[Starlink] musings on disruption and competition [was] It’s the Latency, FCC

Wed May 1 04:48:03 EDT 2024

Hi Frank.

On 1 May 2024 09:27:37 CEST, Frantisek Borsik via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>Basically, Eugene, the situation you are describing is calling for a
>competitor to disrupt them!

[SM] Not a big fan of the silicon valley nomenclature... 'disruption' evokes thoughts of 'revolutionary' yet what typically happens is rather 'evolutionary' once one looks behind the marketing/hype... and that is not a bad thing, as real revolutions can be quite painful.
That said, sure if the incumbents leave sufficient specialized demand unfulfilled that opens a niche/opportunity for competitors, but that IMHO is one of the core promises of market economies, and nothing that silicon valley created/realized de novo, no?

>
>This is such an old story - so many ISPs, especially WIPSs, started just
>because they either didn't have any option or all those options available
>were really terrible.

[SM] Exactly, under serving real demand creates opportunities for those willing to step in!

>
>Don't you want to pick up the glove? :P

[SM] I would be terrible at it, for sure ;) but most importantly, the situation in Germany is not that bad, even without considering starlink (which given its relative high price, still leaves room for competitors). Only 5-10% of households are clearly underserved, in that they do not even get full sync with ADSL, and these tend to be far from the next CO and cabinet, so these are expensive to connect no matter the technology...
The EU (optimistic) plan to hook everyone up via FTTH until 2030 is going to be god sent for those households, and since most of these will be built with federal grants they come with (not fully specified) OpenAccess regulations, that might actually allow real competition in offering IA services over those fibers. But the same looming FTTH built out also makes it tough to invest much in alternative technology to reach those households in the interim.

>
>All the best,
>
>Frank
>
>Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>
>
>
>https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
>
>Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714
>
>iMessage, mobile: +420775230885
>
>Skype: casioa5302ca
>
>frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
>
>
>On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 11:53 PM Eugene Y Chang <eugene.chang at ieee.org>
>wrote:
>
>> Frank,
>> Thank you. What you suggest makes sense if it was objective!
>>
>> In my neighborhood, the ISP’s organization will feel they have nothing to
>> learn from outsiders. (Worst, both major ISPs are just a subsidiary of
>> another organization. They just implement corporate standards. The local
>> managers are not motivated to deviate from their corporate marching orders.)
>>
>> A public promotion (campaign) of modern best practices is needed. Then I
>> need to have this campaign spill over to the subscriber community. The
>> business community needs to be educated that their productivity will
>> improve. The social leaders need to learn that their community will get
>> better service. Then, and only then, can I see the ISP feeling the need to
>> improve. It helps if the improvement is just open-source software on their
>> hardware investment.
>>
>>
>> Gene
>> ----------------------------------------------
>> Eugene Chang
>> IEEE Life Senior Member
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 30, 2024, at 11:35 AM, Frantisek Borsik <frantisek.borsik at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Eugene - the easiest thing in the case of your ISP would be tell him about
>> us: https://libreqos.io
>>
>> He can take a look on it, join our support chat and get help if he won't
>> be able to get it up and running:
>> https://chat.libreqos.io/join/fvu3cerayyaumo377xwvpev6/
>>
>> But most of the ISPs don't need to talk with us at all, it's easy to
>> deploy.
>>
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
>>
>> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714
>>
>> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885
>>
>> Skype: casioa5302ca
>>
>> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 30, 2024 at 11:22 PM Eugene Y Chang via Starlink <
>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>>> OK. I need help teaching my ISPs that they can do this without
>>> threatening their business model.
>>> Who can help me?
>>>
>>> A public demo? Yes! Are you saying that if our (my) neighborhood ISP
>>> adopted the lessons from the public demo, most of the latency issues would
>>> be solved? What won’t get fixed? How do we make this a widely adopted best
>>> practice? Am I crying over issues that are already fixed? Does this
>>> simplify the issues at the FCC?
>>>
>>> Gene
>>> ----------------------------------------------
>>> Eugene Chang
>>> IEEE Life Senior Member
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Apr 30, 2024, at 11:07 AM, Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Just fq codel or cake everything and you get all that.
>>>
>>> Libreqos is free software for those that do not want to update their data
>>> plane. Perhaps we should do a public demo of what it can do for every tech
>>> on the planet. Dsl benefits, fiber does also (but it is the stats that
>>> matter more on fiber because the customer wifi becomes bloated)
>>>
>>> Starlink merely fq codeled their wifi and did some aqm work (not codel I
>>> think) to get the amazing results they are getting today. I don't have the
>>> waveform test results handy but they are amazing. I feel a sea change in
>>> the wind...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 12:51 PM Eugene Y Chang via Starlink <
>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Colin,
>>>> I am overwhelmed with all the reasons that prevent low(er) or consistent
>>>> latency.
>>>> I think that our best ISP offerings should deliver graceful, agile, or
>>>> nimble service. Sure, handle all the high-volume data. The high-volume
>>>> service just shouldn’t preclude graceful service. Yes, the current ISP
>>>> practices fall short. Can we help them improve their service?
>>>>
>>>> Am I asking too much?
>>>>
>>>> Gene
>>>> ----------------------------------------------
>>>> Eugene Chang
>>>> IEEE Life Senior Member
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 30, 2024, at 9:31 AM, Colin_Higbie via Starlink <
>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Gene,
>>>>
>>>> I think the lion's share of other people (many brilliant people here) on
>>>> this thread are focused on keeping latency down when under load. I
>>>> generally just read and don't contribute on those discussions, because
>>>> that's not my area of expertise. I only posted my point on bandwidth, not
>>>> to detract from the importance of reducing latency, but to correct what I
>>>> believed to be an important error on minimum bandwidth required to be able
>>>> to perform standard Internet functions.
>>>>
>>>> To my surprise, there was pushback on the figure, so I've responded to
>>>> try to educate this group on streaming usage in the hope that the people
>>>> working on the latency problem under load (core reason for this group to
>>>> exist) can also be aware of the minimum bandwidth needs to ensure they
>>>> don't plan based on bad assumptions.
>>>>
>>>> For a single user, minimum bandwidth (independent of latency) needs to
>>>> be at least 25Mbps assuming the goal is to provide access to all standard
>>>> Internet services. Anything short of that will deny users access to the
>>>> primary streaming services, and more specifically won't be able to watch 4K
>>>> HDR video, which is the market standard for streaming services today and
>>>> likely will remain at that level for the next several years.
>>>>
>>>> I think it's fine to offer lower-cost options that don't deliver 4K HDR
>>>> video (not everyone cares about that), but at least 25Mbps should be
>>>> available to an Internet customer for any new Internet service rollout.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Colin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf Of
>>>> starlink-request at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2024 3:05 PM
>>>> To: starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> Subject: Starlink Digest, Vol 37, Issue 15
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>> Message: 1
>>>> Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 09:04:43 -1000
>>>> From: Eugene Y Chang <eugene.chang at ieee.org>
>>>> To: Colin_Higbie <CHigbie1 at Higbie.name>, Dave Taht via Starlink
>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] It’s the Latency, FCC
>>>> Message-ID: <438B1BC4-D465-497A-B6BA-700E1D411036 at ieee.org>
>>>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>>>
>>>> I am always surprised how complicated these discussions become.
>>>> (Surprised mostly because I forgot the kind of issues this community care
>>>> about.) The discussion doesn’t shed light on the following scenarios.
>>>>
>>>> While watching stream content, activating controls needed to switch
>>>> content sometimes (often?) have long pauses. I attribute that to buffer
>>>> bloat and high latency.
>>>>
>>>> With a happy household user watching streaming media, a second user
>>>> could have terrible shopping experience with Amazon. The interactive
>>>> response could be (is often) horrible. (Personally, I would be doing email
>>>> and working on a shared doc. The Amazon analogy probably applies to more
>>>> people.)
>>>>
>>>> How can we deliver graceful performance to both persons in a household?
>>>> Is seeking graceful performance too complicated to improve?
>>>> (I said “graceful” to allow technical flexibility.)
>>>>
>>>> Gene
>>>> ----------------------------------------------
>>>> Eugene Chang
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
>>

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