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Unbelievable value for money. Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though? It's probably already at a point where from a cost v

Unbelievable value for money. Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though? It's probably already at a point where from a cost vs. benefit perspective I don't know if we should be laying a lot more cable, but I wonder if it will ever make the existing cables obsolete.

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daveoc64 2y ago
No. Starlink won't be able to offer enough capacity to completely eliminate fibre, even in rural areas.
- crowcroft 2y ago
  I can see that being true in high density areas, but I've got to think even now it's good enough that you really should question if rural areas should bother with fibre?
lurking_swe 2y ago
it will never be better than fiber for the simple fact that’s it’s less reliable. The “uptime” of a fiber connection to the home will most likely be higher than a fiber-like connection from a satellite. And you’ll have better “ping”. Fiber doesn’t care about cloudy days, typical storms, etc. Starlink is of course superior when there’s a massive natural disaster, or major power loss to your region. Or if you’re in a rural area with zero other good options.
- udosan 2y ago
  I‘ve had Starlink for over 2 years, not had a single perceptible minute of outage including in thunderstorms. Might have been slower than usual but not enough to notice. I switched because fibre in our rural area was way less reliable.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    that’s shocking to me actually. Was the ISP just bad? Wow. I guess that challenges my perspective. The ping point still stands. May or not be noticeable depending on how you use the internet.
    - udosan 2y ago
      I was very surprised myself. Ping is <30ms to google.com right now so fine with me.
- crowcroft 2y ago
  If web servers were deployed to space, and everyone was connecting through satellites would there be any upside for ping? Sure New York to Ohio is always going to be fastest over fibre, but what about New Zealand to London? Not sure how much that matters though and the speed of light is a pretty hard limit to what's possible.
  - lurking_swe 2y ago
    it mostly matters for video conferencing and gaming. i think everything else can more or less buffer no problem. :)
chasd00 2y ago
> Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though? i doubt it, the speed of light is only so fast. Latency up to LEO, down to earth, back to LEO, down to you will always be more than to your local telco CO and back.
- crowcroft 2y ago
  Yea, this makes sense, but what if web servers are deployed to space? I don't imagine it will ever be 'better'. Like wifi though, at some point it will probably be good enough that for 90+% of use cases the tradeoff of cables isn't worth it. Like I know ethernet is better, but very rarely does that little bit better latency or connection stability practically matter.
  - wincy 2y ago
    Maybe SpaceX should partner with Activision-Blizzard to run Diablo 4 servers in space so Elon can get better latency for His Pit 140+ runs when flying in his private jet.
  - prmph 2y ago
    Would give a whole new meaning to cloud computing. We can only hope.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Clamchop 2y ago
    I think the latency of satellite is very much tolerable as it is for most stuff. The use cases where it starts to be a problem is usually when humans are interacting with each other or humans/machines with financial markets. Maybe other things I'm not thinking of. I don't think servers in orbit can solve this problem?
  - Stevvo 2y ago
    Deploying web servers to space seems ridiculously far-fetched. Just insanely expensive without any real upsides.
zizee 2y ago
Fibre will always be better for densely populated areas. But for less dense satellite is making a lot of sense. However, for nation states there is a lot of value in having redundancy and sovereignty over your telecommunications infrastructure. Having a foreign country's company being sole provider could put you in a tough position (for the good/bad of your population).
extraduder_ire 2y ago
If they get satellite to satellite communication working across the entire globe, there's one niche usecase where it's certainly better. Latency over very long distances. Light travels faster in a vacuum (laser in space) than it does through glass (fibre optic cable), when the gains from that exceed the trip up and down to the satellites you're coming out ahead in terms of latency. It may also be a more direct path than following undersea cables, but I haven't checked. For bandwidth and regular internet connectivity, you can't really beat fibre. It's just so compact and speedy enough.

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daveoc64 2y ago

No. Starlink won't be able to offer enough capacity to completely eliminate fibre, even in rural areas.

crowcroft 2y ago
I can see that being true in high density areas, but I've got to think even now it's good enough that you really should question if rural areas should bother with fibre?

lurking_swe 2y ago

it will never be better than fiber for the simple fact that’s it’s less reliable. The “uptime” of a fiber connection to the home will most likely be higher than a fiber-like connection from a satellite. And you’ll have better “ping”. Fiber doesn’t care about cloudy days, typical storms, etc. Starlink is of course superior when there’s a massive natural disaster, or major power loss to your region. Or if you’re in a rural area with zero other good options.

udosan 2y ago
I‘ve had Starlink for over 2 years, not had a single perceptible minute of outage including in thunderstorms. Might have been slower than usual but not enough to notice. I switched because fibre in our rural area was way less reliable.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  that’s shocking to me actually. Was the ISP just bad? Wow. I guess that challenges my perspective. The ping point still stands. May or not be noticeable depending on how you use the internet.
  - udosan 2y ago
    I was very surprised myself. Ping is <30ms to google.com right now so fine with me.
crowcroft 2y ago
If web servers were deployed to space, and everyone was connecting through satellites would there be any upside for ping? Sure New York to Ohio is always going to be fastest over fibre, but what about New Zealand to London? Not sure how much that matters though and the speed of light is a pretty hard limit to what's possible.
- lurking_swe 2y ago
  it mostly matters for video conferencing and gaming. i think everything else can more or less buffer no problem. :)

chasd00 2y ago

> Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though? i doubt it, the speed of light is only so fast. Latency up to LEO, down to earth, back to LEO, down to you will always be more than to your local telco CO and back.

crowcroft 2y ago
Yea, this makes sense, but what if web servers are deployed to space? I don't imagine it will ever be 'better'. Like wifi though, at some point it will probably be good enough that for 90+% of use cases the tradeoff of cables isn't worth it. Like I know ethernet is better, but very rarely does that little bit better latency or connection stability practically matter.
- wincy 2y ago
  Maybe SpaceX should partner with Activision-Blizzard to run Diablo 4 servers in space so Elon can get better latency for His Pit 140+ runs when flying in his private jet.
- prmph 2y ago
  Would give a whole new meaning to cloud computing. We can only hope.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Clamchop 2y ago
  I think the latency of satellite is very much tolerable as it is for most stuff. The use cases where it starts to be a problem is usually when humans are interacting with each other or humans/machines with financial markets. Maybe other things I'm not thinking of. I don't think servers in orbit can solve this problem?
- Stevvo 2y ago
  Deploying web servers to space seems ridiculously far-fetched. Just insanely expensive without any real upsides.

zizee 2y ago

Fibre will always be better for densely populated areas. But for less dense satellite is making a lot of sense. However, for nation states there is a lot of value in having redundancy and sovereignty over your telecommunications infrastructure. Having a foreign country's company being sole provider could put you in a tough position (for the good/bad of your population).

extraduder_ire 2y ago

If they get satellite to satellite communication working across the entire globe, there's one niche usecase where it's certainly better. Latency over very long distances. Light travels faster in a vacuum (laser in space) than it does through glass (fibre optic cable), when the gains from that exceed the trip up and down to the satellites you're coming out ahead in terms of latency. It may also be a more direct path than following undersea cables, but I haven't checked. For bandwidth and regular internet connectivity, you can't really beat fibre. It's just so compact and speedy enough.