3 ms·

It would be a huge stretch to characterize usage over 1TB a month as abuse. My family likely rips through 1TB of data in about 10 days if I had to estimate. S

It would be a huge stretch to characterize usage over 1TB a month as abuse. My family likely rips through 1TB of data in about 10 days if I had to estimate. So some sort of throttling after 5TB would be more appropriate for 30 days, as obviously a main use case for Starlink will just be normal family internet usage which means a hell of a lot of video.

umvi 4y ago
Unless you are streaming multiple 4K movies per day I just don't see how that's possible. I have a family of 5 and my kids watch several hours of Disney+ and YouTube per day, plus my wife and I watch an hour of Netflix after the kids go to bed, and on top of that I work from home and... I've never exceeded even 500GB in one month.
- jwcooper 4y ago
  Our family routinely gets close to our 1.2TB cap. Working from home contributes, but another big contributor is the Nintendo Switch and Steam. Both of them are constantly pulling down big game updates. If you have a PS5 or Xbox, it would be a similar situation if you own a decent sized game library. 1TB isn't what it used to be...
  - qmarchi 4y ago
    As noted, data usage after 11PM (until 7AM) isn't considered as part of your data utilization, so you can schedule any game updates between those times. Most of the time, you aren't even playing the games actively, so you won't even notice the ~6h delay after patch release.
    - kjkjadksj 4y ago
      So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it?
      - Jedd 4y ago
        > So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it? That's a very disingenuous interpretation of parent's suggestion. My reading of their comment was that a) there's 1/3 of every day that's not covered by this quota / throttling allowance, and so b) it's easy to configure your game store download manager to pull game _patches_ during that window. I guess AAA games are around the 50GB these days? If you're buying dozens of these each months, you may have some larger self-control issues to contend with. Keep in mind we're talking about people using a nominally beta internet service that's got a minimum average ~50ms latency, at any point in talking to one of a thousand satellites. People that are using Starlink tend to be here because there's no options, or really really really poor options (eg. geostationary satellite - which is what I was on previously, with its 150GB / month limit, 600ms latency, etc). Some appreciation for the fact these pipes are finite and shared is expected and assumed, much more so than urban internet users with nice fat terrestrial connections.
        Rioghasarig 4y ago
        How in the world is that disingenuous? That's the direct implication.
        Jedd 4y ago
        What do you mean by 'the direct implication'? GP said you can schedule game updates for the 1/3 of each day that you're not metered. P incorrectly translated that to 'when you buy a game you have to wait a day to play it'. So, as I already argued, these are not the same thing -- purchase & download of a game (impulse) vs regular patches (easily scheduled out of hours), and for a new game it's entirely up to you if you want to pull that down immediately (a modest percentage of 1TB).
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        kjkjadksj 4y ago
        Triple a games are more like 200gb these days
  - dmix 4y ago
    > 1TB isn't what it used to be... Maybe on Fiber but if I was using a satellite service idk, I might understand the difference. Having lived in a rural home with WiMAX the idea of having 1TB caps with high speed sounds like something you don't get to complain about.
    - orra 4y ago
      > Maybe on Fiber Until now Starlink was advertising speeds as 50–200 Mbps. On the low side that is competitive with VDSL2 FTTC. On the high side, that's faster than the packages most users take out on FTTP* * In the UK, anyway, by far most FTTP users take out entry level packages. These packages often coincide with FTTC speed tiers; if they don't, 100 or 150Mbps is the highest entry level tier.
      - dmix 4y ago
        I dont know what UK VDSL2 is but in Canada if you're outside a city or town you spend $75/m on 20mbps that fails whenever it rains. My friend who moved to a rural farm has been raving about how life-changing Starlink has been for him and he only lives 20 minutes outside a town with 40k people and 1.5hrs from a city with 4 million. And we allegedly live in a country where gov subsidies justify the exorbitant ISP prices and allegedly rural people benefit from that... Where a free market wouldnt. Allegedly.
        orra 4y ago
        Yikes, that's appalling. VDSL is an evolution of ADSL. You can get speeds of 50-78 Mbps, depending on distance to cabinet, for under £30/month. Coverage isn't universal, but it sounds better than in Canada. It's also interesting (but disappointing!) Canada's been let down by the telecoms regulator in an entirely different way. In the UK, BT was beginning to roll out fibre, but that was cancelled in favour of privatisation in 1984. Here we are nearly four decades later, and only now is FTTP being rolled out in earnest.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  Some steam games I've installed this month were 96gb, 48gb, and 72gb. That's to say nothing of videoconferencing, watching media, etc etc. 1TB is pretty modest for a household.
- orra 4y ago
  Believe it! I can’t explain how you use so little, but 3 TB/month is typical in the UK. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-see-uk-broadband-usage-double-in-2020-to-50000pb.html https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-see-...
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    That's 3TB/year. > The average property connected to the Openreach network used around 3,000GB of data in 2020, or around 9GB per day
    - orra 4y ago
      Whoops! I am quite out. More recently, that's doubled to 0.5 TB/month[1]. Still, the point I should have made is: is using twice or thrice the (presumably) median unreasonable? Not necessarily. Of course, deprioritisation after a certain amount isn't unreasonable either, provided there is succificent truth in advertising. [1] https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-use-456-gb-of-data-per-month/ https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-us...
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Easy to hit 1TB if some of your family members are unknowingly compromised by botnets.
Teever 4y ago
Just to be clear here, the reason that you feel that 1TB/30 days from a low orbit satellite ISP (a relatively recent technological development mind you) is insufficient is simply because your family happens to use 1TB/10 days on what is I assume a wired internet connection? "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago". https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97 https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97
- __ryan__ 4y ago
  “How quickly the advertised-as-unlimited internet service he paid for owes him unlimited internet service he knew was deprioritized only 10 seconds ago.” Let’s be real, they’re simply making a case that 1TB/mo is far from abuse as far as an unlimited, capless internet service should be concerned. Did these starlink customers agree to a contract saying this could happen? Probably. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty low threshold* when compared to unlimited. *edited from cap
  - jbverschoor 4y ago
    It is still unlimited. Just at a lower speed
    - 7e 4y ago
      A limit now exists on speed. That’s not unlimited.
      - Jedd 4y ago
        A limit always existed on speed (and consequently bandwidth) -- it's just that now they're proposing to apply that limit more equitably.

umvi 4y ago

Unless you are streaming multiple 4K movies per day I just don't see how that's possible. I have a family of 5 and my kids watch several hours of Disney+ and YouTube per day, plus my wife and I watch an hour of Netflix after the kids go to bed, and on top of that I work from home and... I've never exceeded even 500GB in one month.

jwcooper 4y ago
Our family routinely gets close to our 1.2TB cap. Working from home contributes, but another big contributor is the Nintendo Switch and Steam. Both of them are constantly pulling down big game updates. If you have a PS5 or Xbox, it would be a similar situation if you own a decent sized game library. 1TB isn't what it used to be...
- qmarchi 4y ago
  As noted, data usage after 11PM (until 7AM) isn't considered as part of your data utilization, so you can schedule any game updates between those times. Most of the time, you aren't even playing the games actively, so you won't even notice the ~6h delay after patch release.
  - kjkjadksj 4y ago
    So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it?
    - Jedd 4y ago
      > So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it? That's a very disingenuous interpretation of parent's suggestion. My reading of their comment was that a) there's 1/3 of every day that's not covered by this quota / throttling allowance, and so b) it's easy to configure your game store download manager to pull game _patches_ during that window. I guess AAA games are around the 50GB these days? If you're buying dozens of these each months, you may have some larger self-control issues to contend with. Keep in mind we're talking about people using a nominally beta internet service that's got a minimum average ~50ms latency, at any point in talking to one of a thousand satellites. People that are using Starlink tend to be here because there's no options, or really really really poor options (eg. geostationary satellite - which is what I was on previously, with its 150GB / month limit, 600ms latency, etc). Some appreciation for the fact these pipes are finite and shared is expected and assumed, much more so than urban internet users with nice fat terrestrial connections.
      - Rioghasarig 4y ago
        How in the world is that disingenuous? That's the direct implication.
        Jedd 4y ago
        What do you mean by 'the direct implication'? GP said you can schedule game updates for the 1/3 of each day that you're not metered. P incorrectly translated that to 'when you buy a game you have to wait a day to play it'. So, as I already argued, these are not the same thing -- purchase & download of a game (impulse) vs regular patches (easily scheduled out of hours), and for a new game it's entirely up to you if you want to pull that down immediately (a modest percentage of 1TB).
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - kjkjadksj 4y ago
        Triple a games are more like 200gb these days
- dmix 4y ago
  > 1TB isn't what it used to be... Maybe on Fiber but if I was using a satellite service idk, I might understand the difference. Having lived in a rural home with WiMAX the idea of having 1TB caps with high speed sounds like something you don't get to complain about.
  - orra 4y ago
    > Maybe on Fiber Until now Starlink was advertising speeds as 50–200 Mbps. On the low side that is competitive with VDSL2 FTTC. On the high side, that's faster than the packages most users take out on FTTP* * In the UK, anyway, by far most FTTP users take out entry level packages. These packages often coincide with FTTC speed tiers; if they don't, 100 or 150Mbps is the highest entry level tier.
    - dmix 4y ago
      I dont know what UK VDSL2 is but in Canada if you're outside a city or town you spend $75/m on 20mbps that fails whenever it rains. My friend who moved to a rural farm has been raving about how life-changing Starlink has been for him and he only lives 20 minutes outside a town with 40k people and 1.5hrs from a city with 4 million. And we allegedly live in a country where gov subsidies justify the exorbitant ISP prices and allegedly rural people benefit from that... Where a free market wouldnt. Allegedly.
      - orra 4y ago
        Yikes, that's appalling. VDSL is an evolution of ADSL. You can get speeds of 50-78 Mbps, depending on distance to cabinet, for under £30/month. Coverage isn't universal, but it sounds better than in Canada. It's also interesting (but disappointing!) Canada's been let down by the telecoms regulator in an entirely different way. In the UK, BT was beginning to roll out fibre, but that was cancelled in favour of privatisation in 1984. Here we are nearly four decades later, and only now is FTTP being rolled out in earnest.
socialismisok 4y ago
Some steam games I've installed this month were 96gb, 48gb, and 72gb. That's to say nothing of videoconferencing, watching media, etc etc. 1TB is pretty modest for a household.
orra 4y ago
Believe it! I can’t explain how you use so little, but 3 TB/month is typical in the UK. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-see-uk-broadband-usage-double-in-2020-to-50000pb.html https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-see-...
- Symbiote 4y ago
  That's 3TB/year. > The average property connected to the Openreach network used around 3,000GB of data in 2020, or around 9GB per day
  - orra 4y ago
    Whoops! I am quite out. More recently, that's doubled to 0.5 TB/month[1]. Still, the point I should have made is: is using twice or thrice the (presumably) median unreasonable? Not necessarily. Of course, deprioritisation after a certain amount isn't unreasonable either, provided there is succificent truth in advertising. [1] https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-use-456-gb-of-data-per-month/ https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-us...
hombre_fatal 4y ago
Easy to hit 1TB if some of your family members are unknowingly compromised by botnets.

Teever 4y ago

Just to be clear here, the reason that you feel that 1TB/30 days from a low orbit satellite ISP (a relatively recent technological development mind you) is insufficient is simply because your family happens to use 1TB/10 days on what is I assume a wired internet connection? "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago". https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97 https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97

__ryan__ 4y ago
“How quickly the advertised-as-unlimited internet service he paid for owes him unlimited internet service he knew was deprioritized only 10 seconds ago.” Let’s be real, they’re simply making a case that 1TB/mo is far from abuse as far as an unlimited, capless internet service should be concerned. Did these starlink customers agree to a contract saying this could happen? Probably. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty low threshold* when compared to unlimited. *edited from cap
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  It is still unlimited. Just at a lower speed
  - 7e 4y ago
    A limit now exists on speed. That’s not unlimited.
    - Jedd 4y ago
      A limit always existed on speed (and consequently bandwidth) -- it's just that now they're proposing to apply that limit more equitably.