4 ms·

Fascinating that the throughput is about 250mbs. Presumably that's over the area served by one satellite? I wonder how much cache they put in each one... I vagu

by sgt101 2y ago

Fascinating that the throughput is about 250mbs. Presumably that's over the area served by one satellite? I wonder how much cache they put in each one... I vaguely remember a stat that 90% of requests (in data terms) are served from a TB of cache on the consumer internet, perhaps having the satellites gossip for cache hits would work to preserve uplink bandwidth as well. Maybe downlink bandwidth is the thing for this network though and caches just won't work.

echoangle 2y ago
I would be surprised if there is a lot or even any cache on the satellites itself. Fast large storage that's radiation hardened would be extremely expensive, and they have a lot of satellites. The satellites are low enough that general radiation isn't that bad, but every pass through the South Atlantic Anomaly would risk damage if regular flash storage is used.
- Alex-Programs 2y ago
  Beyond that, how would the cache actually work? Everything is HTTPS nowadays; you can't just MITM and stick a caching proxy in front. You could put DNS on the sat I suppose, but other than that you'd need to have a full Netflix/Cloudflare node, and the sats are far too small and numerous for that.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    I'm working on a new type of protocol so that when there's a large-scale online event like the superbowl or a major boxing match on a streaming platform, satellite and cable internet providers will be able to send a single copy of the video stream on the uplink, and using a new technique we've named "casting the net broadly" multiple viewers will be able to receive the same downlink packets which we believe will have excellent scalability, enabling web-scale streaming video.
    - spockz 2y ago
      Isn’t this what multicast does?
      - pests 2y ago
        I can't tell if he is being sincere or just making a joke
vardump 2y ago
I think a single Starlink v1 satellite has a maximum bandwidth of about 20 Gbps. Newer versions might have a lot more.
- sgt101 2y ago
  I wonder how they could do that if they are on 8 250MHz bearers?

by sgt101 2y ago

echoangle 2y ago

I would be surprised if there is a lot or even any cache on the satellites itself. Fast large storage that's radiation hardened would be extremely expensive, and they have a lot of satellites. The satellites are low enough that general radiation isn't that bad, but every pass through the South Atlantic Anomaly would risk damage if regular flash storage is used.

Alex-Programs 2y ago
Beyond that, how would the cache actually work? Everything is HTTPS nowadays; you can't just MITM and stick a caching proxy in front. You could put DNS on the sat I suppose, but other than that you'd need to have a full Netflix/Cloudflare node, and the sats are far too small and numerous for that.
- michaelt 2y ago
  I'm working on a new type of protocol so that when there's a large-scale online event like the superbowl or a major boxing match on a streaming platform, satellite and cable internet providers will be able to send a single copy of the video stream on the uplink, and using a new technique we've named "casting the net broadly" multiple viewers will be able to receive the same downlink packets which we believe will have excellent scalability, enabling web-scale streaming video.
  - spockz 2y ago
    Isn’t this what multicast does?
    - pests 2y ago
      I can't tell if he is being sincere or just making a joke

vardump 2y ago

I think a single Starlink v1 satellite has a maximum bandwidth of about 20 Gbps. Newer versions might have a lot more.

sgt101 2y ago
I wonder how they could do that if they are on 8 250MHz bearers?