[Starlink] insanely great waveform result for starlink

Dave Taht dave.taht at gmail.com
Sat Jan 14 10:52:16 EST 2023


On Sat, Jan 14, 2023 at 6:14 AM Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io> wrote:

> I realized I goofed up my visualizations, here's all of them again:
> I see a ton of loss on all of these!
>

Lovely pics, thank you, and the sawtooths are obvious, for a change, so in
my mind they've cut the buffering back quite a bit since we last checked.
The amount of TCP related loss remains low, at least according to the
packet captures (not enough loss for tcp! a BDP should settle in at 40ms
with a fifo, not 160+!).

Kind of related to my "glitches per minute" metric described here:
https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/speedtests/

What I'm interested in is the distribution pattern of the irtt udp loss. A
way to plot that might be along the -1 vertical axis, but incremented down
one further for every consecutive loss, and dots, colored,
blue->green->yellow->orange->red - voip can survive 3/5 losses in a row
fairly handily. Two ways

 + axis as it is now
----------------------------------------got a packet
---------------------------------------------
B  loss 1                                                       loss 1

G         2 loss in a row                                             loss 2
Y                                 3rd loss
         los 3
O
                        4
R
                           5
R
                              ....
R
R
R

and/or the same as above but plotting the rx vs tx loss



>
>
> While Luis was downloading/uploading... oof.
> [image: Screenshot 2023-01-14 at 6.13.50 AM.png]
>
> [image: Screenshot 2023-01-14 at 6.12.53 AM.png]
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 3:44 PM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am forced to conclude that waveform's upload test is broken in some
>> cases and has been for some time. All the joy many have been feeling about
>> their uplink speeds has to be cast away. Felt good, though, didn't it?
>>
>> There is a *slight* possibility that there is some fq in the starlink
>> network on tcp port 433. The first showing normal rtt growth and loss for
>> cubic, the second, a low rate flow that is holding the line... but I didn't
>> check to see if these were sequential or parallel.
>>
>> The last is a cwnd plot, clearly showing the cubic sawtooth on the
>> upload.
>>
>> It's weirdly nice to be able to follow a port 433 stream, see the tls
>> handshake put the website en'clair, and the rest go dark, and still trace
>> the behaviors.
>>
>> we're so going to lose this analytical ability with quic. I'm enjoying it
>> while we still can.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:10 PM Jonathan Bennett via Starlink <
>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>>> The irtt run finished a few seconds before the flent run, but here are
>>> the results:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FKve13ssUMW1LLWOXLM2931Yx6uMHw8K/view?usp=share_link
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZXd64A0pfUedLr3FyhDNTHA7vxv8S2Gk/view?usp=share_link
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rx64UPQHHz3IMNiJtb1oFqtqw2DvhvEE/view?usp=share_link
>>>
>>>
>>> [image: image.png]
>>> [image: image.png]
>>>
>>>
>>> Jonathan Bennett
>>> Hackaday.com
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 3:30 PM Nathan Owens via Starlink <
>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Here's Luis's run -- the top line below the edge of the graph is 200ms
>>>> [image: Screenshot 2023-01-13 at 1.30.03 PM.png]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 1:25 PM Luis A. Cornejo <
>>>> luis.a.cornejo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dave,
>>>>>
>>>>> Here is a run the way I think you wanted it.
>>>>>
>>>>> irtt running for 5 min to your dallas server, followed by a waveform
>>>>> test, then a few seconds of inactivity, cloudflare test, a few more secs of
>>>>> nothing, flent test to dallas. Packet capture is currently uploading (will
>>>>> be done in 20 min or so), irtt JSON also in there (.zip file):
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FLWqrzNcM8aK-ZXQywNkZGFR81Fnzn-F?usp=share_link
>>>>>
>>>>> -Luis
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 2:50 PM Dave Taht via Starlink <
>>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 12:30 PM Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Here's the data visualization for Johnathan's Data
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [image: Screenshot 2023-01-13 at 12.29.15 PM.png]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You can see the path change at :12, :27, :42, :57 after the minute.
>>>>>>> Some paths are clearly busier than others with increased loss, latency, and
>>>>>>> jitter.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am so glad to see loss and bounded delay here. Also a bit of rigor
>>>>>> regarding what traffic was active locally vs on the path would be nice,
>>>>>> although it seems to line up with the known 15s starlink switchover thing
>>>>>> (need a name for this), in this case, doing a few speedtests
>>>>>> while that irtt is running would show the impact(s) of whatever else
>>>>>> they are up to.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It would also be my hope that the loss distribution in the middle
>>>>>> portion of this data is good, not bursty, but we don't have a tool to take
>>>>>> apart that. (I am so hopeless at json)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 10:09 AM Nathan Owens <nathan at nathan.io>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I’ll run my visualization code on this result this afternoon and
>>>>>>>> report back!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 9:41 AM Jonathan Bennett via Starlink <
>>>>>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The irtt command, run with normal, light usage:
>>>>>>>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SiVCiUYnx7nDTxIVOY5w-z20S2O059rA/view?usp=share_link
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Jonathan Bennett
>>>>>>>>> Hackaday.com
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 11:26 AM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> packet caps would be nice... all this is very exciting news.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I'd so love for one or more of y'all reporting such great uplink
>>>>>>>>>> results nowadays to duplicate and re-plot the original irtt tests
>>>>>>>>>> we
>>>>>>>>>> did:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> irtt client -i3ms -d300s myclosestservertoyou.starlink.taht.net
>>>>>>>>>> -o whatever.json
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> They MUST have changed their scheduling to get such amazing uplink
>>>>>>>>>> results, in addition to better queue management.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> (for the record, my servers are de, london, fremont, sydney,
>>>>>>>>>> dallas,
>>>>>>>>>> newark, atlanta, singapore, mumbai)
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> There's an R and gnuplot script for plotting that output around
>>>>>>>>>> here
>>>>>>>>>> somewhere (I have largely personally put down the starlink
>>>>>>>>>> project,
>>>>>>>>>> loaning out mine) - that went by on this list... I should have
>>>>>>>>>> written
>>>>>>>>>> a blog entry so I can find that stuff again.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 9:02 AM Jonathan Bennett via Starlink
>>>>>>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 6:28 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <
>>>>>>>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> On 13/01/2023 6:13 pm, Ulrich Speidel wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>>>>>> >> > From Auckland, New Zealand, using a roaming subscription, it
>>>>>>>>>> puts me
>>>>>>>>>> >> > in touch with a server 2000 km away. OK then:
>>>>>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>>>>>> >> > IP address: nix six.
>>>>>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>>>>>> >> > My thoughts shall follow later.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> OK, so here we go.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> I'm always a bit skeptical when it comes to speed tests -
>>>>>>>>>> they're really
>>>>>>>>>> >> laden with so many caveats that it's not funny. I took our new
>>>>>>>>>> work
>>>>>>>>>> >> Starlink kit home in December to give it a try and the other
>>>>>>>>>> day finally
>>>>>>>>>> >> got around to set it up. It's on a roaming subscription
>>>>>>>>>> because our
>>>>>>>>>> >> badly built-up campus really isn't ideal in terms of a clear
>>>>>>>>>> view of the
>>>>>>>>>> >> sky. Oh - and did I mention that I used the Starlink Ethernet
>>>>>>>>>> adapter,
>>>>>>>>>> >> not the WiFi?
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Caveat 1: Location, location. I live in a place where the best
>>>>>>>>>> Starlink
>>>>>>>>>> >> promises is about 1/3 in terms of data rate you can actually
>>>>>>>>>> get from
>>>>>>>>>> >> fibre to the home at under half of Starlink's price. Read:
>>>>>>>>>> There are few
>>>>>>>>>> >> Starlink users around. I might be the only one in my suburb.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Caveat 2: Auckland has three Starlink gateways close by:
>>>>>>>>>> Clevedon (which
>>>>>>>>>> >> is at a stretch daytrip cycling distance from here), Te Hana
>>>>>>>>>> and Puwera,
>>>>>>>>>> >> the most distant of the three and about 130 km away from me as
>>>>>>>>>> the crow
>>>>>>>>>> >> flies. Read: My dishy can use any satellite that any of these
>>>>>>>>>> three can
>>>>>>>>>> >> see, and then depending on where I put it and how much of the
>>>>>>>>>> southern
>>>>>>>>>> >> sky it can see, maybe also the one in Hinds, 840 km away,
>>>>>>>>>> although that
>>>>>>>>>> >> is obviously stretching it a bit. Either way, that's plenty of
>>>>>>>>>> options
>>>>>>>>>> >> for my bits to travel without needing a lot of handovers. Why?
>>>>>>>>>> Easy: If
>>>>>>>>>> >> your nearest teleport is close by, then the set of satellites
>>>>>>>>>> that the
>>>>>>>>>> >> teleport can see and the set that you can see is almost the
>>>>>>>>>> same, so you
>>>>>>>>>> >> can essentially stick with the same satellite while it's in
>>>>>>>>>> view for you
>>>>>>>>>> >> because it'll also be in view for the teleport. Pretty much
>>>>>>>>>> any bird
>>>>>>>>>> >> above you will do.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> And because I don't get a lot of competition from other users
>>>>>>>>>> in my area
>>>>>>>>>> >> vying for one of the few available satellites that can see
>>>>>>>>>> both us and
>>>>>>>>>> >> the teleport, this is about as good as it gets at 37S
>>>>>>>>>> latitude. If I'd
>>>>>>>>>> >> want it any better, I'd have to move a lot further south.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> It'd be interesting to hear from Jonathan what the
>>>>>>>>>> availability of home
>>>>>>>>>> >> broadband is like in the Dallas area. I note that it's at a
>>>>>>>>>> lower
>>>>>>>>>> >> latitude (33N) than Auckland, but the difference isn't huge. I
>>>>>>>>>> notice
>>>>>>>>>> >> two teleports each about 160 km away, which is also not too
>>>>>>>>>> bad. I also
>>>>>>>>>> >> note Starlink availability in the area is restricted at the
>>>>>>>>>> moment -
>>>>>>>>>> >> oversubscribed? But if Jonathan gets good data rates, then
>>>>>>>>>> that means
>>>>>>>>>> >> that competition for bird capacity can't be too bad - for
>>>>>>>>>> whatever reason.
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > I'm in Southwest Oklahoma, but Dallas is the nearby Starlink
>>>>>>>>>> gateway. In cities, like Dallas, and Lawton where I live, there are good
>>>>>>>>>> broadband options. But there are also many people that live outside cities,
>>>>>>>>>> and the options are much worse. The low density userbase in rural Oklahoma
>>>>>>>>>> and Texas is probably ideal conditions for Starlink.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Caveat 3: Backhaul. There isn't just one queue between me and
>>>>>>>>>> whatever I
>>>>>>>>>> >> talk to in terms of my communications. Traceroute shows about
>>>>>>>>>> 10 hops
>>>>>>>>>> >> between me and the University of Auckland via Starlink. That's
>>>>>>>>>> 10
>>>>>>>>>> >> queues, not one. Many of them will have cross traffic. So it's
>>>>>>>>>> a bit
>>>>>>>>>> >> hard to tell where our packets really get to wait or where
>>>>>>>>>> they get
>>>>>>>>>> >> dropped. The insidious bit here is that a lot of them will be
>>>>>>>>>> between 1
>>>>>>>>>> >> Gb/s and 10 Gb/s links, and with a bit of cross traffic, they
>>>>>>>>>> can all
>>>>>>>>>> >> turn into bottlenecks. This isn't like a narrowband GEO link
>>>>>>>>>> of a few
>>>>>>>>>> >> Mb/s where it's obvious where the dominant long latency
>>>>>>>>>> bottleneck in
>>>>>>>>>> >> your TCP connection's path is. Read: It's pretty hard to tell
>>>>>>>>>> whether a
>>>>>>>>>> >> drop in "speed" is due to a performance issue in the Starlink
>>>>>>>>>> system or
>>>>>>>>>> >> somewhere between Starlink's systems and the target system.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> I see RTTs here between 20 ms and 250 ms, where the physical
>>>>>>>>>> latency
>>>>>>>>>> >> should be under 15 ms. So there's clearly a bit of buffer here
>>>>>>>>>> along the
>>>>>>>>>> >> chain that occasionally fills up.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Caveat 4: Handovers. Handover between birds and teleports is
>>>>>>>>>> inevitably
>>>>>>>>>> >> associated with a change in RTT and in most cases also
>>>>>>>>>> available
>>>>>>>>>> >> bandwidth. Plus your packets now arrive at a new queue on a new
>>>>>>>>>> >> satellite while your TCP is still trying to respond to
>>>>>>>>>> whatever it
>>>>>>>>>> >> thought the queue on the previous bird was doing. Read:
>>>>>>>>>> Whatever your
>>>>>>>>>> >> cwnd is immediately after a handover, it's probably not what
>>>>>>>>>> it should be.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> I ran a somewhat hamstrung (sky view restricted) set of four
>>>>>>>>>> Ookla
>>>>>>>>>> >> speedtest.net tests each to five local servers. Average
>>>>>>>>>> upload rate was
>>>>>>>>>> >> 13 Mb/s, average down 75.5 Mb/s. Upload to the server of the
>>>>>>>>>> ISP that
>>>>>>>>>> >> Starlink seems to be buying its local connectivity from (Vocus
>>>>>>>>>> Group)
>>>>>>>>>> >> varied between 3.04 and 14.38 Mb/s, download between 23.33 and
>>>>>>>>>> 52.22
>>>>>>>>>> >> Mb/s, with RTTs between 37 and 56 ms not correlating well to
>>>>>>>>>> rates
>>>>>>>>>> >> observed. In fact, they were the ISP with consistently the
>>>>>>>>>> worst rates.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Another ISP (MyRepublic) scored between 11.81 and 21.81 Mb/s
>>>>>>>>>> up and
>>>>>>>>>> >> between 106.5 and 183.8 Mb/s down, again with RTTs badly
>>>>>>>>>> correlating
>>>>>>>>>> >> with rates. Average RTT was the same as for Vocus.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Note the variation though: More or less a factor of two
>>>>>>>>>> between highest
>>>>>>>>>> >> and lowest rates for each ISP. Did MyRepublic just get lucky
>>>>>>>>>> in my
>>>>>>>>>> >> tests? Or is there something systematic behind this? Way too
>>>>>>>>>> few tests
>>>>>>>>>> >> to tell.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> What these tests do is establish a ballpark.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> I'm currently repeating tests with dish placed on a trestle
>>>>>>>>>> closer to
>>>>>>>>>> >> the heavens. This seems to have translated into fewer outages
>>>>>>>>>> / ping
>>>>>>>>>> >> losses (around 1/4 of what I had yesterday with dishy on the
>>>>>>>>>> ground on
>>>>>>>>>> >> my deck). Still good enough for a lengthy video Skype call
>>>>>>>>>> with my folks
>>>>>>>>>> >> in Germany, although they did comment about reduced video
>>>>>>>>>> quality. But
>>>>>>>>>> >> maybe that was the lighting or the different background as I
>>>>>>>>>> wasn't in
>>>>>>>>>> >> my usual spot with my laptop when I called them.
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > Clear view of the sky is king for Starlink reliability. I've
>>>>>>>>>> got my dishy mounted on the back fence, looking up over an empty field, so
>>>>>>>>>> it's pretty much best-case scenario here.
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> --
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> ****************************************************************
>>>>>>>>>> >> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> School of Computer Science
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> The University of Auckland
>>>>>>>>>> >> u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz
>>>>>>>>>> >> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> ****************************************************************
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >>
>>>>>>>>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> >> Starlink mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> >> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>>>>>> >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>>> > Starlink mailing list
>>>>>>>>>> > Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>>>>>> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>>> This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
>>>>>>>>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>>> Starlink mailing list
>>>>>>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
>>>>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Starlink mailing list
>>>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Starlink mailing list
>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Starlink mailing list
>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>>
>> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>>
>

-- 
This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
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