I work on the assumption that Starlink satellites are, or at least will eventually be, processing IP packets. For inter-satellite routing it's more or less a must-have unless you have some other packet switching protocol layered in between. On 1/09/2022 2:51 am, David Fernández via Starlink wrote: > "DNS on Starlink satellites: Good idea, lightweight, and I'd suspect > maybe already in operation?" > > Are the satellites processing IP packets? Are the ISLs even in > operation? I have been told Starlink satellites are transparent. > > > > Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2022 01:41:07 +1200 > > From: Ulrich Speidel > > To: David Lang > > Cc: Sebastian Moeller , Ulrich Speidel via Starlink > > > > Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink "beam spread" > > Message-ID: <56e56b0f-07bd-fe0c-9434-2663ae9d4404@auckland.ac.nz> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > > > Um, yes, but I think we're mixing a few things up here (trying to bundle > > responses here, so that's not just to you, David). > > > > In lieu of a reliable Starlink link budget, I'm going by this one: > > > > > https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/quick-analysis-starlink-link-budget-potential-emf-david-witkowski/ > > > > > Parameters here are a little outdated but the critical one is the EIRP > > at the transmitter of up to ~97 dBm. Say we're looking at a 30 GHz Ka > > band signal over a 600 km path, which is more reflective of the current > > constellation. Then Friis propagation gives us a path loss of about 178 > > dB, and if we pretend for a moment that Dishy is actually a 60 cm > > diameter parabolic dish, we're looking at around 45 dBi receive antenna > > gain. Probably a little less as Dishy isn't actually a dish. > > > > Then that gives us 97 dBm - 178 dB + 45 dB = -36 dBm at the ground > > receiver. Now I'm assuming here that this is for ALL user downlink beams > > from the satellite combined. What we don't really know is how many > > parallel signals a satellite multiplexes into these, but assuming at the > > moment a receive frontend bandwidth of about 100 MHz, noise power at the > > receiver should be around 38 pW or -74 dBm. That leaves Starlink around > > 38 dB of SNR to play with. Shannon lets us send up to just over 1.25 > > Gb/s in that kind of channel, but then again that's just the Shannon > > limit, and in practice, we'll be looking a a wee bit less. > > > > That SNR also gives us an indication as to the signal separation Dishy > > needs to achieve from the beams from another satellite in order for that > > other satellite to re-use the same frequency. Note that this is > > significantly more than just the 3 dB that the 3 dB width of a beam > > gives us. The 3 dB width is what is commonly quoted as "beam width", and > > that's where you get those nice narrow angles. But that's just the width > > at which the beam drops to half its EIRP, not the width at which it can > > no longer interfere. For that, you need the 38 dB width - or thereabouts > > - if you can get it, and this will be significantly more than the 1.2 > > degrees or so of 3dB beam width. > > > > But even if you worked with 1.2 degrees at a distance of 600 km and you > > assumed that sort of beam width at the satellite, it still gives you an > > >12 km radius on the ground within which you cannot reuse the downlink > > frequency from the same satellite. That's orders of magnitude more than > > the re-use spatial separation you can achieve in ground-based cellular > > networks. Note that the 0.1 deg beam "precision" is irrelevant here - > > that just tells me the increments in which they can point the beam, but > > not how wide it is and how intensity falls off with angle, or how bad > > the side lobes are. > > > > Whether you can re-use the same frequency from another satellite to the > > same ground area is a good question. We really don't know the beam > > patterns that we get from the birds and from the Dishys, and without > > these it's difficult to say how much angular separation a ground station > > needs between two satellites using the same frequency in order to > > receive one but not be interfered with by the other. Basically, there > > are just too many variables in this for me to be overly optimistic that > > re-use by two different sources within a Starlink cell is possible. And > > I haven't even looked at the numbers for Ku band here. > > > > CDNs & Co - are NOT just dumb economic optimisations to lower bit miles. > > They actually improve performance, and significantly so. A lower RTT > > between you and a server that you grab data from via TCP allows a much > > faster opening of the congestion window. With initial TCP cwnd's being > > typically 10 packets or around 15 kB of data, having a server within 10 > > ms of your client means that you've transferred 15 kB after 5 ms, 45 kB > > after 10 ms, 105 kB after 15 ms, 225 kB after 20 ms, and 465 kB after 25 > > ms. Make your RTT 100 ms, and it takes half a second to get to your 465 > > kB. Having a CDN server in close topological proximity also generally > > reduces the number of queues between you and the server at which packets > > can die an untimely early death, and generally, by taking load off such > > links, reduces the probability of this happening at a lot of queues. > > Bottom line: Having a CDN keeps your users happier. Also, live streaming > > and video conferencing aside, most video is not multicast or broadcast, > > but unicast. > > > > DNS on Starlink satellites: Good idea, lightweight, and I'd suspect > > maybe already in operation? It's low hanging fruit. CDNs on satellites: > > In the day and age of SSDs, having capacity on the satellite shouldn't > > really be an issue, although robustness may be. But heat in this sort of > > storage gets generated mostly when data is written, so it's a function > > of what percentage of your data that reaches the bird is going to end up > > in cache. Generally, on a LEO satellite that'll have to cache baseball > > videos while over the US, videos in a dozen different languages while > > over Europe, Bollywood clips while over India, cooking shows while over > > Australia and always the same old ads while over New Zealand, all the > > while not getting a lot of cache hits for stuff it put into cache 15 > > minutes ago, would probably have to write a lot. Moreover, as you'd be > > reliant on the content you want being on the satellite that you are > > currently talking to, pretty much all satellites in the constellation > > would need to cache all content. In other words: If I watch a cat video > > now and thereby put it into the cache of the bird overhead, and then > > send you an e-mail and you're in my neighbourhood and you watch it half > > an hour later, my satellite would be on the other side of the world, and > > you'd have to have it re-uploaded to the CDN on the bird that's flying > > overhead our neighbourhood then. Not as efficient as a ground-based CDN > > on our ground-based network that's fed via a satellite link. > > > > As long as Starlink is going to have in the order of hundreds of > > thousands of direct users, that problem won't go away. > > > > On 31/08/2022 7:33 pm, David Lang wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 31 Aug 2022, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote: > >> > >>> This combines with the uncomfortable truth that an RF "beam" from a > >>> satellite isn't as selective as a laser beam, so the options for > >>> frequency re-use from orbit aren't anywhere near as good as from a > >>> mobile base station across the road: Any beam pointed at you can be > >>> heard for many miles around and therefore no other user can re-use > >>> that frequency (with the same burst slot etc.). > >> > >> not quite, you are forgetting that the antennas on the ground are also > >> steerable arrays and so they can focus their 'receiving beam' at > >> different satellites. This is less efficient than a transmitting beam > >> as the satellites you aren't 'pointed' at will increase your noise > >> floor, but it does allow the same frequency to be used for multiple > >> satellites into the same area at the same time. > >> > >> David Lang > >> > > -- > > **************************************************************** > > Dr. Ulrich Speidel > > > > School of Computer Science > > > > Room 303S.594 (City Campus) > > > > The University of Auckland > > u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz > > http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/ > > > **************************************************************** > > > _______________________________________________ > Starlink mailing list > Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink > -- **************************************************************** Dr. Ulrich Speidel School of Computer Science Room 303S.594 (City Campus) The University of Auckland u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/ ****************************************************************