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Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by phkahler on Thursday November 17, 2016 @10:09PM (#12983990)
But if everyone gets 1Gbps then each satellite can only service 23 people. Of course people who have that kind of bandwidth don't use it continuously. But what if we all try to watch some 4k video at say 20mbps? That's 50x23 = 1150 users per satellite or around 5 million users to saturate the whole constellation. It's still cool, but certain things will not be possible.
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by mrep on Thursday November 17, 2016 @10:46PM (#12984139)
Key phrase in the article: "up to 1Gbps per user". They aren't providing an SLA of guaranteed 1 Gbps, but a maximum possible 1 Gbps. They will oversubscribe just like all WAN's do because thats what makes the most economical sense. Now, I bet you will be able to pay for your guaranteed IOPS but everyone who's used EBS knows that costs money.
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by subway on Thursday November 17, 2016 @10:21PM (#12984024)
Oversubscription isn't exactly a rare thing in the ISP world.
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by flukus on Thursday November 17, 2016 @10:27PM (#12984048)
No, but cables can be duplicated, wireless bandwidth can't.
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by the8472 on Friday November 18, 2016 @03:22AM (#12985209)
lasers are wireless and don't compete for spectrum. beam-forming with phased arrays is not quite as good, but still gives you more capacity than naively shared spectrum would.
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by flukus on Friday November 18, 2016 @04:17AM (#12985450)
This is laser based? Are the building ground stations everywhere too?
Re:SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latenc... by the8472 on Friday November 18, 2016 @04:39AM (#12985533)
The links to end-users use beam-steered microwaves, sat-sat links use laser.

I was more making a more general statement: that wireless is not necessarily synonymous with shared medium.