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Not every country has the resources or desire to lay nation-wide fiber. Satellite internet could beneift millions of people who don't have access to reliable hi

by jesseb 7y ago

Not every country has the resources or desire to lay nation-wide fiber. Satellite internet could beneift millions of people who don't have access to reliable high-speed connections.

sprash 7y ago
Sorry but I don't really care. Laying fiber is a dead simple procedure that is rather inexpensive. The main reason it doesn't happen are political reasons. Other countries are responsible to solve their political problems themselves. I have neither any influence, ability or responsibility for the political process in other countries (which is certainly a good thing). Former poor soviet block countries built their own internet literally with their bare hands in the 90s despite being rather poor. So it is not a matter of wealth. Littering LEO means disrupting the currently most fruitful branch of physics. Particle physics with accelerators is in a crisis right now and the best way to learn about the Universe is astronomy. What Musk does is a crime against humanity.
- chr1 7y ago
  First starlink is better than fiber because it will have lower latency. Second and more important it doesn't destroy astronomy at all, it adds some small temporary inconvenience for some types of observations, but at the same time makes space launches cheaper allowing more space telescopes, which is going to help astronomy greatly. Your reaction would be totally justified if starlink was really disrupting astronomy, but it is simply not true.
  - sprash 7y ago
    > First starlink is better than fiber because it will have lower latency. Nobody except some HF-Traders cares. > Your reaction would be totally justified if starlink was really disrupting astronomy The article is literally about even SpaceX admitting that there is a huge problem.
    - chr1 7y ago
      > The article is literally about even SpaceX admitting that there is a huge problem. The article is about spacex admitting that there is some inconvenience, and using maximally cautious wording to not attract angry social media mobs.
  - portillo 7y ago
    It will only have lower latency when they have the inter-satellite links. Until then, they will have the latency of fiber PLUS the RTT from the user terminal - satellite - gateway path.
portillo 7y ago
This is, in my opinion, kind of a myth. In the markets where the average revenue per user is high (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia) there is already (or there will be very shortly when Viasat3 is fully launched) high-speed reliable Internet connectivity through GEO satellites. And yes, the latency is huge and there are data-caps (which are pretty low if you want to binge-watch Netflix). But I am not sure that LEO constellations will be able to compete with GEO vHTS in price (not to mention the huge challenge of getting the price of the phase array user terminals cheap enough), so I am skeptical they will be able to capture a significant fraction of the market share. In the rest of the world, the ARPU is so low that it's hard to have a viable business model for broadband satellite connectivity (for all orbits GEO, MEO, or LEO). Furthermore, 90% of the population is currently covered by 3G/4G networks, so I would argue that for most of the 3.5 billion people currently unconnected, the issue is not infrastructure (but other factors such as affordability, relevance, or readiness). Finally, populations in those countries connect largely using mobile broadband (i.e., in Southeast Asia 75% of the population only use cellphone to access the Internet), so I think that fixed-broadband will have a limited impact in those places. (Maybe they can get a higher share of the cellphone tower backhauling market, but it will depend on the price per Mbps/month they can offer to MNOs).
shaklee3 7y ago
Satellite internet has existed for decades. Why is spacex the only way to provide high speed internet?
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Satellite internet has indeed existed for decades, but via small numbers of geostationary satellites (Iridium only has 76 active satellites; Starlink launches about that many in every launch). That means severely constrained bandwidth, and high latency given the ~50,000 mile round trip the data has to take. It's also expensive to get a satellite out there. Low Earth orbit constellations have both lower latency (a couple hundred miles for data to travel instead of tens of thousands) and dramatically more (and cheaper) satellites = more bandwidth available.
  - shaklee3 7y ago
    I'm well aware of the scale of starlink, but the speeds delivered by starlink won't be any faster than the existing GEO satellites at the time, not will it be cheaper. The OP talked about high speed internet, which, in most cases, the latency doesn't matter. Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. If you have a source that says otherwise, please post it here.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Iridium currently offers a handful of megabits at best, doesn't it? Starlink's loading 20 Gbps on each satellite, and has successfully tested up to 610 megabits on a connection with a military plane. (https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlin...) > Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. I'm not clear on whether you're referring to the ground station, the satellite constellation, or the cost of service here. That said, industry laughed at the idea of reusable rockets, and Blackberry thought Steve Jobs faked the iPhone pre-release. Industry estimates have been known to be badly wrong.

by jesseb 7y ago

Not every country has the resources or desire to lay nation-wide fiber. Satellite internet could beneift millions of people who don't have access to reliable high-speed connections.

sprash 7y ago

Sorry but I don't really care. Laying fiber is a dead simple procedure that is rather inexpensive. The main reason it doesn't happen are political reasons. Other countries are responsible to solve their political problems themselves. I have neither any influence, ability or responsibility for the political process in other countries (which is certainly a good thing). Former poor soviet block countries built their own internet literally with their bare hands in the 90s despite being rather poor. So it is not a matter of wealth. Littering LEO means disrupting the currently most fruitful branch of physics. Particle physics with accelerators is in a crisis right now and the best way to learn about the Universe is astronomy. What Musk does is a crime against humanity.

chr1 7y ago
First starlink is better than fiber because it will have lower latency. Second and more important it doesn't destroy astronomy at all, it adds some small temporary inconvenience for some types of observations, but at the same time makes space launches cheaper allowing more space telescopes, which is going to help astronomy greatly. Your reaction would be totally justified if starlink was really disrupting astronomy, but it is simply not true.
- sprash 7y ago
  > First starlink is better than fiber because it will have lower latency. Nobody except some HF-Traders cares. > Your reaction would be totally justified if starlink was really disrupting astronomy The article is literally about even SpaceX admitting that there is a huge problem.
  - chr1 7y ago
    > The article is literally about even SpaceX admitting that there is a huge problem. The article is about spacex admitting that there is some inconvenience, and using maximally cautious wording to not attract angry social media mobs.
- portillo 7y ago
  It will only have lower latency when they have the inter-satellite links. Until then, they will have the latency of fiber PLUS the RTT from the user terminal - satellite - gateway path.

portillo 7y ago

This is, in my opinion, kind of a myth. In the markets where the average revenue per user is high (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia) there is already (or there will be very shortly when Viasat3 is fully launched) high-speed reliable Internet connectivity through GEO satellites. And yes, the latency is huge and there are data-caps (which are pretty low if you want to binge-watch Netflix). But I am not sure that LEO constellations will be able to compete with GEO vHTS in price (not to mention the huge challenge of getting the price of the phase array user terminals cheap enough), so I am skeptical they will be able to capture a significant fraction of the market share. In the rest of the world, the ARPU is so low that it's hard to have a viable business model for broadband satellite connectivity (for all orbits GEO, MEO, or LEO). Furthermore, 90% of the population is currently covered by 3G/4G networks, so I would argue that for most of the 3.5 billion people currently unconnected, the issue is not infrastructure (but other factors such as affordability, relevance, or readiness). Finally, populations in those countries connect largely using mobile broadband (i.e., in Southeast Asia 75% of the population only use cellphone to access the Internet), so I think that fixed-broadband will have a limited impact in those places. (Maybe they can get a higher share of the cellphone tower backhauling market, but it will depend on the price per Mbps/month they can offer to MNOs).

shaklee3 7y ago

Satellite internet has existed for decades. Why is spacex the only way to provide high speed internet?

ceejayoz 7y ago
Satellite internet has indeed existed for decades, but via small numbers of geostationary satellites (Iridium only has 76 active satellites; Starlink launches about that many in every launch). That means severely constrained bandwidth, and high latency given the ~50,000 mile round trip the data has to take. It's also expensive to get a satellite out there. Low Earth orbit constellations have both lower latency (a couple hundred miles for data to travel instead of tens of thousands) and dramatically more (and cheaper) satellites = more bandwidth available.
- shaklee3 7y ago
  I'm well aware of the scale of starlink, but the speeds delivered by starlink won't be any faster than the existing GEO satellites at the time, not will it be cheaper. The OP talked about high speed internet, which, in most cases, the latency doesn't matter. Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. If you have a source that says otherwise, please post it here.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Iridium currently offers a handful of megabits at best, doesn't it? Starlink's loading 20 Gbps on each satellite, and has successfully tested up to 610 megabits on a connection with a military plane. (https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlin...) > Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. I'm not clear on whether you're referring to the ground station, the satellite constellation, or the cost of service here. That said, industry laughed at the idea of reusable rockets, and Blackberry thought Steve Jobs faked the iPhone pre-release. Industry estimates have been known to be badly wrong.