3 ms·

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 a

by 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?
- mod 6y ago
  Sometimes there's not an option to be on the grid.
- itbeho 6y ago
  Not the person you replied to, but off-grid doesn't mean no power. I have an off-grid cabin with enough solar capacity to run my laptop, as well as quite a few other things. I'm looking forward to getting Starlink there myself. It's a fantastic, quiet place to work with no opportunity for interruptions.
- walrus01 6y ago
  photovoltaic power systems are a lot less costly than they used to be - if you're fully off grid and won't be connecting to it, having absolute fidelity to electrical code might not be a high priority. If you have some technical ability and can follow documentation and instructions, big 360W panels are like $0.45/watt now, and the setup process for a charge controller and battery bank isn't excessively difficult.

by gkop 6y ago

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?

mod 6y ago
Sometimes there's not an option to be on the grid.
itbeho 6y ago
Not the person you replied to, but off-grid doesn't mean no power. I have an off-grid cabin with enough solar capacity to run my laptop, as well as quite a few other things. I'm looking forward to getting Starlink there myself. It's a fantastic, quiet place to work with no opportunity for interruptions.
walrus01 6y ago
photovoltaic power systems are a lot less costly than they used to be - if you're fully off grid and won't be connecting to it, having absolute fidelity to electrical code might not be a high priority. If you have some technical ability and can follow documentation and instructions, big 360W panels are like $0.45/watt now, and the setup process for a charge controller and battery bank isn't excessively difficult.