Re:The modern web on a slow connection (2017)
by Dylan16807 on Saturday June 05, 2021 @08:07PM
(#27409492)
> It's at a latitude sufficient that packet loss and service unavailability is averaging about 0.25% (1/4th of 1 percent) over multi day periods.
Do you have any more specific data you could share there? For example, how much of that percentage is caused by downtime and how much is caused by random lost packets outside of downtime? Or how long does it go unavailable?
Re:The modern web on a slow connection (2017)
by walrus01 on Saturday June 05, 2021 @08:17PM
(#27409541)
That's total unavailability time for a basic series of 20 icmp pings sent to a target in Seattle very close to the cgnat gateway exit point. On a 60s Cron job. Very close to a default smokeping installation. My 0.25% would be even less if I could remove one problematic tree in a 1/12th quadrant of the cpe's obstruction measurement system.
Not within the past 3-4 weeks, but there have been previous times of 30 to 120 minute downtime at 0200 in the morning local time while the starlink people do terminal firmware updates and other changes in the network.
It's a real 150-300 down, 16-25 Mbps up. In many cases it actually beats the DOCSIS3 cable operator's network at the same location for jitter, packet loss, downtime.
The unfortunate economics of building 4000-6000 kg sized geostationary telecom satellites with 15 year finite lifespans, and launching them into a proper orbit ($200 million would not be a bad figure for a cost to put one satellite in place) mean that the oversubscription/contention ratios on consumer grade VSAT are extreme.
Dedicated 1:1 geostationary satellite still has the 492-495ms but is remarkably not bad, but you're looking at a figure of anywhere from $1300 to $3000 per Mbps, per direction, per month for your own dedicated chunk of transponder kHz for SCPC. You're also looking at a minimum of $7000-9000 for terminal equipment. That's the unfortunate reality right now.
I feel sorry for both viasat/hughesnet consumer grade customers, who are suffering, and also the companies, who are on a path dependent lock in towards obsolescence. Even more so if various starlink competitors like Kuiper, Telesat's LEO network and OneWeb (not exactly a competitor since it won't be serving the end user, but same general concept) actually launch services.