4 ms·

Can anyone explain how the ping is so low on starlink? I always assumed satellite internet was always going to be inferior for online gaming, but everything I f

Can anyone explain how the ping is so low on starlink? I always assumed satellite internet was always going to be inferior for online gaming, but everything I find online says that starlink is great for it. I guess I don’t have a specific question. It’s just one of those engineering marvels that I never thought I’d see. No wires, but still frag people at <90ms ping.

shmerl 4y ago
Ping depends on physical distance and quality of the signal. Low orbit satellites are much closer to Earth than geostationary ones. So latency is lower as well. And in space itself signal travels between nodes faster than through any cable.
joewadcan 4y ago
The Starlink satellites orbit closer to the earth than other comms satellites (iridium, oneweb). Closer distance = faster times, in addition to laser links between sats and other spectrum differences. Downside to lower orbit means they won't last as long (a few years) before they are pulled down into earth's atmo. Which is fine since their rocket company will just send up some more cheaply.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  In theory, the laser links may bring Starlink below terrestrial latency for point to point communications beyond a certain distance. Light travels through fiber at 7/10ths of the speed of light, but pretty much the actual speed of light through a vacuum. Once you get past the 340km * 2 round trip on both ends, you're actually moving bits around much faster than is physically possible with fiber. Probably even faster than that considering that fiber optic backbone isn't a straight line between you and your destination.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Chances are, you, dear reader, will not get any of this sweet, sweet, low latency. Most likely these laser links only go from each satellite to the one ahead and the one behind, in the same orbit. That is good enough. For example, there is an orbit that goes right over New York, London, and Hamburg. Who wants low latency most is hedge funds. It would be surprising if Starlink did not make anyone who wants it pay through the nose to get traffic one millisecond faster than fiber, 100x that for 2ms, 100x that for 3ms, and on up for longer links. What they would really be buying is not so much getting their own packets N milliseconds ahead of the fiber crowd, which is OK, but rather for their slightly poorer competitors to get packets only N-1 milliseconds ahead, which is super-great. In fintech, they like to say a microsecond is an eon, a millisecond an eternity. When they can get a millisecond jump on the competition, that can mean millions of dollars every day. So, they will pay it. Gladly.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- robswc 4y ago
  So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years? What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up? Really fascinating stuff.
  - lmm 4y ago
    > So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years? Yes, they send them up with a certain amount of propellant to do that, once that runs out they fall down. > What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up? Yes. They're small enough to burn up completely, and low enough to do that quickly rather than creating a space junk problem.
bri3d 4y ago
Low orbit and it's currently just a bent pipe / single hop design. Your message just bounces off of a single LEO satellite and lands at a ground station nearby to you, as though you had a fixed-wireless point to point link to that station.
_moof 4y ago
Starlink sats orbit at around 550 km altitude; other services are over 35,000 km high. That's 2 ms for a transmission to make it up (or down) versus 120 ms. Multiply by four to get the theoretical minimum ping, not including any computation/processing or routing on the ground, and the difference becomes enormous.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  Makes you wonder if this could eventually lead to Datacenters in space, say for financial or latency sensitive applications, and the kinds of exotic architectures that would be needed for 17,000 MPH servers to shuffle traffic around.
NelsonMinar 4y ago
Note that latency isn't as good as Starlink advertises. My residential service is supposed to get 20-40ms latency. In reality I get 40-80ms (as measured with ping to 8.8.8.8) and it's highly variable. Starlink latency is still quite good and a completely different category of service than any geosync satellite ISP. But they've got a ways to go to improve it. A lot of gamers seem unhappy with it right now, FWIW.
- walrus01 4y ago
  before my area got loaded I saw 15-20ms RTT from my starlink terminal to downtown seattle, now more like 25ms. i think the record low was 14.8 ms
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    I know you're usually here to promote starlink, but all ookla data shows starlink is 40+ms on average. it's dishonest to pretend 20ms will ever be normal.
    - walrus01 4y ago
      I'm usually here to promote starlink? Before yesterday go through my comment history for weeks or months into the past and find how many times I mention it... Sheesh For the record if oneweb or kuiper or telesat's proposed LEO networks existed as a viable, usable product right now and worked similarly I'd be equally enthused about them. (Yes, I know about Oneweb beta tests in Alaska)
      - shaklee3 4y ago
        it's not an attack, you are always pro starlink and I'm always anti starlink (in a business sense). there's nothing wrong with different opinions. I just don't agree with the comments that the latency, speed, or cost will stay the same in a positive way.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Don't expect it to get better. Asking for lower latency will become an upsell opportunity.
lmm 4y ago
The satellites are a lot lower than you'd think - something like 200-400km (compared with 35000km for conventional communication satellites). (Although having run the calculations, that implies that conventional satellites should only be adding 200ms in the best case, which shouldn't be so bad?)

shmerl 4y ago

Ping depends on physical distance and quality of the signal. Low orbit satellites are much closer to Earth than geostationary ones. So latency is lower as well. And in space itself signal travels between nodes faster than through any cable.

joewadcan 4y ago

The Starlink satellites orbit closer to the earth than other comms satellites (iridium, oneweb). Closer distance = faster times, in addition to laser links between sats and other spectrum differences. Downside to lower orbit means they won't last as long (a few years) before they are pulled down into earth's atmo. Which is fine since their rocket company will just send up some more cheaply.

oceanplexian 4y ago
In theory, the laser links may bring Starlink below terrestrial latency for point to point communications beyond a certain distance. Light travels through fiber at 7/10ths of the speed of light, but pretty much the actual speed of light through a vacuum. Once you get past the 340km * 2 round trip on both ends, you're actually moving bits around much faster than is physically possible with fiber. Probably even faster than that considering that fiber optic backbone isn't a straight line between you and your destination.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Chances are, you, dear reader, will not get any of this sweet, sweet, low latency. Most likely these laser links only go from each satellite to the one ahead and the one behind, in the same orbit. That is good enough. For example, there is an orbit that goes right over New York, London, and Hamburg. Who wants low latency most is hedge funds. It would be surprising if Starlink did not make anyone who wants it pay through the nose to get traffic one millisecond faster than fiber, 100x that for 2ms, 100x that for 3ms, and on up for longer links. What they would really be buying is not so much getting their own packets N milliseconds ahead of the fiber crowd, which is OK, but rather for their slightly poorer competitors to get packets only N-1 milliseconds ahead, which is super-great. In fintech, they like to say a microsecond is an eon, a millisecond an eternity. When they can get a millisecond jump on the competition, that can mean millions of dollars every day. So, they will pay it. Gladly.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
robswc 4y ago
So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years? What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up? Really fascinating stuff.
- lmm 4y ago
  > So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years? Yes, they send them up with a certain amount of propellant to do that, once that runs out they fall down. > What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up? Yes. They're small enough to burn up completely, and low enough to do that quickly rather than creating a space junk problem.

bri3d 4y ago

Low orbit and it's currently just a bent pipe / single hop design. Your message just bounces off of a single LEO satellite and lands at a ground station nearby to you, as though you had a fixed-wireless point to point link to that station.

_moof 4y ago

Starlink sats orbit at around 550 km altitude; other services are over 35,000 km high. That's 2 ms for a transmission to make it up (or down) versus 120 ms. Multiply by four to get the theoretical minimum ping, not including any computation/processing or routing on the ground, and the difference becomes enormous.

oceanplexian 4y ago
Makes you wonder if this could eventually lead to Datacenters in space, say for financial or latency sensitive applications, and the kinds of exotic architectures that would be needed for 17,000 MPH servers to shuffle traffic around.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

Note that latency isn't as good as Starlink advertises. My residential service is supposed to get 20-40ms latency. In reality I get 40-80ms (as measured with ping to 8.8.8.8) and it's highly variable. Starlink latency is still quite good and a completely different category of service than any geosync satellite ISP. But they've got a ways to go to improve it. A lot of gamers seem unhappy with it right now, FWIW.

walrus01 4y ago
before my area got loaded I saw 15-20ms RTT from my starlink terminal to downtown seattle, now more like 25ms. i think the record low was 14.8 ms
- shaklee3 4y ago
  I know you're usually here to promote starlink, but all ookla data shows starlink is 40+ms on average. it's dishonest to pretend 20ms will ever be normal.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    I'm usually here to promote starlink? Before yesterday go through my comment history for weeks or months into the past and find how many times I mention it... Sheesh For the record if oneweb or kuiper or telesat's proposed LEO networks existed as a viable, usable product right now and worked similarly I'd be equally enthused about them. (Yes, I know about Oneweb beta tests in Alaska)
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      it's not an attack, you are always pro starlink and I'm always anti starlink (in a business sense). there's nothing wrong with different opinions. I just don't agree with the comments that the latency, speed, or cost will stay the same in a positive way.
ncmncm 4y ago
Don't expect it to get better. Asking for lower latency will become an upsell opportunity.

lmm 4y ago

The satellites are a lot lower than you'd think - something like 200-400km (compared with 35000km for conventional communication satellites). (Although having run the calculations, that implies that conventional satellites should only be adding 200ms in the best case, which shouldn't be so bad?)