4 ms·

Relative to the helpful details on LTE you posted, though? (Obviously Starlink is incomparably better than the status quo satellite options...) Why do you expe

by gkop 6y ago

Relative to the helpful details on LTE you posted, though? (Obviously Starlink is incomparably better than the status quo satellite options...) Why do you expect better than LTE? And would you say more about WISP behavior? I know WISPs are all over the place, but in my small experience, a technically competent WISP will not look at your usage unless there’s contention impacting other customers. Like, Starlink has said they won’t service urban areas, to prevent degradation due to contention. So I expect them to use the usual TOS and technical controls... to prevent contention. I don’t see what makes them special here. If they had some special sauce to provide more cumulative bandwidth to subscribers than LTE and WISPs, I’d expect them to open up to urban areas stuck with Comcast, and profit massively.

walrus01 6y ago
Typical WISP last mile: Something like a ubiquiti rocket 5ac gen2 on an RF elements 60 degree horn antenna, in a 40 MHz TDD channel somewhere in the 5.x GHz band, aggregate capacity of the entire AP might be around 240 Mbps. Shared between 20 to 30 customers. I'm regularly seeing 250-330 Mbps down on Starlink right now with beta equipment, and very, very few WISPs except those who are doing 60 GHz based PtMP micro-POP setups can match that. It's a real challenge for a WISP to have a few dozen houses all trying to download the latest 180GB Call of Duty update connected to one AP. I'm not nearly as optimistic about WISPs in the long run, compared to my views 8-10 years ago. Really difficult to reach locations will go to starlink or similar (as a replacement for consumer grade geostationary), other places where the customers per square km density is sufficient will eventually get overbuilt with GPON last mile that provides vastly more throughput and capacity. The most clueful and forward thinking WISPs I know are all making every effort possible, within whatever capital resources are available to them, to develop in house capacity for doing rural aerial FTTH. Buying bucket trucks, getting training, learning how to splice fiber, design GPON architecture, working with state PUCs for pole access, etc.
- dboreham 6y ago
  WISP and Musk are ruled by the same Shannon, so I'm skeptical that there will be a significant advantage over the long term, but satellite has a big advantage it terms of coverage -- the difference between "can you see that tiny hilltop in the distance over the trees?" and "can you see the sky?"
  - walrus01 6y ago
    Same Shannon limit, but very different bands and channel sizes as well. Most WISPs are limited by the unlicensed frequency bands that exist in FCC part 15, and things like 3.5 and 3.65 GHz. One of the things that can go wrong with that is many WISPs in the same area fighting over the same bands from 5100-5900 MHz. By comparison LTE fixed last mile services in some places (where expensive spectrum is owned by entities like tmobile) have some of the prime tree-penetrating frequencies in the 600 and 700 MHz bands, and 2.5 GHz band. One of the reasons why clearwire was acquired by sprint was for their 2500 band.
gkop 6y ago
Replying to your reply, I don’t buy it. Your experience now on Starlink is analogous to being the first WISP subscriber on a newly deployed AP. Time will tell anyway. (And I will still be a grateful Starlink customer at my off-grid cabin, even with the throttling and caps. Starlink is a game changer!)
- walrus01 6y ago
  My perspective is informed by having been in locations previously dependent on geostationary based satellite services, as a comparison. For people who have budgeted, procured and installed 'serious' two way geostationary stuff in the past (one example of which would be a 2.4m two port linear compact cassegrain antenna, NJR PLL LNB, a 40W BUC, a Comtech CDM760 modem and a 1U sized Cisco router), for 1:1 SCPC dedicated transponder capacity based services, starlink is atonishingly fast. I could pull out a check book and spend $45,000 on buying terminal hardware and $30,000 a month in transponder space and not be able to achieve the speeds that starlink can do right now. Even if starlink was only 20 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up, go price what 20x4 service will cost by traditional geostationary right now (hint: start looking at $1200 per Mbps per month and multiply by N number of Mbps). It is indeed a good theory that I'm seeing unreasonably higher than normal speeds right now and better latency, jitter and packet loss because I'm in a similar situation to being the first customer on a new WISP PtMP AP sector. But I also have a great deal more confidence that spacex's continued paces of launches and satellite deployment will keep up with providing at least a 100 Mbps down x 15 Mbps up service. I do not think that they will let it degrade into a contended-service-hell where customers see a very poor end user experience. My perspective on starlink is also informed by knowing the price right now for Inmarsat and Iridium based offshore and aviation data services (sub 2 Mbps) and the $ per megabyte costs. There's already starlink aviation terminals in beta, and terminals for maritime and offshore use. It'll be a game changer there. The market for a globe-covering LEO high throughput satellite network is much larger than just the US48 state consumer residential internet/small business last mile internet market.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  If your cabin is off-grid, why do you want to be online? Doesn't that sort of defeat the point?

by gkop 6y ago

walrus01 6y ago

Typical WISP last mile: Something like a ubiquiti rocket 5ac gen2 on an RF elements 60 degree horn antenna, in a 40 MHz TDD channel somewhere in the 5.x GHz band, aggregate capacity of the entire AP might be around 240 Mbps. Shared between 20 to 30 customers. I'm regularly seeing 250-330 Mbps down on Starlink right now with beta equipment, and very, very few WISPs except those who are doing 60 GHz based PtMP micro-POP setups can match that. It's a real challenge for a WISP to have a few dozen houses all trying to download the latest 180GB Call of Duty update connected to one AP. I'm not nearly as optimistic about WISPs in the long run, compared to my views 8-10 years ago. Really difficult to reach locations will go to starlink or similar (as a replacement for consumer grade geostationary), other places where the customers per square km density is sufficient will eventually get overbuilt with GPON last mile that provides vastly more throughput and capacity. The most clueful and forward thinking WISPs I know are all making every effort possible, within whatever capital resources are available to them, to develop in house capacity for doing rural aerial FTTH. Buying bucket trucks, getting training, learning how to splice fiber, design GPON architecture, working with state PUCs for pole access, etc.

dboreham 6y ago
WISP and Musk are ruled by the same Shannon, so I'm skeptical that there will be a significant advantage over the long term, but satellite has a big advantage it terms of coverage -- the difference between "can you see that tiny hilltop in the distance over the trees?" and "can you see the sky?"
- walrus01 6y ago
  Same Shannon limit, but very different bands and channel sizes as well. Most WISPs are limited by the unlicensed frequency bands that exist in FCC part 15, and things like 3.5 and 3.65 GHz. One of the things that can go wrong with that is many WISPs in the same area fighting over the same bands from 5100-5900 MHz. By comparison LTE fixed last mile services in some places (where expensive spectrum is owned by entities like tmobile) have some of the prime tree-penetrating frequencies in the 600 and 700 MHz bands, and 2.5 GHz band. One of the reasons why clearwire was acquired by sprint was for their 2500 band.

gkop 6y ago

Replying to your reply, I don’t buy it. Your experience now on Starlink is analogous to being the first WISP subscriber on a newly deployed AP. Time will tell anyway. (And I will still be a grateful Starlink customer at my off-grid cabin, even with the throttling and caps. Starlink is a game changer!)

walrus01 6y ago
My perspective is informed by having been in locations previously dependent on geostationary based satellite services, as a comparison. For people who have budgeted, procured and installed 'serious' two way geostationary stuff in the past (one example of which would be a 2.4m two port linear compact cassegrain antenna, NJR PLL LNB, a 40W BUC, a Comtech CDM760 modem and a 1U sized Cisco router), for 1:1 SCPC dedicated transponder capacity based services, starlink is atonishingly fast. I could pull out a check book and spend $45,000 on buying terminal hardware and $30,000 a month in transponder space and not be able to achieve the speeds that starlink can do right now. Even if starlink was only 20 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up, go price what 20x4 service will cost by traditional geostationary right now (hint: start looking at $1200 per Mbps per month and multiply by N number of Mbps). It is indeed a good theory that I'm seeing unreasonably higher than normal speeds right now and better latency, jitter and packet loss because I'm in a similar situation to being the first customer on a new WISP PtMP AP sector. But I also have a great deal more confidence that spacex's continued paces of launches and satellite deployment will keep up with providing at least a 100 Mbps down x 15 Mbps up service. I do not think that they will let it degrade into a contended-service-hell where customers see a very poor end user experience. My perspective on starlink is also informed by knowing the price right now for Inmarsat and Iridium based offshore and aviation data services (sub 2 Mbps) and the $ per megabyte costs. There's already starlink aviation terminals in beta, and terminals for maritime and offshore use. It'll be a game changer there. The market for a globe-covering LEO high throughput satellite network is much larger than just the US48 state consumer residential internet/small business last mile internet market.
throwawayboise 6y ago
If your cabin is off-grid, why do you want to be online? Doesn't that sort of defeat the point?