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<p>My 10 cents worth: If you divide the total annual Internet usage
worldwide (a ballpark figure at best) by the total number of users
worldwide (another ballpark figure) and then by 365*24*60*60, you
get a rate of (ballpark) 1 Mb/s. b as in bits not bytes, M as in
Mega not m as in milli (someone needs to tell Starlink that or are
they promising people a lot less than we think:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1002-69942-69?regionCode=US">https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1002-69942-69?regionCode=US</a>?).
That means each Internet user generates, on average, 1 Mb/s of
traffic on a 24/7 basis. Of course, we'd expect them to generate
at little less off-peak and a little more during peak hours. But
it's a handy rate to compare other numbers to.</p>
<p>So if you then consider the 15 Gb/s that Nathan quoted earlier
on, that's really only about 15k users, if averaged. If it's a
peak figure (likely if Elon shouts about it) then that's likely a
lot less than 15k users. Now just a gentle reminder that Elon's
still having trouble provisioning to all of Montana, and there's
just over a million folk there. Ukraine has over 35 million - even
if you take all the refugees that haven't returned out - and it's
not orders of magnitude larger than Montana either. <br>
</p>
<p>So it's plain obvious that Starlink is not carrying most of the
Internet traffic from/to Ukraine. Far from it. I don't think Elon
has claimed this anywhere, either, but the fact that this claim is
making it on this list just goes to show how effective he is at
getting people's attention (and leaving such false impressions
uncorrected). That said, it's probably carrying a fair amount of
Ukraine's frontline unit traffic now. In fact, Starlink's probably
exclusively mil/gov use in Ukraine right now.<br>
</p>
<p>Fibre seems to be what is propping up the rest - and quite
effectively so. But not as glamorous. Who'd want to know about low
power fibre laser diodes when you can have space lasers next year?<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 17/10/2022 8:03 am, Brandon
Butterworth via Starlink wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:20221016190349.GA945@sunf68.rd.bbc.co.uk">
On Sun Oct 16, 2022 at 08:44:12PM +0200, Sebastian Moeller via
Starlink wrote:<br>
> > and it's worth remembering that it's not just being used
for military C&C, it's being used for (almost) all Internet
access through the country, normal telcom, Hospitals, community
access, etc.<br>
> <br>
> Do we know this for sure? As far as I know (so not very much,
one of my<br>
> colleagues in the early 2000s was Ukranian and told me about
their figer<br>
> optics telephony system) Ukraine might have some fiber
infrastructure<br>
> that should make at least the west not fully reliant on
Starlkink.<br>
<br>
They have loads of fibre like most countries, there were many
reports of<br>
them repairing it after was damage, a few sumarried -<br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbapv/diy-volunteers-are-repairing-ukraines-destroyed-internet-infrastructure" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbapv/diy-volunteers-are-repairing-ukraines-destroyed-internet-infrastructure</a><br>
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/03/22/while-russians-bombs-fall-around-them-ukraines-engineers-battle-to-keep-the-internet-running" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2022/03/22/while-russians-bombs-fall-around-them-ukraines-engineers-battle-to-keep-the-internet-running/</a><br>
<br>
loads more on twitter.<br>
<br>
For c&c and the front line they can't depend on that
especially as<br>
they regain areas where Russia has has time to infiltrate/redeploy<br>
the existing infrastructure, and which may now be the target of<br>
their own attack. One of Russias weaknesses was depending on the<br>
local infra for their own operations.<br>
<br>
brandon<br>
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</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
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