6 ms·
Honestly when I first got the dish, and had it in an open field, that was the case—but now the momentary dropouts between satellites are less than 1-2 seconds.
by geerlingguy 5y ago
Honestly when I first got the dish, and had it in an open field, that was the case—but now the momentary dropouts between satellites are less than 1-2 seconds.
They had 1000 or so satellites when I first started testing, and there are now something like 1600 or so. Most of the time, I don't even notice when it switches satellites.
If you were doing some more real-time work or extremely latency-sensitive operations, then yes, you need to stick to a different type of connection. But it's really seamless now, compared to even a few months ago.
Most of the software I used either showed no sign of the dropout, or at worst would freeze a frame or show a loading indicator for a brief moment before getting back to normal.
Online multiplayer gaming and/or streaming are the main areas where I'd have to not recommend Starlink for now.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- taf2 5y agoI'm thinking of using this for a backup connection if FIOS fails... we'd switch our office over to starlink... currently we switch to comcast and it's basicaly unsable... so wonder if starlink would be good for ssh connections etc...
- solarengineer 5y agoWhen I connect to remote servers over SSH, I usually start a screen (another alternative is tmux) session and then perform my administrative and diagnostics actions in that session. This way, even if I get disconnected, I can reconnect and join that running session. There are other benefits to a screen multiplexer - such as multiple remote users being able to attach to the same session, a joy when a distributed team needs to diagnose an issue or watch some actions together.
- jefftk 5y agoCombine with mosh and you can even keep editing while the connection blips!
- iotku 5y agoYou may also want to look into mosh [1] as it will handle dropouts and continue where ssh would just fail on its own. Also has local echo for points of high latency. Was a real life saver on some of the terrible sat connections of yesteryear. 1. https://mosh.org/ https://mosh.org/
- aruggirello 5y agoHow does it compare to autossh?
- wffurr 5y agoautossh just re-reestablishes your ssh connection. It doesn't tolerate packet loss very well or have local echo like mosh. mosh does require UDP ports, though, which might be problematic with some firewalls or proxies.
- starfallg 5y agoMosh is great, but if you don't need the predictive terminal emulation, then you can try Eternal Terminal, which is easier to get running due to not needed an UDP port open.
- taf2 5y agoyeah i use screen for everything too... still there are times when a connection dropping is a bit scary...
- wil421 5y agoI’d fix the Comcast problem before switching over to something that is pretty much guaranteed to have drop offs at this point in time. There are also devices that will give you a cellular LTE backup like the U-LTE from UniFi. I’ve heard the plans are a bit pricey. https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-accessories/products/unifi-lte https://store.ui.com/collections/unifi-accessories/products/...
- taf2 5y agoYeah we have mifi’s as backup as well but usually only a few people can be on those. But also thinking about dedicated fiber… but honestly none of these seem as cool to me right now as bunch of satellites
- olyjohn 5y agoI work from home on Starlink. My SSH sessions work just fine. When I first got the service, it was dropping quite a lot, but even then SSH worked pretty well. But these days, if there are any drops, I can't tell. The improvements in the last few months have been massive. I am even about to drop my land line, because WiFi calling on my cell phone has been nearly perfect. It works better than my cell phone does when I am in a good service area.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y agomosh instead of ssh helps for unreliable connections
- HWR_14 5y agoIf you live somewhere with FiOS, Starlink is going to be a non-starter. FiOS requires high density. High density kills Starlink connections. I suppose Starlink can support a small, negligible, percentage of customers in an urban (or even suburban) area. (Same total number as a rural area.) So, if you think they are going to cutoff registrations as oppose to oversubscribe when they hit that point you may want to sign up right away.
- freeopinion 5y agoI'm not sure if you are using FiOS as a synonym for FTTH. If so, you might be interested to know I live somewhere with FTTH that is reasonably low-density (~25-30 people per sq km). I think Starlink will be a very serious consideration here.
- HWR_14 5y agoWhen I say FiOS, I'm thinking gigabit+ FTTH/FTTD (I'm not 100% sure of the difference). Given that you quoted people per sq km (about 70-84 people per sq. mile), you're probably not in the US. In the US, it's hard to get fiber outside of areas with the high density I'm quoting (at least in my experience). But yes, that density seems fine for Starlink (although maybe it isn't in the end, who knows yet.)
- freeopinion 5y agoMy understanding is that StarLink is aiming for 100M un-guaranteed in beta. So that's considerably below gigabit. But I also know that most households with FTTH around here use considerably less than 50M. So perhaps you meant that gigabit internet kills Starlink. FTTH has some advantages over Starlink. But Starlink also has advantages over FTTH. If you need more than 100M, Starlink is not in the game yet. But if you want some leverage with the local monopoly and have typical usage... Or, if you snowbird (common case here) and want the same provider on the border of Canada and the border of Mexico...
- HWR_14 5y ago
- driverdan 5y agoLTE makes a lot more sense if you have a decent signal. The cost is lower and speeds are comparable in many areas if you have good hardware.
- grognak420 5y agoFor ssh you could use tmux or screen in case you get disconnected
- jbluepolarbear 5y agoI’m a multiplayer developer and I’m waiting to get a Starlink to test on (I have tested a few times on my moms). I want to makes games tolerate of the latency and instability of Starlink. Mobile networks deal with similar issues so I think it’s possible to make games with Starlink in mind.
- lordofgibbons 5y agoI believe these kinds of latency and dropped packet issues be easily simulated on a normal PC without the need for a Starlink connection
- funkaster 5y agoexactly. Just use charles proxy (or mitmproxy) and ask it to drop packets/throttle the connection. No need to wait for starlink.
- jbluepolarbear 5y agoI do simulate these conditions, but there’s no replacement for real world condition testing.
- wtallis 5y agoMost tools for simulating latency and packet loss locally are a pretty poor model of the kinds of behavior encountered on real networks. In particular, latency due to bufferbloat rather than speed of light delays is extremely important to simulate, but not well-supported by many tools.
- tigershark 5y agoI’m not sure if it’s an endeavour worth taking honestly.. Starlink is still in beta, and once they can use starship to launch the satellites (hopefully somewhere next year) the launch capability will increase to 400 satellites compared to 60 on falcon 9. At that point they will be limited just by the satellites build throughput, so they will reach the 11k coverage very quickly.
- IgorPartola 5y agoI have five different Wi-Fi APs on my property. The handoff between them results in roughly 40-60ms dropout. That still interrupts audio calls. 1-2 seconds is huge.
- dougmwne 5y agoYeah, I am on lots of video and audio calls for work. 1-2 second drops while doing a client presentation are absolutely not ok.
- ajklsdhfniuwehf 5y ago> They had 1000 or so satellites when I first started testing, and there are now something like 1600 or so. Most of the time, I don't even notice when it switches satellites. Enjoy the early adopter moment. Even if they keep increasing the numbers, they will probably move those new satellites in a much wider net to cover more subscribers the second they must show a profit.
- Robotbeat 5y agoThey are planning to increase the number of satellites by an order of magnitude. They’re launching extremely fast with Falcon 9, and prepping Starship for launch as well, which has 5-10 times the payload. May see Starlink launches on Starship join Falcon9 within a year or so. So the opposite is true. They’re likely to massively increase the number of satellites. If you want to argue the per user bandwidth might be different than for early users, that’s somewhat more plausible. But the number of satellites will increase. They can’t actually significantly change the inclination of the satellites once launched as it takes an insane amount of propellant, and even for solar electric thrusters, so your concern about them moving the satellites to other orbits is very unlikely.
- shaklee3 5y agoNo. They are increasing satellites by an order of magnitude, but users by about 20x. It's going to get worse
- Robotbeat 5y agoIf they have 1600 satellites in orbit but are adding 40,000 more satellites (with more capability), then it’ll get better with 20x users, not worse. But anyway, the question was about satellite visibility, not bandwidth per user. The person I was replying to was claiming there will be fewer visible satellites as they’d be moving to different inclinations, which just isn’t feasible let alone likely.
- zizee 5y ago> Even if they keep increasing the numbers, they will probably move those new satellites in a much wider net The only way to make a wider net whilst simultaneously adding satellites would be to raise the altitude of the satellites, which I am fairly certain is not possible for the existing satellites.
- bugfix 5y agoWhat about an SSH connection? Do you have to reconnect when it switches satellites?
- geerlingguy 5y agoNo, the connection seems to be paired up through the ground station, so I wouldn't get disconnected via SSH. Mosh may be a better option if you want to make it feel rock solid though.