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A comment on Realtime Starlink Satellite Map. Parent comment

Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by scohesc on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:06PM (#23556754)
That's what I probably misunderstand about the technology - I don't understand how you can have lower latency than current WISP-based infrastructure (are they making these claims against ground-based infrastructure?) when there's satellite internet connections that fade out when a cloud goes by... Also, I would assume they'd have massive capacity issues if they're planning on over-subscribing (they'd have to if they want to sustain a viable profit model, unless they're surviving on government funding?)
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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by entropicdrifter on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:13PM (#23556837)
They're claiming lower latency than existing satellites due to lower altitude orbits and are using more satellites to compensate for the decreased coverage from each satellite.

Presumably this setup would also help with the cloud coverage issue due to the shorter travel distance and higher likelihood of redundant satellites to connect to.

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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by kitsunesoba on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:20PM (#23556919)
To be more precise, some of the lowest flying Starlink satellites will be at 340km, which is very low — lower than the ISS, even. By contrast, traditional internet satellites orbit at ~35,700km.
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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by nyx_ on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:42PM (#23557118)
550km, actually, or 340 miles. Still a couple orders of magnitude closer to Earth than satellites in GSO.
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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by modeless on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:55PM (#23557248)
v2 is planned to have satellites as low as 328 km. https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=...
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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by bryanlarsen on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:14PM (#23556850)
The speed of light in a vacuum is about 50% faster than the speed of light in glass.

But that requires the inter-satellite links be viable, which they aren't yet: the required lasers would survive reentry and they want the satellites to burn up completely on de-orbit so current versions of the satellites don't have them.

And yes, there are significant capacity limitations. Only the truly rural will get good data rates.

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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by the8472 on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @05:13PM (#23556845)
Their competition are geostationary satellites that have high latency due to speed of light delays.

In theory a LEO satellite network could also beat transoceanic fiber connections since the high refractive index causes the speed of light in fiber to be only ~2/3rds the vacuum speed of light. But that would require satellite-to-satellite optical links which the first generation of starlink doesn't have.

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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by godelski on Wednesday June 17, 2020 @09:14PM (#23558765)
> Their competition are geostationary satellites that have high latency due to speed of light delays.

Actually it is due to their distances.

Speed of light delays is something that exists everywhere, like fiber internet. In fact, speed of light is faster in space than it is in optical fiber. The problem is distance.

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Re:Realtime Starlink Satellite Map by Dylan16807 on Thursday June 18, 2020 @04:39AM (#23561076)
'Actually it is due to speed of light delays. Distance is something that exists everywhere.'

Your weird pedantic distinction doesn't make a difference. They're synonyms in this context. Obviously the difference is how much you have, everyone knows that.

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