From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail.lang.hm (unknown [66.167.227.145]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ADH-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by lists.bufferbloat.net (Postfix) with ESMTPS id CBBE33B29D for ; Fri, 7 Apr 2023 08:10:55 -0400 (EDT) Received: from dlang-mobile (unknown [10.2.2.69]) by mail.lang.hm (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42D06183959; Fri, 7 Apr 2023 05:10:54 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2023 05:10:54 -0700 (PDT) From: David Lang To: Ulrich Speidel cc: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net, George Michaelson In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; BOUNDARY="===============7690558114948891065==" Subject: Re: [Starlink] apnic piece on starlink X-BeenThere: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: "Starlink has bufferbloat. Bad." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2023 12:10:56 -0000 This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. --===============7690558114948891065== Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 7 Apr 2023, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote: > Remember how cellphone networks evolve: You start with a few towers in high > spots using high power to get wide area coverage while you have few users. At > this point (which corresponds largely to where Starlink is at now), spectrum > isn't much of an issue (and even that is only partially true for Starlink - > see Mike's excellent article on this: > https://mikepuchol.com/modeling-starlink-capacity-843b2387f501). As your user > base grows, you move off the hills into the valleys and lower your power so > your cells become smaller and shielded from each others, because now, > frequency re-use is the name of the game. You use beamforming off phased > arrays in order to further separate users. > > So what we are seeing now is Starlink as the new kid on the block turning up > with what are in analogy effectively cell towers high in the sky. Their > current user base is maybe at 1/1000th (ballpark) of potential demand before > growth. Population growth on this planet alone adds a lot more potential > users a day than Starlink does. So what options does Starlink have to scale? > Unlike a terrestrial network operator, Starlink can't really come down all > that far from their "space hills" without burning their satellites up in the > atmosphere more quickly. "Space hills" also consist of vacuum only, which > unlike earthly hills can't separate base stations by blocking signal. The > distance from/to space also requires vastly larger phased array antennas for > the same spot beam coverage area contour on the ground. It also places limits > on transmit EIRP both ways. Larger antennas and solar arrays constrain the > number of satellites that can be launched at a time, making constellation > building and replacement harder. All of this is correct, I will note that in the Starlink plans, there are plans to put a layer of satellites at a sigificantly lower altitude. By launching 10x as many satellites, and each one being able to handle 10x the data, they _may_ get to 100x, but that is really going to be pushing it. (note that this is for ~10x the number of satellites lauched by everyone other than SpaceX since Sputnik) If you can get fiber, it's always going to be better than a wireless option, DSL is threatened by Starlink in many suburbs, cablemodems depend so much on the ISP it's hard to say David Lang --===============7690558114948891065== Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64 Content-ID: <88750269-8nsn-79pr-6p63-s9ps9q1pqr8q@ynat.uz> Content-Description: Content-Disposition: INLINE X19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX18KU3Rhcmxpbmsg bWFpbGluZyBsaXN0ClN0YXJsaW5rQGxpc3RzLmJ1ZmZlcmJsb2F0Lm5ldApodHRwczovL2xpc3Rz LmJ1ZmZlcmJsb2F0Lm5ldC9saXN0aW5mby9zdGFybGluawo= --===============7690558114948891065==--