[Starlink] Starlink tidbits from NANOG

[Darrell Budic <budic@onholyground.com>]

I was at NANOG in Minneapolis, and got a chance to ask a couple question of a Starlink Network Engineer who’s attending. I was already talking to him about Starlink’s network efforts (see below) but it was nice to meet in person. Don’t quote me on any of this, but here’s a few tidbits this list may appreciate:

- Starlink is expanding their own network operations, and is connecting to more IXPs. They were already on SIX in Seattle, have connected to DECIX NY, and are in the process of connecting to ChIX in Chicago. As I run ChIX, I had a good excuse to talk to them about other things. :) IXPs and their own networks are in the works for Europe and other areas as well.
- They have been obtaining more v4 addresses, but I don’t know if they have enough to not do CGNAT. I don't think they do yet, but it seems like it may be a long term target.
- v6 is deliberately not fully functional, but they know some of use are using it and it will eventually be fully activated. May be waiting on the regional connectivity, so will be intersting to see if changes for some areas and not others as they roll it out.
- They hate Google's outsourced NOC as much as the rest of us
- New ground stations with more capacity are coming (and will be upgrades). They are using waves back to regional DCs now, but will be moving to dark fiber over the next year or two
- the new satellites have more than 2 lasers, and there is enough capacity on them to do routing. no details on how or what protocols, alas
- new birds also have 2-3x more ku bandwidth than first gen
- new dishes are in the works, v4 coming with lower power use, more capacity, not round any more
- larger dishes coming for commercial apps
- as we know, they aren’t doing any AQM yet, but it sounds like it may be in the works and we may see it in new code in 4-6 months. Not my guys department, so no more details.
- it’s encrypted up and down. I didn’t know that yet, but I may have just missed it.

  -Darrell