That is incorrect. Round trip is still 20k+ miles that is ping to ground station before it's sent to one of the sats. It will still be 600ms+

That's unfortunate. Looks like we don't have an objective measurement of satellite internet speeds, then.

Sure we do, we have the laws of physics. HughesNet has geostationary satellites. They orbit at ~22,200 miles up. Assuming speed of light, it's going to take ~120ms per hop. There's a minimum of 4 hops (you -> satellite -> ground station -> satellite -> you), or 480ms.

And that's assuming perfect conditions and ignoring the rest of the normal latency encountered online. It's physically impossible to have a latency lower than ~480ms with geostationary satellites.

Why can't you avoid the ground station and just do satellite to satellite for relay? I believe that's precisely how starlink works.

You're pinging a device on the ground

  t=0 You send out ICMP request
  t=120ms it hits the satelite
  t=240ms it arrives at the ground station, ICMP reply occurs
  t=360ms hits satelite
  t=480ms arrives back at the originating machine

The only way doing satelite-satelite at a GEO level would be useful would be

1) You're pinging a device on satellite in GEO (one you don't have LOS to)

2) You're pinging a device that's also connected via a different GEO 120 degrees away from the first

in this case you'll

  t=0 You send out ICMP request
  t=120ms it hits the satelite
  t=240ms it arrives at the ground station 1
  t=280ms arrives at ground station 2
  t=400ms hits satelite #2
  t=520ms arrives back at the destination
  t=640ms response arrives at sat #2
  t=800ms response arrives at ground station 2
  t=840ms response arrives at GS#1
  t=960ms response arrives at sat #1
  t=1080ms response arrives back at originating machine

You could change that, but you won't save much in GEO as you're connecting to two different satelites, 120 degrees apart or 70,000km (235ms)

  t=0 You send out ICMP request
  t=120ms it hits the satelite
  t=355ms hits satelite #2
  t=475ms arrives at destination
  t=595ms response arrives at sat #2
  t=830ms response arrives at sat #1
  t=950ms response arrives back at originating machine

Reality of course is that typical satelite latency is 800ms or more (depending how much you pay to skip buffering) rather than 480ms.

In GP's post the second satellite is the same satellite, just on the way back. The post assumes for demonstration that the ground station is the destination.

Color me skeptical that Starlink will reach its theoretical maximum capabilities, or that it is competitive with 5G. I'm fine with fiber until then. It's affordable in most of the world. The problem of broadband monopolies in the US is not going to be resolved by a new privately-owned technology. We should hold local politicians' feet to the fire, not throw money at new tech from a monorail salesman.

> it's affordable in most of the world

I'm afraid you are drastically underestimating how much it actually costs to install fiber.

Good point. I meant the developed world.

Regarding the 3rd world, Facebook offered India free internet with strings attached, and IIRC they rejected it. That idea wasn't too popular there or here.

Would Musk be given a pass for offering discounted or free internet to 3rd world countries, and what strings would investors suggest he attach?

> Would Musk be given a pass for offering discounted or free internet to 3rd world countries, and what strings would investors suggest he attach?

Why would he want to do that? Facebook wanted to do that, because that would drive more users to their platform. SpaceX wants to use Starlink in order to bankroll BFR[0], so what they want is to simply sell the service at a price point that generates them enough money. It's not beneficial to them to discount it, make it free, or play other shenanigans.

--

[0] - Or whatever it's called now; it'll always be the BFR in my heart.

> Why would he want to do that?

Because granting internet fast lanes to certain content providers is a way to generate revenue.

Zero-rating is already happening [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating

If you have a lot of market power and you want to make as much money as possible the rational thing to do is to charge people according to their willingness to pay[1]. You can't do this perfectly but this is what is behind senior discounts and Intel's huge number of SKUs. Since people in Botswana can't profitably resell their internet in England, since Starlink can easily charge different amounts in different countries, and because the marginal cost of servicing a new region is approximately zero it would be crazy for Starlink not to do geographic pricing tiers.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

That sounds like a yes.

If money is your only goal, that's completely rational. However, that's not how I've typically heard people champion Musk. He's been lauded as a progressive person whose aims are meant to serve humanity, not merely his wallet. Supposedly.

All human beings are complex and you can't just sort them into good people and bad people. Elon seems to be more idealist than most about the fate of humanity as a whole but also seems to be willing to work his employees to the bone, drive sharp bargains, etc to pursue that goal. He's said that he sees Starlink as a cash cow that'll fund future Mars colonies and I don't have any reason to believe that he isn't being sincere about that.

> All human beings are complex and you can't just sort them into good people and bad people.

Some would make the argument that if everyone worked with only their wallet in mind, we'd be better off. I wouldn't.

> Elon seems to be more idealist than most

Elon is not an idealistic engineer, he is a businessman. He actively misleads about products he must have been told will not meet the timelines he promotes.

> about the fate of humanity

Not sure where you get this idea. The way he talks about AGI taking over the world is creepy. He thinks it's inevitable, nevermind that we have no idea how to design anything close to AGI.

It's not like serving humanity and making money is mutally exclusive. If there are markets in developing countries he can serve cheaper than anyone else both sides profit: he makes money, the people get cheaper internet.

That said, internet already tends to be the infrastructure demand best satisfied in developing countries. Building cell phone towers is much easier than building roads, and with cheap labor and no purchasing power comes cheap internet.

> If there are markets in developing countries he can serve cheaper than anyone else both sides profit: he makes money, the people get cheaper internet.

Let's see whether it is net-neutral internet or not, then judge. My guess is it will have exclusive offers to content distributors in order to lower cost.

Australia would like to argue this point, but the latency of our replies would make it seem like they're coming from the late 1990s.

>Good point. I meant the developed world.

I think your parent also meant the developed world.

In devloping countries it's sometimes much easier to get fibre. No or very little infrastructure means no old copper wires lying around. You can go fibre instantly this way.

It’s cheap to get fiber in developing countries because labor costs are extremely low and government regulation is lax.

Fiber is affordable in cities (a market nearly impossible to service by satellite anyways). Even developed countries struggle with deploying fiber in rural environments.

Every satellite internet offering targets rural settings, ships and planes. StarLink is no different, just that they will be competitive in a wider range of such settings.

>> We should hold local politicians' feet to the fire, not throw money at new tech from a monorail salesman.

We need to do both, as Seattle has proven with its sporadic availability of gigabit fiber and the shutdown of third parties attempting to bring it here.

In fact, doing the latter IS doing the former.

Centurylink covers 70÷% of the city with gigabit for $65 a month, take a look at the cable franchise map before throwing stones: http://www.seattle.gov/tech/services/cable-service/cable-fra...

Yeah, I happen to live in an area that CL offers 6mbps maximum to, and it is weirdly in a minority-dense part of Seattle metropolitan. They have zero plans to expand to our area, they've stated repeatedly.

I'll throw stones as much as I like, thanks.

The city contract requires they service the lowest income parts of the city first, hence the extremely patchwork rollout over the last few years.

Due to the mandatory client base skew, the city is causing them to redline middle and high income areas of the city. Fiber is in Georgetown and Rainer Valley, but your SoL in Fremont's built up areas and in Sand Point.

Universal coverage should have been mandated, but its easy to end up like Kenmore (which required total Fios coverage from Verizon, now Frontier) and has seen Finn Hill go unserviced for years. Enforcement of the franchise contract is just as critical as initial negotiation.

Outside of a few select areas, most of Seattle only ever saw ADSL (or no DSL in parts of the north end) as we didn't allow large VDSL2 cabinets in the public ROW. I think this has caused Centurylink to build fiber in the city, as they've rarely overbuilt VDSL2 areas like Bellevue, Kent & Auburn.

>> Rainer Valley

Nope. I live square in the middle of it, can't get double digit mbps download speeds from them.

I would encourage you tp double check during the daytime on https://shop.centurylink.com/MasterWebPortal/freeRange/shop/...

I've noticed they seem to offer ADSL (6mbps) after 6pm or so at addresses that already have fiber, presumably their prequal database for fiber goes offline for a few hours a day.

I've called multiple times and schedule a check every three months to see if it's been updated. Been doing that for years. Won't give you my cross streets but I assure you, they have nothing for me.

They say it's available just a few blocks over. That's been the case for a long time and they can't seem to get it about 0.25 miles further. Been that way for years.

Who's the "we" that is throwing money at this? Starlink is privately funded.