Starlink

Oct 23, 2020
208
93
160
Visit site
When we should expect Starlink to work in full capacity ?
How much time Space X needs to adjust this project?
Will the price will be reduced?
I assume 600 is pretty a high price
 
When we should expect Starlink to work in full capacity ?
How much time Space X needs to adjust this project?
Will the price will be reduced?
I assume 600 is pretty a high price

The price is currently $500 for the Earth Station, and a monthly cost of $90.00, It will naturally change with time.

As of now, Starlink gives a speed of 30 to 150 MBPS with a latency of around 30 MS. My cable gives a speed of 20-50 MBPS (of a claimed 1000 MBPS) with a latency of 30 - 40 MS. This for $100/Month.

Satellite coverage converges as you go North, so presently, if you live near the Canadian border in North America, you can get decent internet from the constellation. Better coverage south of there depends heavily on the number of satellites and ground stations.

To really cover everywhere will require five times as many satelllites has they currently have. So it will take time and some patience to get the coverage you want.

From the coverage I've seen, in My Area (The Phoenix area), there will only be patches of time when internet packets will be able to arrive, often separated by sevveral minutes. It's worse at the Equator. I could get buggy service if they doubled the number of satellites. That's what it would take. It's why Space X is continuing to launch satellites.

For this business, there is a trade-off between the altitude of the satellite, the number of satellites and the latency of your signal.

Satellite internet is available now from several carriers who need only three satellites, in Geosynchronous Orbits. They can only handle a limited number of customers though, so it is expensive. This gives latency times of up to a quarter of a second.

What's available now is the Beta Test version. It's there to experiment and work the inevitable bugs out of the system for when it can be offered openly.

Like Beta Software, you can use it today, but coverage is spotty and the entire system may crash sometimes, leaving you with nothing for a while.

The system isn't great for people in large urban areas either. The satellites can't see the difference between you antenna and your neighbors until you get a ways apart. That's there with cell phones too, which is part of the reason we don't use phones in the air all that often. It confuses the systems in the base stations.

Sorry, that's just physics. There are some tricks that will help however.

It will probably be available here in Arizona within the year, when the number of satellites goes over 1200 or so. Musk says that 4000 will allow him to serve a billion customers all over the world. He probably knows the numbers for that. But if you live in a subdivision or apartment complex, it probably isn't for you. Not yet anyway. More satellites will allow smaller cell size and with that, greater density of customers on the ground.

Amazon and the British Government are also working on similar systems. One Web, (The British system ) has satellites, Amazon just has plans. Both are a couple of years behind Space X.
 
Feb 26, 2021
5
1
10
Visit site
My dishy and router came last week. For me, I was a little aggressive deciding to pay the price. We live in a remote location with no wired services.

When the promotions claim 30ms pings and 50+mbps downloads, the most important factor is missing. Downtime.

sdf.jpg


The yellow downtime is "no satellites". The pink downtime is "obstructed". I get the "obstructed" message even though I get this message too:

sdff.jpg


The timeline on the first graph is a little over a minute. Gamers, coders, and Zoom users can not tolerate downtime like that. Imagine if your game, zoom meeting or coding effort were interrupted all day long by 10-60 seconds gaps.

I know it sounds like I am complaining. I am not. I am just sharing my impressions of a system that contains downtime that gets little notice.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shahzaib Ali

Latest posts