[Starlink] Intro and a question

[Karl Auerbach]

On 7/26/21 8:51 PM, Larry Press wrote:

> https://spacenews.com/tech-breakthrough-morphs-gigabit-wifi-into-terabit-satellite-internet/ 
> <https://spacenews.com/tech-breakthrough-morphs-gigabit-wifi-into-terabit-satellite-internet/> 

Wow!  I got massive deja vu and thought had to check whether I was 
reading a 1970's copy of the JC Whitney Catalog!

(Or my own CaveBear Catalog - of hyperbolic bogus network stuff: "If we 
have it, you don't need it"), most particularly:

   - Our Press Release from one of the Interop shows, people actually 
believed this!!  Gaga Net: 
https://www.cavebear.com/cb_catalog/techno/gaganet/ )

   - The Maximum Momentum Router: 
https://www.cavebear.com/cb_catalog/current/maxmoment/

(For those who don't remember, the JC Whitnet catalog was filled with 
things for your car that would improve gas milage by a zillion percent 
or bump horsepower by 200hp.  With that catalog one could turn an old 
1200cc VW bug into a flame breathing monster, or so one would if one 
accepted the hyperbole.)

OK, let's accept this guy's claims as true.  Do they make an end-to-end 
difference?

Perhaps if the satellite part of the end-to-end path is truly a bit 
synchronous "bent-pipe".  But Starlink seems to be evolving far past 
that simple bit-clocked-circuit model into something more resembling a 
space internet with routers, or at least a switched network that could 
have issues such as choice of route, multiple inputs feeding into one 
output (in other words, potential congestion).

BTW, I did like the article's phrase "High Definition Internet" - It 
immediately called to mind "Brawndo - it's got electrolytes" (from the 
movie Idiocracy.

	--karl--