[Starlink] Starlink Digest, Vol 12, Issue 6

David P. Reed dpreed at deepplum.com
Thu Mar 3 18:47:22 EST 2022 

I'm really appreciating all the analysis of Starlink in Ukraine context here.
 
However, it's a lot distressing that the focus is on "military operations" context.
It seems like most of the commentators want to be armchair military commanders in a situation where the last thing any Ukrainian needs is more attacks and bloodshed (no matter how precision-guided).
 
Are we helping Elon Musk become an international arms dealer? Is that what he wants?
 
So how is Starlink helping get aid to the vast majority (of any political persuasion) who just want to survive and don't really want to incinerate ANYONE with a Molotov cocktail?
 
Surely there are applications of Starlink and Internet to peace other than the US's favorite mantra (if you remember) "Kill for Peace, Kill, Kill, Kill for Peace" 
 
This also strikes me about the ideas aimed at punishing Russia by disconnecting if from the Internet at the borders and denying the people living there from accessing PayPal, etc.
 
 
On Thursday, March 3, 2022 5:01pm, starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net said:



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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: recent starlink rrul test result (tom at evslin.com)
> 2. Re: recent starlink rrul test result (David Lang)
> 3. Re: recent starlink rrul test result (David Lang)
> 4. Re: spacex & ukraine (Larry Press)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 12:42:54 -0500
> From: <tom at evslin.com>
> To: "'Nathan Owens'" <nathan at nathan.io>, "'David Lang'"
> <david at lang.hm>
> Cc: <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] recent starlink rrul test result
> Message-ID: <23e201d82f26$1d938720$58ba9560$@evslin.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> I’ve also stayed with my Starlink connection for teleconferencing altho we
> now have fiber available. My connection is not usually the worst on the call but
> not perfect either. If I were a job seeker or being paid to present AND I had a
> choice, I wouldn’t use Starlink when critical
> 
> 
> 
> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of Nathan
> Owens
> Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2022 12:16 PM
> To: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> Cc: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] recent starlink rrul test result
> 
> 
> 
> Same here, Google Meet / Zoom / Teams / FaceTime are great.
> 
> 
> 
> Dave, can you post the commands to run those flent measurements? I also finally
> recreated that irtt-based scatterplot, attached.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 7:15 AM David Lang <david at lang.hm
> <mailto:david at lang.hm> > wrote:
> 
> That said, I've been using starlink for work zoom calls for a while with no
> significant issues (nothing I can pin on my side vs the other participants)
> 
> David Lang
> 
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Dave Taht wrote:
> 
> > wildly variable bandwidth, adjusted at 15 sec intervals, induced
> > latencies of 400ms, really terrible upload throughput relative to
> > down.
> >
> > H/T David Lang for this data.
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 9:31 AM Livingood, Jason
> > <Jason_Livingood at comcast.com <mailto:Jason_Livingood at comcast.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> When folks experience sub-par video conferencing over Starlink, it'd be
> great to see working latency stats at that time - such as via the easy test at
> https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat.
> >>
> >> On 2/23/22, 09:38, "Starlink on behalf of Dave Taht"
> <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net
> <mailto:starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of
> dave.taht at gmail.com <mailto:dave.taht at gmail.com> > wrote:
> >>
> >> 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.tomevslin.com/2022/02/starlinks-zoomready-rating-is-going-down.html__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj8WTA26WA$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/blog.tomevslin.com/2022/02/starlinks-zoomready-rating-is-going-down.html__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj8WTA26WA$>
> >>
> >> --
> >> I tried to build a better future, a few times:
> >> 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.icei.org__;JSUl!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj-yqmwsLA$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/wayforward.archive.org/?site=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.icei.org__;JSUl!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj-yqmwsLA$>
> >>
> >> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Starlink mailing list
> >> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> <mailto:Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> >> 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj_SP7yVhg$
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj_SP7yVhg$>
> >>
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 12:36:42 -0800 (PST)
> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> To: Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io>
> Cc: David Lang <david at lang.hm>, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>,
> "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] recent starlink rrul test result
> Message-ID: <87o7734r-5ns1-q734-0qr-q0o06sp72s46 at ynat.uz>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
> 
> flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> --te=upload_streams=1 -t dlangs-dishy tcp_nup
> 
> flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> --te=download_streams=1 -t dlangs-dishy tcp_ndown
> 
> flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> --te=upload_streams=8 -t dlangs-dishy-8 tcp_nup
> 
> flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> --te=download_streams=8 -t dlangs-dishy-8 tcp_ndown
> 
> flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net -t
> dlangs-dishy rrul_be
> 
> 
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Nathan Owens wrote:
> 
> > Same here, Google Meet / Zoom / Teams / FaceTime are great.
> >
> > Dave, can you post the commands to run those flent measurements? I also
> > finally recreated that irtt-based scatterplot, attached.
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 7:15 AM David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
> >
> >> That said, I've been using starlink for work zoom calls for a while with
> >> no
> >> significant issues (nothing I can pin on my side vs the other
> participants)
> >>
> >> David Lang
> >>
> >> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Dave Taht wrote:
> >>
> >>> wildly variable bandwidth, adjusted at 15 sec intervals, induced
> >>> latencies of 400ms, really terrible upload throughput relative to
> >>> down.
> >>>
> >>> H/T David Lang for this data.
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 9:31 AM Livingood, Jason
> >>> <Jason_Livingood at comcast.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> When folks experience sub-par video conferencing over Starlink,
> it'd be
> >> great to see working latency stats at that time - such as via the easy
> test
> >> at https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat.
> >>>>
> >>>> On 2/23/22, 09:38, "Starlink on behalf of Dave Taht" <
> >> starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net on behalf of
> dave.taht at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.tomevslin.com/2022/02/starlinks-zoomready-rating-is-going-down.html__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj8WTA26WA$
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> I tried to build a better future, a few times:
> >>>>
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.icei.org__;JSUl!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj-yqmwsLA$
> >>>>
> >>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Starlink mailing list
> >>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj_SP7yVhg$
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >> Starlink mailing list
> >> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
> >>
> >
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 12:37:25 -0800 (PST)
> From: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> To: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> Cc: Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io>, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>,
> "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] recent starlink rrul test result
> Message-ID: <sp882r34-92q4-4019-8oo3-68r5n53s19n5 at ynat.uz>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
> 
> and the irtt
> 
> irtt client --dscp=0xfe -i3ms -d20m fremont.starlink.taht.net
> 
> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, David Lang wrote:
> 
> > flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> > --te=upload_streams=1 -t dlangs-dishy tcp_nup
> >
> > flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> > --te=download_streams=1 -t dlangs-dishy tcp_ndown
> >
> > flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> > --te=upload_streams=8 -t dlangs-dishy-8 tcp_nup
> >
> > flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net
> > --te=download_streams=8 -t dlangs-dishy-8 tcp_ndown
> >
> > flent -l 300 --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -H fremont.starlink.taht.net -t
> > dlangs-dishy rrul_be
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Nathan Owens wrote:
> >
> >> Same here, Google Meet / Zoom / Teams / FaceTime are great.
> >>
> >> Dave, can you post the commands to run those flent measurements? I also
> >> finally recreated that irtt-based scatterplot, attached.
> >>
> >> On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 7:15 AM David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
> >>
> >>> That said, I've been using starlink for work zoom calls for a while
> with
> >>> no
> >>> significant issues (nothing I can pin on my side vs the other
> >>> participants)
> >>>
> >>> David Lang
> >>>
> >>> On Thu, 3 Mar 2022, Dave Taht wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> wildly variable bandwidth, adjusted at 15 sec intervals, induced
> >>>> latencies of 400ms, really terrible upload throughput relative to
> >>>> down.
> >>>>
> >>>> H/T David Lang for this data.
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 9:31 AM Livingood, Jason
> >>>> <Jason_Livingood at comcast.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> When folks experience sub-par video conferencing over
> Starlink, it'd be
> >>> great to see working latency stats at that time - such as via the
> easy
> >>> test
> >>> at https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 2/23/22, 09:38, "Starlink on behalf of Dave Taht"
> <
> >>> starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net on behalf of
> dave.taht at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.tomevslin.com/2022/02/starlinks-zoomready-rating-is-going-down.html__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj8WTA26WA$
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> I tried to build a better future, a few times:
> >>>>>
> >>>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.icei.org__;JSUl!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj-yqmwsLA$
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Starlink mailing list
> >>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>>>>
> >>>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!CQl3mcHX2A!TjZjoTCGYO2gkt9xYrGdFrivrejHIdNjVe0TtEsCuQfDJTyNNy4u3_5CxlN2sj_SP7yVhg$
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Starlink mailing list
> >>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> >>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
> >>>
> >
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2022 22:01:36 +0000
> From: Larry Press <lpress at csudh.edu>
> To: Mike Puchol <mike at starlink.sx>, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>,
> David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> Cc: "starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net" <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] spacex & ukraine
> Message-ID:
> <BYAPR03MB386303F48A1F1EBBF8AB3B3DC2049 at BYAPR03MB3863.namprd03.prod.outlook.com>
> 
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
> 
> > The balance, as David mentions, is on the value of the target vs. the effort
> required to strike.
> 
> The value of allowing government and resistance leaders and journalists to
> communicate with each other and the outside world seems quite high, making the
> terminals attractive targets for the Russians.
> 
> The cost of locating and striking a target also seems high -- Ukraine is large and
> the terminals are portable. SpaceX is testing roaming without re-registration in
> California/Nevada
> (https://circleid.com/posts/20220225-spacex-is-testing-starlink-roaming). If
> SpaceX is listening -- consider enabling roaming in by the users in Ukraine.
> 
> Larry
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of Mike
> Puchol <mike at starlink.sx>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 2, 2022 1:06 AM
> To: Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>; David Lang <david at lang.hm>
> Cc: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] spacex & ukraine
> 
> Thank you Dave, the honor is mine to share a mailing list with so many people who
> know way more than I do, about any subject I could point my finger at, so I really
> appreciate it.
> 
> On the subject at hand, ELINT/SIGINT and traffic analysis has evolved massively
> over the years. In the mid-90s, the Chechen president was killed by Russia with a
> missile strike, based on his satcom phone signals, which included decoding the
> speech and matching to ensure they were hitting the right target.
> 
> The balance, as David mentions, is on the value of the target vs. the effort
> required to strike. It is relatively easy to monitor cellular networks, decrypt
> the traffic, and triangulate to almost automatically target & strike. The same
> happens with VSAT, which operates against a fixed satellite, so an aircraft high
> enough will be in the path between a large portion of the ground and the
> satellite.
> 
> With Starlink, the challenge is two-fold. You must be able to detect & locate the
> 4.5º wide uplink beam from a terminal, which constantly moves - this can be
> done by measuring just the RF levels and using an ESA to find the source. You must
> also ensure that the user of the terminal is a target valuable enough to justify a
> strike, which would be a lot harder, as you need to keep a good enough SNR to
> demodulate, then you’d need to decrypt. Doing this in real time on an
> airborne platform is quite a challenge.
> 
> Bottom line: unless Russia goes all-out against anyone using any form of radio
> comms (phones, VSAT, satcom, Starlink, etc.) and they just blindly strike any
> source of RF, a Starlink user has a good chance to avoid being targeted by just
> using the terminal. Different case is if terminals get used by the military, and
> Russia then assumes Starlink = military target. We’re far from any clear
> scenario, so we need to wait & see.
> 
> A couple of weeks ago I sent a Ku band LNB to Oleg, tuned to the Starlink uplink
> band (12.75 - 14.5 GHz), but it arrived a couple of days before the invasion
> began, so he didn’t get a chance to do any analysis on the TX side of the
> terminal.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Mike
> On Mar 1, 2022, 22:15 +0300, David Lang <david at lang.hm>, wrote:
> a couple thoughts on anti-radiation missiles being fired at starlink dishes
> 
> 1. the dishes are fairly low power (100w or less) and rather directional, so
> they aren't great targets.
> 
> 2. dishes cost FAR less than the missiles that would be fired at them, and are
> being produced at a much higher rate (although there are probably more missles
> in the Russian inventory than spare dishes in SpaceX inventory)
> 
> direction finding teams with boots on the ground could be more of a threat, but
> the higher frequency signals are blocked fairly easily (which is why the dishes
> need a clear view of the sky). It takes a fair amount of training to be good at
> direction finding on weak and intermittent signals.
> 
> David Lang
> 
> On Tue, 1 Mar 2022, Dave Taht wrote:
> 
> Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2022 13:55:47 -0500
> From: Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>
> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: [Starlink] spacex & ukraine
> 
> It is an ongoing honor to have mike puchol sharing his insights with
> us, also, on this list.
> 
> https://spacenews.com/spacex-heeds-ukraines-starlink-sos/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://spacenews.com/spacex-heeds-ukraines-starlink-sos/__;!!P7nkOOY!uT2pzIfUcFbj7Vv0Bb9RBU2KwIN5DrfrZHS-tHLcaxzdteVwgm5SzgXoiFK1cNklRuLosonTTiDHWk8$>
> 
> --
> I tried to build a better future, a few times:
> https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.icei.org__;JSUl!!P7nkOOY!uT2pzIfUcFbj7Vv0Bb9RBU2KwIN5DrfrZHS-tHLcaxzdteVwgm5SzgXoiFK1cNklRuLosonTw6dgoHU$>
> 
> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!P7nkOOY!uT2pzIfUcFbj7Vv0Bb9RBU2KwIN5DrfrZHS-tHLcaxzdteVwgm5SzgXoiFK1cNklRuLosonTN75eAXM$>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!P7nkOOY!uT2pzIfUcFbj7Vv0Bb9RBU2KwIN5DrfrZHS-tHLcaxzdteVwgm5SzgXoiFK1cNklRuLosonTN75eAXM$>
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> 
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> ------------------------------
> 
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> ***************************************
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