caps to try and deal with it.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tenacious_tuna 6y ago
I struggle to see how "data caps" would solve this issue. The problem isn't that the total sum of data transiting the network is somehow more than Starlink (or others) can handle--it's that the _burst usage_ is exceeding the network's capacity. The policy of data caps certainly reduces all data usage, but it's a nuclear bomb to solve an anthill: they should just do a decent job of QoSing their traffic. Say "peak hours" speed is, I dunno, 15mb/s or something, and then offpeak is full speed. People can do their game/os/whatever updates off peak then, and as long as everyone isn't streaming netflix and downloading iOS updates while you're on a zoom call, you should be fine.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  My guess is that it's better understood as a social solution than as a technical one. Basically just a way to chase the torrenters and Netflix junkies off of your network. Because it hurts them a lot, and it doesn't hurt the most profitable customers at all.
zamadatix 6y ago
It's one of those "no data caps but don't use more than 1 TB every month" kind of things.
ardy42 6y ago
> Is "no data caps" sustainable for Starlink? Maybe not. This was the first hit for "starlink downlink bandwidth" https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/starlinks-network-faces-significant-limitations-analysts-find/d/d-id/764159 https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/starlinks-network-face...: > Starlink, the satellite Internet provider from Elon Musk's SpaceX, will be able to support just 485,000 simultaneous users at 100Mbit/s across the entire US, according to one firm's new estimates. And that kind of performance won't even be available until the end of 2026, when Starlink floods Earth's skies with up to 12,000 satellites. I don't really understand the fascination with wireless for fixed services. If you can run a wire, you should, because wireless is basically just using the air as a single shared wire, and the longer the range the more people have to share that one wire.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hkt 6y ago
  Classic ethernet.. in space!
- brightball 6y ago
  This. I used to have an RV and looked into satellite options in case we ever wanted to go fully remote. They were pricy but justifiable when you need it for something like that. Where I am, my Spectrum service is fantastic for a reasonable price and I can’t imagine justifying paying for Starlink at my house. If anything the only upgrade I ever expect to make is when AT&T fiber finally makes it to me. Even then, I’m pretty happy with the TV package and my TiVo units so switching to a non-cable provider is questionable if I don’t really need it.
- jsperson 6y ago
  >I don't really understand the fascination with wireless for fixed services. If you can run a wire, you should, because wireless is basically just using the air as a single shared wire, and the longer the range the more people have to share that one wire. I generally agree, but here in Kansas we have long sight lines. On our farm we use fixed wireless to the grain elevator three miles away. The alternative would be running 1.5 miles of wire for three potential customers. For years we had Hughes satellite service. Compared to fixed wireless it had higher latency (the speed of light is too slow to geosync), usage caps (none now), and was twice the cost.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    I grew up in an area with forested, rolling hills. Terrestrial wireless will forever be a challenge, and even geostationary satellites are troublesome unless shaving your property bald is your bag of chips. (Which, if it were, why are you living in the northwoods instead of the great plains?) But line of sight going straight up is usually pretty decent. Starlink is going to make a killing in areas like that.
  - ardy42 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

tenacious_tuna 6y ago

I struggle to see how "data caps" would solve this issue. The problem isn't that the total sum of data transiting the network is somehow more than Starlink (or others) can handle--it's that the _burst usage_ is exceeding the network's capacity. The policy of data caps certainly reduces all data usage, but it's a nuclear bomb to solve an anthill: they should just do a decent job of QoSing their traffic. Say "peak hours" speed is, I dunno, 15mb/s or something, and then offpeak is full speed. People can do their game/os/whatever updates off peak then, and as long as everyone isn't streaming netflix and downloading iOS updates while you're on a zoom call, you should be fine.

mumblemumble 6y ago
My guess is that it's better understood as a social solution than as a technical one. Basically just a way to chase the torrenters and Netflix junkies off of your network. Because it hurts them a lot, and it doesn't hurt the most profitable customers at all.

zamadatix 6y ago

It's one of those "no data caps but don't use more than 1 TB every month" kind of things.

ardy42 6y ago

> Is "no data caps" sustainable for Starlink? Maybe not. This was the first hit for "starlink downlink bandwidth" https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/starlinks-network-faces-significant-limitations-analysts-find/d/d-id/764159 https://www.lightreading.com/4g3gwifi/starlinks-network-face...: > Starlink, the satellite Internet provider from Elon Musk's SpaceX, will be able to support just 485,000 simultaneous users at 100Mbit/s across the entire US, according to one firm's new estimates. And that kind of performance won't even be available until the end of 2026, when Starlink floods Earth's skies with up to 12,000 satellites. I don't really understand the fascination with wireless for fixed services. If you can run a wire, you should, because wireless is basically just using the air as a single shared wire, and the longer the range the more people have to share that one wire.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hkt 6y ago
Classic ethernet.. in space!
brightball 6y ago
This. I used to have an RV and looked into satellite options in case we ever wanted to go fully remote. They were pricy but justifiable when you need it for something like that. Where I am, my Spectrum service is fantastic for a reasonable price and I can’t imagine justifying paying for Starlink at my house. If anything the only upgrade I ever expect to make is when AT&T fiber finally makes it to me. Even then, I’m pretty happy with the TV package and my TiVo units so switching to a non-cable provider is questionable if I don’t really need it.
jsperson 6y ago
>I don't really understand the fascination with wireless for fixed services. If you can run a wire, you should, because wireless is basically just using the air as a single shared wire, and the longer the range the more people have to share that one wire. I generally agree, but here in Kansas we have long sight lines. On our farm we use fixed wireless to the grain elevator three miles away. The alternative would be running 1.5 miles of wire for three potential customers. For years we had Hughes satellite service. Compared to fixed wireless it had higher latency (the speed of light is too slow to geosync), usage caps (none now), and was twice the cost.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  I grew up in an area with forested, rolling hills. Terrestrial wireless will forever be a challenge, and even geostationary satellites are troublesome unless shaving your property bald is your bag of chips. (Which, if it were, why are you living in the northwoods instead of the great plains?) But line of sight going straight up is usually pretty decent. Starlink is going to make a killing in areas like that.
- ardy42 6y ago