Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by jacquesm on Monday April 03, 2023 @03:58AM (#35420044)

The downlink/uplink capacity of the satellite that receives data from another or has to send data to another doesn't magically increase. So adding hops reduces the bandwidth available. To reduce it to extremes: if all but one of the satellites used sat-to-sat links and only one had a downlink you'd see a substantial reduction of the available bandwidth per satellite. To a rough approximation the bandwidth available is the bandwidth available to a single sat divided by the number of sats using that one up/down link.

Yes, sat-to-sat enables new use cases. But it also has other effects.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by mlyle on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:03AM (#35420099)

> if all but one of the satellites used sat-to-sat links and only one had a downlink you'd see a substantial reduction of the available bandwidth per satellite.

All the satellites above me have an uplink from a ground station.

Also, satellites above ocean with few people in their footprint can see my uplink but can't use it effectively, because they don't have many users in their footprint (possibly none, because of elevation angle restrictions).

If we have satellite-to-satellite links, then those satellites above ocean can share their bandwidth with satellites above me. Therefore, real system capacity goes up.

Assuming that ground stations are upgraded as the size of the constellation grows-- they're strongly directional. Their throughput is the uplink bandwidth * the spectral efficiency * the number of satellites within LOS of an uplink ground station. Intersatellite links let you use more of this throughput without it going unused and "spoiling"-- that's the main point.

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