Starlink to start “deprioritizing” traffic after 1TB monthly(i.imgur.com)
i.imgur.com
Starlink to start “deprioritizing” traffic after 1TB monthly
https://i.imgur.com/NfSTpZN.jpg
147 comments
As a happy Starlink customer for the past 12 months -- and who uses it primarily for video conference, remote desktop, browsing, and similar -- I'm very happy with any policy change that improves the performance of my service by reducing the impact from people currently abusing the service.
Yes, it was sold as an 'all you can eat' service, and yes, there were no such constraints previously, but pragmatically there's finite limits with satellite services, and equally, you're going to always get customers coming in and 'taking the piss' out of these services.
It's hard to not get a tad grumpy when your modest Citrix session at 300kbps is throttled because it's competing against 25Mbps streaming video (and you just know that plenty of those are the weird 'have the TV on in the background all day' people).
Yes, it was sold as an 'all you can eat' service, and yes, there were no such constraints previously, but pragmatically there's finite limits with satellite services, and equally, you're going to always get customers coming in and 'taking the piss' out of these services.
It's hard to not get a tad grumpy when your modest Citrix session at 300kbps is throttled because it's competing against 25Mbps streaming video (and you just know that plenty of those are the weird 'have the TV on in the background all day' people).
It would be a huge stretch to characterize usage over 1TB a month as abuse. My family likely rips through 1TB of data in about 10 days if I had to estimate. So some sort of throttling after 5TB would be more appropriate for 30 days, as obviously a main use case for Starlink will just be normal family internet usage which means a hell of a lot of video.
Unless you are streaming multiple 4K movies per day I just don't see how that's possible. I have a family of 5 and my kids watch several hours of Disney+ and YouTube per day, plus my wife and I watch an hour of Netflix after the kids go to bed, and on top of that I work from home and... I've never exceeded even 500GB in one month.
Our family routinely gets close to our 1.2TB cap.
Working from home contributes, but another big contributor is the Nintendo Switch and Steam. Both of them are constantly pulling down big game updates. If you have a PS5 or Xbox, it would be a similar situation if you own a decent sized game library.
1TB isn't what it used to be...
Working from home contributes, but another big contributor is the Nintendo Switch and Steam. Both of them are constantly pulling down big game updates. If you have a PS5 or Xbox, it would be a similar situation if you own a decent sized game library.
1TB isn't what it used to be...
> 1TB isn't what it used to be...
Maybe on Fiber but if I was using a satellite service idk, I might understand the difference.
Having lived in a rural home with WiMAX the idea of having 1TB caps with high speed sounds like something you don't get to complain about.
Maybe on Fiber but if I was using a satellite service idk, I might understand the difference.
Having lived in a rural home with WiMAX the idea of having 1TB caps with high speed sounds like something you don't get to complain about.
> Maybe on Fiber
Until now Starlink was advertising speeds as 50–200 Mbps. On the low side that is competitive with VDSL2 FTTC. On the high side, that's faster than the packages most users take out on FTTP*
* In the UK, anyway, by far most FTTP users take out entry level packages. These packages often coincide with FTTC speed tiers; if they don't, 100 or 150Mbps is the highest entry level tier.
Until now Starlink was advertising speeds as 50–200 Mbps. On the low side that is competitive with VDSL2 FTTC. On the high side, that's faster than the packages most users take out on FTTP*
* In the UK, anyway, by far most FTTP users take out entry level packages. These packages often coincide with FTTC speed tiers; if they don't, 100 or 150Mbps is the highest entry level tier.
I dont know what UK VDSL2 is but in Canada if you're outside a city or town you spend $75/m on 20mbps that fails whenever it rains.
My friend who moved to a rural farm has been raving about how life-changing Starlink has been for him and he only lives 20 minutes outside a town with 40k people and 1.5hrs from a city with 4 million.
And we allegedly live in a country where gov subsidies justify the exorbitant ISP prices and allegedly rural people benefit from that... Where a free market wouldnt. Allegedly.
My friend who moved to a rural farm has been raving about how life-changing Starlink has been for him and he only lives 20 minutes outside a town with 40k people and 1.5hrs from a city with 4 million.
And we allegedly live in a country where gov subsidies justify the exorbitant ISP prices and allegedly rural people benefit from that... Where a free market wouldnt. Allegedly.
Yikes, that's appalling. VDSL is an evolution of ADSL. You can get speeds of 50-78 Mbps, depending on distance to cabinet, for under £30/month. Coverage isn't universal, but it sounds better than in Canada.
It's also interesting (but disappointing!) Canada's been let down by the telecoms regulator in an entirely different way. In the UK, BT was beginning to roll out fibre, but that was cancelled in favour of privatisation in 1984. Here we are nearly four decades later, and only now is FTTP being rolled out in earnest.
It's also interesting (but disappointing!) Canada's been let down by the telecoms regulator in an entirely different way. In the UK, BT was beginning to roll out fibre, but that was cancelled in favour of privatisation in 1984. Here we are nearly four decades later, and only now is FTTP being rolled out in earnest.
As noted, data usage after 11PM (until 7AM) isn't considered as part of your data utilization, so you can schedule any game updates between those times.
Most of the time, you aren't even playing the games actively, so you won't even notice the ~6h delay after patch release.
Most of the time, you aren't even playing the games actively, so you won't even notice the ~6h delay after patch release.
So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it?
> So now when you buy a game you have to wait until your overnight download window opens to play it?
That's a very disingenuous interpretation of parent's suggestion.
My reading of their comment was that a) there's 1/3 of every day that's not covered by this quota / throttling allowance, and so b) it's easy to configure your game store download manager to pull game _patches_ during that window.
I guess AAA games are around the 50GB these days? If you're buying dozens of these each months, you may have some larger self-control issues to contend with.
Keep in mind we're talking about people using a nominally beta internet service that's got a minimum average ~50ms latency, at any point in talking to one of a thousand satellites.
People that are using Starlink tend to be here because there's no options, or really really really poor options (eg. geostationary satellite - which is what I was on previously, with its 150GB / month limit, 600ms latency, etc). Some appreciation for the fact these pipes are finite and shared is expected and assumed, much more so than urban internet users with nice fat terrestrial connections.
That's a very disingenuous interpretation of parent's suggestion.
My reading of their comment was that a) there's 1/3 of every day that's not covered by this quota / throttling allowance, and so b) it's easy to configure your game store download manager to pull game _patches_ during that window.
I guess AAA games are around the 50GB these days? If you're buying dozens of these each months, you may have some larger self-control issues to contend with.
Keep in mind we're talking about people using a nominally beta internet service that's got a minimum average ~50ms latency, at any point in talking to one of a thousand satellites.
People that are using Starlink tend to be here because there's no options, or really really really poor options (eg. geostationary satellite - which is what I was on previously, with its 150GB / month limit, 600ms latency, etc). Some appreciation for the fact these pipes are finite and shared is expected and assumed, much more so than urban internet users with nice fat terrestrial connections.
How in the world is that disingenuous? That's the direct implication.
What do you mean by 'the direct implication'?
GP said you can schedule game updates for the 1/3 of each day that you're not metered.
P incorrectly translated that to 'when you buy a game you have to wait a day to play it'.
So, as I already argued, these are not the same thing -- purchase & download of a game (impulse) vs regular patches (easily scheduled out of hours), and for a new game it's entirely up to you if you want to pull that down immediately (a modest percentage of 1TB).
GP said you can schedule game updates for the 1/3 of each day that you're not metered.
P incorrectly translated that to 'when you buy a game you have to wait a day to play it'.
So, as I already argued, these are not the same thing -- purchase & download of a game (impulse) vs regular patches (easily scheduled out of hours), and for a new game it's entirely up to you if you want to pull that down immediately (a modest percentage of 1TB).
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First World Problems.jpg
Some steam games I've installed this month were 96gb, 48gb, and 72gb. That's to say nothing of videoconferencing, watching media, etc etc.
1TB is pretty modest for a household.
1TB is pretty modest for a household.
Easy to hit 1TB if some of your family members are unknowingly compromised by botnets.
Believe it! I can’t explain how you use so little, but 3 TB/month is typical in the UK. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-see-...
That's 3TB/year.
> The average property connected to the Openreach network used around 3,000GB of data in 2020, or around 9GB per day
> The average property connected to the Openreach network used around 3,000GB of data in 2020, or around 9GB per day
Whoops! I am quite out.
More recently, that's doubled to 0.5 TB/month[1].
Still, the point I should have made is: is using twice or thrice the (presumably) median unreasonable? Not necessarily.
Of course, deprioritisation after a certain amount isn't unreasonable either, provided there is succificent truth in advertising.
[1] https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-us...
More recently, that's doubled to 0.5 TB/month[1].
Still, the point I should have made is: is using twice or thrice the (presumably) median unreasonable? Not necessarily.
Of course, deprioritisation after a certain amount isn't unreasonable either, provided there is succificent truth in advertising.
[1] https://advanced-television.com/2022/10/13/study-uk-homes-us...
Just to be clear here, the reason that you feel that 1TB/30 days from a low orbit satellite ISP (a relatively recent technological development mind you) is insufficient is simply because your family happens to use 1TB/10 days on what is I assume a wired internet connection?
"How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago".
https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97
"How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago".
https://youtu.be/PdFB7q89_3U?t=97
“How quickly the advertised-as-unlimited internet service he paid for owes him unlimited internet service he knew was deprioritized only 10 seconds ago.”
Let’s be real, they’re simply making a case that 1TB/mo is far from abuse as far as an unlimited, capless internet service should be concerned.
Did these starlink customers agree to a contract saying this could happen? Probably. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty low threshold* when compared to unlimited.
*edited from cap
Let’s be real, they’re simply making a case that 1TB/mo is far from abuse as far as an unlimited, capless internet service should be concerned.
Did these starlink customers agree to a contract saying this could happen? Probably. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pretty low threshold* when compared to unlimited.
*edited from cap
It is still unlimited. Just at a lower speed
"abusing the service"
1 TB isn't a big amount tbh. Watch few youtube videos or 4k videos and you will reach 1 TB within 5-10 days. I live with 3 family member who continuously watches and we always cross 1 TB per month, so I don't think we are abusing the service.
That being said, I do understand it might be fair for starlink as it is a satelite internet.
1 TB isn't a big amount tbh. Watch few youtube videos or 4k videos and you will reach 1 TB within 5-10 days. I live with 3 family member who continuously watches and we always cross 1 TB per month, so I don't think we are abusing the service.
That being said, I do understand it might be fair for starlink as it is a satelite internet.
Continually watching 4k video all day is definitely not normal internet usage and I agree with Starlink that it should be policed.
Most people aren’t watching 4k unless they have the tv on all day. Most people watch on lower res devices
What??? Anyone with a 4k TV that uses netflix is watching 4k a good portion of teh time. What does time with TV on matter? Plus, most new shows are in 4k including kids shows.
Anyone with a 4K TV who has the premium subscription, and has manually changed their settings.
From Netflix:
From Netflix:
That's 142 hours of watching Netflix (outside the nightly window) almost 5 hours per day. I can assure you Netflix doesn't make that much good stuff
From Netflix:
Basic ($8.99 per month): Standard definition (480p) content on a single screen at a time.
Standard ($12.99 per month): High definition (up to 1080p) content on two screens at a time.
Premium ($15.99 per month): Ultra HD (up to 4K) content on four screens at a time.
From Netflix:
High definition (HD) 720p: 3 Mbps
Full high definition (FHD) 1080p: 5 Mbps
4K/Ultra HD (UHD) 4K: 15 Mbps
That's 142 hours of watching Netflix (outside the nightly window) almost 5 hours per day. I can assure you Netflix doesn't make that much good stuff
Thanks for linking some actual data
I can confirm that my wife and kid easily blow through 500 gigs a month just watching TV. The wife likes to leave the news channel on all day, and I don't think that's a ghastly, unheard-of, abusive thing to do with a TV
If I leave any games on auto-update and work from home all month, we get pretty close to Comcast's 1.2TB cap every month
The cap-free usage at night is nice, though. Assuming we don't all start streaming 3D point cloud videos or meshes and textures any time soon, that should keep the service comfortably usable for a few people at a time all month.
I can confirm that my wife and kid easily blow through 500 gigs a month just watching TV. The wife likes to leave the news channel on all day, and I don't think that's a ghastly, unheard-of, abusive thing to do with a TV
If I leave any games on auto-update and work from home all month, we get pretty close to Comcast's 1.2TB cap every month
The cap-free usage at night is nice, though. Assuming we don't all start streaming 3D point cloud videos or meshes and textures any time soon, that should keep the service comfortably usable for a few people at a time all month.
> The wife likes to leave the news channel on all day, and I don't think that's a ghastly, unheard-of, abusive thing to do with a TV.
Are you using Starlink, or are you one of those people commenting on this thread about how much bandwidth you use on non-satellite services?
In any case, I understand that you don't think it's ghastly to leave 'TV on in the background all the time, every day', but please understand in return that the rest of us contending for the same network resources don't think this is reasonable.
> If I leave any games on auto-update and work from home all month, we get pretty close to Comcast's 1.2TB cap every month.
This sounds like this acceptable usage policy doesn't affect you at all, in any way.
Also, that you're unaware that your auto-update games download manager has a facility to schedule downloads at certain times of the day.
Are you using Starlink, or are you one of those people commenting on this thread about how much bandwidth you use on non-satellite services?
In any case, I understand that you don't think it's ghastly to leave 'TV on in the background all the time, every day', but please understand in return that the rest of us contending for the same network resources don't think this is reasonable.
> If I leave any games on auto-update and work from home all month, we get pretty close to Comcast's 1.2TB cap every month.
This sounds like this acceptable usage policy doesn't affect you at all, in any way.
Also, that you're unaware that your auto-update games download manager has a facility to schedule downloads at certain times of the day.
To bring things back around for you: You strongly implied that any household that uses a terabyte per month outside of late night hours is "abusing" the service. I'm just here to explain that you're wrong in your accusation.
It's very easy to hit that cap with a moderately-sized family doing normal things all month, no piracy needed.
It's very easy to hit that cap with a moderately-sized family doing normal things all month, no piracy needed.
You didn't answer my question - are you a Starlink customer, and are you impacted by this policy change?
> You strongly implied that any household that uses a terabyte per month outside of late night hours is "abusing" the service.
This is at best incomplete, or at worst incorrect.
I said that for the Starlink service people consuming excessive network bandwidth are abusing the service - because they're impacting the performance for 'normal' users -- a set that includes me.
If you're consuming more than 1TB on a service that isn't as physically restricted as a LEO satellite service, well good for you.
This story is about Starlink changing their terms and conditions to limit the impact of inconsiderate users.
Aside - my gut feel is that they're actually targeting the >10TB / month users, or some other relatively high threshold of really heavy & persistent users, but by simply stating a ceiling they're tacitly saying anything up to that volume is okay - and they don't want to normalise really large volumes, hence picking a 1TB figure.
> You strongly implied that any household that uses a terabyte per month outside of late night hours is "abusing" the service.
This is at best incomplete, or at worst incorrect.
I said that for the Starlink service people consuming excessive network bandwidth are abusing the service - because they're impacting the performance for 'normal' users -- a set that includes me.
If you're consuming more than 1TB on a service that isn't as physically restricted as a LEO satellite service, well good for you.
This story is about Starlink changing their terms and conditions to limit the impact of inconsiderate users.
Aside - my gut feel is that they're actually targeting the >10TB / month users, or some other relatively high threshold of really heavy & persistent users, but by simply stating a ceiling they're tacitly saying anything up to that volume is okay - and they don't want to normalise really large volumes, hence picking a 1TB figure.
We are altering the terms and conditions. Pray we don't alter them further.
So this doesn't affect you at all.
I haven't had a recent console for quite a while, but can't you just set it to automatically download (not install) downloads at night? So many people are complaining (and rightly so) about having to wait before playing
The news is one situation a lot of people have it just on. Not much to do about that, even though they're repeating the same items over and over again.
Netflix asks you every few hours if you're still watching.
Would be great to have some sort of 'attention' detection, for example some gaze tracking camera in your tv, so it can automatically switch between SD and 4K, but also dim the backlight to save energy. I'm just not sure if I would want a camera in my tv which checks if I actually look at it.
The news is one situation a lot of people have it just on. Not much to do about that, even though they're repeating the same items over and over again.
Netflix asks you every few hours if you're still watching.
Would be great to have some sort of 'attention' detection, for example some gaze tracking camera in your tv, so it can automatically switch between SD and 4K, but also dim the backlight to save energy. I'm just not sure if I would want a camera in my tv which checks if I actually look at it.
Soon you’ll need YouTube premium for 4k anyway
For some perspective, in ~2006 I had satellite internet. We had a rolling 30 day window for 8gb of bandwidth.
Are you watching 4K videos everywhere? On you phone? Every hour of every day?
Most people won't even notice if it's 1024p instead of 4k. Really
"1TB per month" sounds awfully entitled. And yeah, deprioritizing sounds like a fair solution.
Most people won't even notice if it's 1024p instead of 4k. Really
"1TB per month" sounds awfully entitled. And yeah, deprioritizing sounds like a fair solution.
You don’t get 1TB on your cellphone when roaming.
What is “a few” videos. 20 minutes @4k is1gb per visit.
So you’re talking about 1000 videos in 5-10 days. Are you seriously watching 200-400 20 min videos per day?
That’s 4000-8000 minutes per day! Also you have to go through this outside of the nightly window.
That means you’re watching 66 hours of video every 16 hours.
Even if this was the case, then that’s literally the only thing your family does, and you should be happy that that can be covered with only $100 per month lol
What is “a few” videos. 20 minutes @4k is1gb per visit.
So you’re talking about 1000 videos in 5-10 days. Are you seriously watching 200-400 20 min videos per day?
That’s 4000-8000 minutes per day! Also you have to go through this outside of the nightly window.
That means you’re watching 66 hours of video every 16 hours.
Even if this was the case, then that’s literally the only thing your family does, and you should be happy that that can be covered with only $100 per month lol
per video*
> it was sold as an 'all you can eat' service
This is the bigger issue here. It's not about the limit, its about the bait and switch. And no, I don't accept arguments that people should know better, because if the customer is supposedly smart enough to know that limits were inevitable, then so did starlink, which means this was a deliberate tactic (I'd call it a grift tactic at that). The responsible approach would have been to start everyone on a fairly tight limit and then either expand it if the network could handle it, keep them if it couldn't, or just charge more for more bandwidth. That way customers could make a sound evaluation of value/cost.
This is the bigger issue here. It's not about the limit, its about the bait and switch. And no, I don't accept arguments that people should know better, because if the customer is supposedly smart enough to know that limits were inevitable, then so did starlink, which means this was a deliberate tactic (I'd call it a grift tactic at that). The responsible approach would have been to start everyone on a fairly tight limit and then either expand it if the network could handle it, keep them if it couldn't, or just charge more for more bandwidth. That way customers could make a sound evaluation of value/cost.
> This is the bigger issue here.
It really is not.
Changing the ToS such that the top few percentile of people performing some seriously abnormal network activities, to ensure that the majority of your customer base remains happy with the service, is not grift.
'The sign said don't pee in the pool, it didn't say don't bring in bottles of pee you prepared at home and open them in the pool' is not a defence -- people should know better, and it was probably expected that some tiny number of customers would effectively ruin the 'unlimited' service for everyone was.
The responsible approach, as you misunderstood it, was to say 'Here are the T&C - we may change them at will, and shall notify you, at which point you can choose to cancel your service'.
It really is not.
Changing the ToS such that the top few percentile of people performing some seriously abnormal network activities, to ensure that the majority of your customer base remains happy with the service, is not grift.
'The sign said don't pee in the pool, it didn't say don't bring in bottles of pee you prepared at home and open them in the pool' is not a defence -- people should know better, and it was probably expected that some tiny number of customers would effectively ruin the 'unlimited' service for everyone was.
The responsible approach, as you misunderstood it, was to say 'Here are the T&C - we may change them at will, and shall notify you, at which point you can choose to cancel your service'.
Your pee example is not the same thing at all. There was no 'technicality' being breached by people using lots of bandwidth, they were doing so because that's EXACTLY what they paid for when the signed up for an 'UNLIMITED' plan.
A better example would be signing and paying for, a 2022 BMW, and instead getting a 2010 Kia. Sure it still drives, but it ain't the same thing.
A better example would be signing and paying for, a 2022 BMW, and instead getting a 2010 Kia. Sure it still drives, but it ain't the same thing.
Obviously there is a limit in the physics of the thing. And now that someone is peeing in the pool, we can no longer have nice things.
> bait and switch.
...Full self-driving...
...Full self-driving...
Remote work from my van requires video conferencing, easily more than 200 hours per month. 1 TB would limit me to 5 GB per hour. I have been doing much more than that the last 5 months on Starlink.
I object to you calling that abuse. I certainly am not 'taking the piss' out of this service. I pay over 250 euro for Starlink (including 24/7 offgrid batteries and dish) so by suddenly limiting me to 1000 GB I now pay over 0,25 euro per GB.
I am in sparse regions where my satellites are not overtaxed (no cities nearby for 300 km).
If Starlink would equally trottle everyone in speed when the system is oversubscribed at peak times a day I would not mind as much, but a data cap throttles/limits me much more. And now I also have to start counting my traffic and set alarms (waking me up) to voluntairily limit my data.
I object to you calling that abuse. I certainly am not 'taking the piss' out of this service. I pay over 250 euro for Starlink (including 24/7 offgrid batteries and dish) so by suddenly limiting me to 1000 GB I now pay over 0,25 euro per GB.
I am in sparse regions where my satellites are not overtaxed (no cities nearby for 300 km).
If Starlink would equally trottle everyone in speed when the system is oversubscribed at peak times a day I would not mind as much, but a data cap throttles/limits me much more. And now I also have to start counting my traffic and set alarms (waking me up) to voluntairily limit my data.
You are doing 1 1/4 full time jobs' worth of video conferencing per week, every week?
Overemployment is a thing now, apparently.
5GB/hr sounds more than enough for video conferencing!? Does your job require you to do that in 4k?
Nor does videoconferencing require you to be transmitting/receiving video throughout the entire session.
I cut my bandwidth usage when working from home by using the toggle on receiving video when I wasn’t interacting that almost all apps provide.
(it’s also nice to mute your own video when not talking to save the resources of others and also save yourself from “camera fatigue”)
I cut my bandwidth usage when working from home by using the toggle on receiving video when I wasn’t interacting that almost all apps provide.
(it’s also nice to mute your own video when not talking to save the resources of others and also save yourself from “camera fatigue”)
“people currently abusing the service”
how is using a service according to what was promised “abuse”?
how is using a service according to what was promised “abuse”?
I am in video conferences all day every day, I easily burn through 1TB/mo without torrenting or warez. I use my internet to work. Throttling impedes my ability to earn.
4Mb/s * 3600s * 8 hours work per day * 20 days / 8 bits = 288GB.
Just for the sake of it I opened youtube video[0] at 1920@60 and capped the network to "Regular 4G/LTE" in Dev tools, which caps it at ~150KB/s (~1200Kbps). After a bit of stuttering I had a video without pre-buffering. Of course later, where the codec just can't compress enough it starts to buffer (part in the forest at 6:00), but that for a FullHD video at 60FPS with a very dynamic scene change.
If I were to watch these videos for 8h in a row it would be only 4GB a day or 86GB for 20d/m. FullHD video. At 60FPS.
Sure, video conferencing is a bit a different beast, because there is no way to compress a dynamic stream so effectively... Except if you don't run you conference from a Porsche 356 going through the woods then 90% of the picture is just walls of your room/office. It CAN run just fine with 1-4Mbps.
Hell, we had a good enough video calls in Skype almost two decades ago, on a meager DSL lines with 1-5/Mbps limit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY7RF9r8YFw
If I were to watch these videos for 8h in a row it would be only 4GB a day or 86GB for 20d/m. FullHD video. At 60FPS.
Sure, video conferencing is a bit a different beast, because there is no way to compress a dynamic stream so effectively... Except if you don't run you conference from a Porsche 356 going through the woods then 90% of the picture is just walls of your room/office. It CAN run just fine with 1-4Mbps.
Hell, we had a good enough video calls in Skype almost two decades ago, on a meager DSL lines with 1-5/Mbps limit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY7RF9r8YFw
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Are you using Starlink for these all-day every-day video conferences?
If it is sold as unlimited, then using the service at the maximum bandwidth all month is not abuse - that is normal use.
I think you should be grumpy with you service provider who seems to have no idea how to properly manage traffic ;)
I think you should be grumpy with you service provider who seems to have no idea how to properly manage traffic ;)
Like how Comcast starts charging you money for every $x megabytes over 1.2 TB. Only it makes sense for a wireless ISP like Starlink to do it due to spectrum bandwidth constraints. A wired ISP like comcast just does it to try to extract more money out of a userbase that has stopped growing.
Comcast doesn’t give you dedicated bandwidth. Their spectrum is a limited commodity just like starlink. Lots of similarities actually.
True. But a very large number of dedicated physical transmission lines (ie, coaxial cable) allows you to re-use the same spectrum over and over for different groups. While propagating radio waves in free space means that everyone in line of sight has to share the one single spectrum.
no, it does not make sense. it's like if you buy too much beer in a month, they start to mix it with water and sell it for the same price
If you can offer me unlimited beer for a fixed consumer-range monthly price, I've got a bridge to sell you.
This is besides the point but of course there's a number. You've never explored where that number is before? Of course, you're drinking some cheap shitty beer. It's an unlimited plan so you're not getting top shelf small batch IPA. It's some macro brew, let's say it's Budweiser. How many of those you think you can drink a day, every day, every month?
Lets say I charge you $300/month for "unlimited" Bud Light. No sharing with your friends, just all you can drink for $300. If retail is $1/beer, you'd only have to drink 10 beers/day for the deal to be worth it to you (every month only has 30 days to make the math easier), but let's say my costs are only .50's a beer because I'm buying in volume from a cheaper state, then you'd have to drink 20/day, or 600/month before I start losing money on the deal. Now remember, this is 20/day every day of the week for a month. Or 10/day on weekdays and 45 on Sat and Sun each, or almost 2/hr with no sleeping the whole weekend, every weekend.
Even if you think you can keep up that schedule, a bunch of your buddies joined as well. You think every one of them can also keep up? Because if someone wimps out and drinks 0 beers during the week, or skips any weekend, you've got to drink their portion in order for me to lose money on top of the 45 you're drinking a day. Anyway so you plug all that into a spreadsheet based on what you think you can get priced in volume after tax a state or two away, vs retail, and then figure out how many beers does a normal average person drink by themselves before they pass out.
Waddaya say? I'd feel bad if you die of cirrhosis but you did that to yourself.
Lets say I charge you $300/month for "unlimited" Bud Light. No sharing with your friends, just all you can drink for $300. If retail is $1/beer, you'd only have to drink 10 beers/day for the deal to be worth it to you (every month only has 30 days to make the math easier), but let's say my costs are only .50's a beer because I'm buying in volume from a cheaper state, then you'd have to drink 20/day, or 600/month before I start losing money on the deal. Now remember, this is 20/day every day of the week for a month. Or 10/day on weekdays and 45 on Sat and Sun each, or almost 2/hr with no sleeping the whole weekend, every weekend.
Even if you think you can keep up that schedule, a bunch of your buddies joined as well. You think every one of them can also keep up? Because if someone wimps out and drinks 0 beers during the week, or skips any weekend, you've got to drink their portion in order for me to lose money on top of the 45 you're drinking a day. Anyway so you plug all that into a spreadsheet based on what you think you can get priced in volume after tax a state or two away, vs retail, and then figure out how many beers does a normal average person drink by themselves before they pass out.
Waddaya say? I'd feel bad if you die of cirrhosis but you did that to yourself.
Brilliant!! Let me know when BeerPass gets its series A round done and you're looking for senior engineers
ok, if we keep this analogue, i offer you **!!!! UNLIMITED !!!!** (vuvuzela noises here) beer for a month. however in the 67th page of my EULA i say, after you drank a gallon of beer this month, you have to use a really, i mean really really thin straw to drink beer for the rest of the month. done, sell me a bridge
+1 for a vuvuzela reference on HN
A better analogy is probably a gym membership cutting you off from working out twice a day
Odd how Comcast needs a data cap for "outliers," yet every apartment complex can offer free unlimited, unmetered water usage.
Free and unlimited ? I had a water leak that took time to fix, I saw it on the bill, and the utility company too, fining me for "industrial-grade" usage. If you consume yourself more than everyone else in your building, someone will come do something about it eventually to make you stop.
Most apartment buildings where I live (a major metro) are not sub-metered. They don’t know how much my unit uses.
Comcast doesn't have infinite bandwidth, does it? At some point it all drops down to a small straw.
That’s an argument for bandwidth caps, not data caps.
No, it's not. A 1Gbps comcast connection would then need roughly a 5-10Mbps bandwidth cap if you wanted to ensure everybody could hammer the connection at the same time. A total data cap allows most people to use the connection at full 1Gbps speed whenever they want (because most people are only going to be hammering it on average no more than the data cap)
...while those who know they'll hammer it more than average have a specific idea of how much they can get away with.
...while those who know they'll hammer it more than average have a specific idea of how much they can get away with.
It is an argument for de-prioritization. If you have blown past your 1T limit bu the rest of Comcast's network isn't too busy then it doesn't matter, but if the other people on your circuit want to use the data they get priority over your traffic.
It isn't. If you use a lot of traffic when the network is idle, there should be no penalty for this, because the capacity otherwise goes to waste.
If you use traffic when the network is congested, so is everyone else who is active when the network is congested, so you should all get an equal share if you're paying the same monthly fee, and a share proportional to your max connection speed if you're not. Nothing to do with how much you used when the network was idle.
If you use traffic when the network is congested, so is everyone else who is active when the network is congested, so you should all get an equal share if you're paying the same monthly fee, and a share proportional to your max connection speed if you're not. Nothing to do with how much you used when the network was idle.
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Really, they're the same thing, given that your data cap resets every month.
For instance, if you maxed out a 100mpbs home connection 24/7 for a month, you could transfer no more than ~32tb.
For instance, if you maxed out a 100mpbs home connection 24/7 for a month, you could transfer no more than ~32tb.
But that means that bandwidth is still utilized, while a bandwidth cap at, say, 10Mbps would mean that 10 users are make up what one user at 100Mbps make up. In theory, a neighborhood or block might have the cable infrastructure to support 10Gbps simultaneously. There is no real benefit for the ISP to ensure that bandwidth is 100% utilized, so they have no incentive give a user more bandwidth than they paid for. Thus, capped bandwidth.
I’d suspect data caps are useful for over sold areas, but are great for lining the pockets of greedy ISPs.
I’d suspect data caps are useful for over sold areas, but are great for lining the pockets of greedy ISPs.
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I have a 1.2gbps connection with them. That costs $70/mo (with their new subscriber promotion). They give you a 1.2 TB data cap per month.
Every month I can use my connection at full speed for 8.79 seconds.
On the bright side I can pay $30/mo more for unlimited data.
edit: I have been informed that I am bad at math and the correct answer is actually 2.4 hours which does make me feel better, but it's still a funny comparison
Every month I can use my connection at full speed for 8.79 seconds.
On the bright side I can pay $30/mo more for unlimited data.
edit: I have been informed that I am bad at math and the correct answer is actually 2.4 hours which does make me feel better, but it's still a funny comparison
It'd take 133.33 minutes to transfer 1.2 Terabytes at 1.2 Gigabits/second. Double checked with Wolfram Alpha https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=how+long+does+it+take+t...
Um... You need to check your math.
1200 megabits / 8 = 150 megabytes
1.2 TB = 1200000 MB
12000000 MB * (1 sec / 150MB) = 8000 sec = 2.22 hours
1200 megabits / 8 = 150 megabytes
1.2 TB = 1200000 MB
12000000 MB * (1 sec / 150MB) = 8000 sec = 2.22 hours
you mean 2 and a half hours
Comcast can easily add more straws where needed. Wireless hucksters like Starlink can't.
And this is why wireless is not, and will never be, an acceptable primary connection.
And this is why wireless is not, and will never be, an acceptable primary connection.
I pay 50 a month extra to Concast for no caps or throttling, and for the most part it seems to be true.
Unlimited Data is $30/mo in many markets for Comcast, and if you use xFi Complete for $25/mo and just flip the modem into bridge mode, you also get unlimited data included (taking their modem saves you five bucks a month, and it’s compatible with Gigabit x2 which is 2000/200 service).
At least this somewhat makes sense with satellite.
I have a 1gbps down connection and 1 TB cap because my ISP has a monopoly. I pay an arm and leg for this connection. The nearest competitor is basically a town over.
Don't worry, I can pay an extra $150/mo for unlimited data on top of my already $300 connection. I'm not convinced networks should be public utilities but certainly ISPs should be pursued for de facto monopolies. These jerks even tanked my connection during COVID because of all the Netflix consuming the bandwidth at the trunk. Customers paying for 1 gbps down (< 1% of their customer base I'd imagine) should have priority access in times of increased usage. I shouldn't have to compete with a 20 mbps home connection for usage at the astronomical cost I pay for the privilege.
I have a 1gbps down connection and 1 TB cap because my ISP has a monopoly. I pay an arm and leg for this connection. The nearest competitor is basically a town over.
Don't worry, I can pay an extra $150/mo for unlimited data on top of my already $300 connection. I'm not convinced networks should be public utilities but certainly ISPs should be pursued for de facto monopolies. These jerks even tanked my connection during COVID because of all the Netflix consuming the bandwidth at the trunk. Customers paying for 1 gbps down (< 1% of their customer base I'd imagine) should have priority access in times of increased usage. I shouldn't have to compete with a 20 mbps home connection for usage at the astronomical cost I pay for the privilege.
$300! Wow. I pay about 80 from Comcast for the same service, actually unsure if it has a soft cap. We average about 600gb per month usage. Comcast is also our one and only choice so I am at their mercy with price changes.
Wow 80. I pay 10 euros for about the same.
What country would that be in? Sounds amazing! 10 euros for gigabit!
Perhaps Lithuania, Latvia, Romania or Bulgaria.
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/mobile-and-...
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/mobile-and-...
Internet access is dirt cheap in Tokyo too
Last time I lived in Seoul it was cheap there as well, but that was about 15 years ago.
Last time I lived in Seoul it was cheap there as well, but that was about 15 years ago.
That’s Lithuania. However I am pretty sure it will be more expensive soon.
10 Euros for a ~gigabit? That's crazy! In 20 years that's only 200 Euros. Even ignoring the cost of procuring the gear and maintaining it and the business for 20 years I'm not even sure how that covers the transit costs for the data during that time.
Presumably he means per month not per year? As does the people above him paying $80 and $300? So his 20 year payment would be 2400 Euros.
During Covid I used over 1TB a month on my 5G connection some months.
That was back when I was playing a lot of PUBG on Stadia - it could really rip though the data.
That was back when I was playing a lot of PUBG on Stadia - it could really rip though the data.
Reads as exceedingly reasonable as written. If the network is congested, someone has to pay in a slower connection. It makes sense to place that burden on the heaviest users.
It does.
Does Starlink have a live dashboard showing what their capacity is, how much of it is being used, what most people's usage is like, and what my usage is like? What plans, with timeframes, there are to increase capacity?
Because, based on industry practices since forever, I'm not in a trusting mood.
Does Starlink have a live dashboard showing what their capacity is, how much of it is being used, what most people's usage is like, and what my usage is like? What plans, with timeframes, there are to increase capacity?
Because, based on industry practices since forever, I'm not in a trusting mood.
It would be cool of it was based both on available bandwidth AND usage over 1TB. E.g. when the network is over-utilized, any users over 1TB will be throttled.
It sounds like that is what they are doing. Deprioritizing, to me means that even after 1 TB, you would still have full speed assuming enough bandwidth is available.
The biggest loser here seems to business users, who, for $500/mo get 1TB of data prioritized over nearly everyone, but then are capped to 1Mbps up/down until they pay $1/GB for more priority data! Even worse for maritime users, same, but $2/GB!
1Mbps is brutally slow. I wonder why they picked that. There's got to be something between 1Mbps and 100Mbps that wouldn't have to cost $1k a TB.
Parents got a 4k tv on it, and it can spike upto 50gigs on a weekend day when they are watching tv all day. Not hitting 1TB a month, but with a full house its getting close.
Told them if they do any updates for the pc's do it after 11, and change the tv to 1080p if possible on streaming apps.
Told them if they do any updates for the pc's do it after 11, and change the tv to 1080p if possible on streaming apps.
This is "satellite" Internet. It is absolutely bonkers amazing you can get 1TB at all.
Yeah, that seems to be lost on people here.
Starlink has given me amazing internet on a tiny beach in Mexico. Before it, my internet was so bad I couldn’t do Zoom calls.
Starlink has given me amazing internet on a tiny beach in Mexico. Before it, my internet was so bad I couldn’t do Zoom calls.
People kinda forget that before Starlink we had... Iridium. Which cost an arm and a leg for Internet speeds that my kids would call "Dad, why isn't Internet working?" It was just about enough to get in touch with the rest of the world when in some silly places far away from civilisation. When you need one you need one.
People never stop to be amazed even for a second for the amazing things we have nowadays and how cheap.
People never stop to be amazed even for a second for the amazing things we have nowadays and how cheap.
At 20 mbit/s (usual bitrate for 4k tv channels, as well as netflix, prime, apple+ etc. premium vods) that's 9GB per hour, so you'd reach a 1TB monthly cap by watching for like 4 hours a day on a single device.
So, if you need to watch more than 4 hours of TV a day, get cable, or pay more than $110/month.
Or turn the quality down from 4k.
Frankly, the fact that you can stream 4k video for four hours a day, every day, on a satellite connection is pretty nuts.
Frankly, the fact that you can stream 4k video for four hours a day, every day, on a satellite connection is pretty nuts.
Fair use policies are fine when it's fair, but 1TB for a household's home internet is not fair in 2022.
2.5TB or 5TB being the threshold would be received much better.
2.5TB or 5TB being the threshold would be received much better.
I currently have satellite with Xplornet and pay $99/mo for a 50gb cap.
For the target demographic, 1TB is more than fair.
For the target demographic, 1TB is more than fair.
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100% agree. I’d reckon we tear through 1TB in about 10 days.
This is satellite, i.e., internet for people who can't get a physical network connection better than dial-up over copper. Starlink's closest competition is Exede (by Viasat) with monthly data caps on the order of 60GB. If you use 1TB+/mo, you're probably not viewing Starlink as an upgrade from Exede and should opt for something closer to your needs.
I'd hazard a guess that people who should be using their local cable provider's solution are the reason Starlink is now imposing this data cap...
edit: Exede apparently now offers up to 30mbps and a 100GB/mo cap in my area, their second highest plan. Other points still stand...
I'd hazard a guess that people who should be using their local cable provider's solution are the reason Starlink is now imposing this data cap...
edit: Exede apparently now offers up to 30mbps and a 100GB/mo cap in my area, their second highest plan. Other points still stand...
Traffic from 11pm to 7am isn't going to be part of the 1TB.
SpaceX is launching a crewed mission to the Sun.
It's safe; they're traveling only at night.
It's safe; they're traveling only at night.
Looking past the snark of your comment, I think the person you are responding to has a legitimate point: the cap doesn't apply to 8 hours of the day. Actually, it isn't even a cap, it's just that traffic after 1TB is de-prioritized. If you are in a cell that isn't congested, there will be no impact on you.
I trust you, but do you have a source? Hopefully not in the form of a jpeg lol
This thread links to a provided source which itself points to another source on Starlink's website in their Fair Use Policy here:
> https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1134-82708-70
> For Residential Service Plans, your data usage will only count toward the Priority Access data limits described in the chart below during 7AM to 11PM (“Peak Hours”). Your usage between 11PM and 7AM will not count toward Priority Access data limits.
Seems like you knew that comment's source, and rather than question the validity of it directly you want to talk around that for whatever reason.
> https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1134-82708-70
> For Residential Service Plans, your data usage will only count toward the Priority Access data limits described in the chart below during 7AM to 11PM (“Peak Hours”). Your usage between 11PM and 7AM will not count toward Priority Access data limits.
Seems like you knew that comment's source, and rather than question the validity of it directly you want to talk around that for whatever reason.
I have no idea what you are talking about when you say this thread already had a link to the source. I even prefaced my reply with "I trust you" so it wouldn't come off as rude or me questioning its validity.
edit: also, thank you for the link
edit: also, thank you for the link
Haha, your comment looked super snarky to me. I guess it's just because sarcasm doesn't translate well into text, so we assume it's there even if someone didn't mean to be sarcastic
> Traffic from 11pm to 7am isn't going to be part of the 1TB.
I'm still a proponent of Starlink, despite Musk's recent BS with Ukrainian coverage that has been paid for by various sources, but how is this going to be mitigated? If it's current user-base is taxing it's bandwidth will simply adding more satellites a tenable solution?
I'm still a proponent of Starlink, despite Musk's recent BS with Ukrainian coverage that has been paid for by various sources, but how is this going to be mitigated? If it's current user-base is taxing it's bandwidth will simply adding more satellites a tenable solution?
If Starlink isn't profitable with the current set of satellites, how can lose less money by adding more?
> If Starlink isn't profitable with the current set of satellites, how can lose less money by adding more?
The US DoD, and various European Military is giving them a significant amount of money from private users; if this is a prioritization thing to ensure connectivity in certain areas (like war zones) I can understand that, if it's a scale thing that will eventually be mitigated with more satellites I can sort of understand that but the costs just went down and with more satellites and launches on the manifest this year than any other.
1Tb of data is fair for most people's usecase I imagine, and any overage from this userbase can mitigated with more expensive tiered packages, I just don't see how this can be tenable in the long term if they are to cover such a large breadth of the Human population as they anticipate.
Again, I'm a big believer of the SpaceX team and what they represent, I 've seen it in person and it's the most inspiring thing I've seen to date; what I have an issue is with is with Elon burning bridges with people who have the greatest need for these services and being left to defend it later when things like this occur: they were assisting in Tonga after the volcano, there was a pressing need for it in Kazakhstan during the revolt and subsequent suppression from the Russia/FSB and then subsequently in Ukraine not long after the invasion. And this was just in 2022.
This was all the Marketing they needed to sell this as a solid solution but I fear Elon is the biggest impediment here and I hope that Twitter takes all his attention so shit like this doesn't keep impeding progress.
The US DoD, and various European Military is giving them a significant amount of money from private users; if this is a prioritization thing to ensure connectivity in certain areas (like war zones) I can understand that, if it's a scale thing that will eventually be mitigated with more satellites I can sort of understand that but the costs just went down and with more satellites and launches on the manifest this year than any other.
1Tb of data is fair for most people's usecase I imagine, and any overage from this userbase can mitigated with more expensive tiered packages, I just don't see how this can be tenable in the long term if they are to cover such a large breadth of the Human population as they anticipate.
Again, I'm a big believer of the SpaceX team and what they represent, I 've seen it in person and it's the most inspiring thing I've seen to date; what I have an issue is with is with Elon burning bridges with people who have the greatest need for these services and being left to defend it later when things like this occur: they were assisting in Tonga after the volcano, there was a pressing need for it in Kazakhstan during the revolt and subsequent suppression from the Russia/FSB and then subsequently in Ukraine not long after the invasion. And this was just in 2022.
This was all the Marketing they needed to sell this as a solid solution but I fear Elon is the biggest impediment here and I hope that Twitter takes all his attention so shit like this doesn't keep impeding progress.
With faster and better interconnected birds. Improved density, larger coverage areas away from ground stations, higher margin services like RV, boats, cruise ships, planes etc.
Also, they're upgrading the launch vehicle, which will lower the cost of launch per kg by a factor of 10 or so.
They currently have ~3000 satellites. The total plan has ~12,000 satellites.
So that's going to basically quadruple the available bandwidth?
So that's going to basically quadruple the available bandwidth?
> They currently have ~3000 satellites. The total plan has ~12,000 satellites.
I gave more context below, what I'm saying is that perhaps it was foolish to lower prices for existing customers if it was going to be capped at 1TB, and given that their are combat zones depending on this connectivity (UA) than it was better to subsidize the costs to cover costs as it scales and offer tiered packages to offset this bandwidth issue. Instead you have Elon making unfounded claims, about it being given away for free, and then threatening to pull connectivity etc... obviously he got spoken to by the DoD, who pretty much prop up SpaceX, and the aerospace Industry as a whole is mainly military so that kind of behaviour will be stamped out at asap.
This is my biggest issue, that we all thought we would have created a path decentralized internet but its just as egregious as another telecoms except this one is done capable of being derailed and undoing all the immense work of amazing techs/engineers by what is essentially PT Barnem 2.0.
I gave more context below, what I'm saying is that perhaps it was foolish to lower prices for existing customers if it was going to be capped at 1TB, and given that their are combat zones depending on this connectivity (UA) than it was better to subsidize the costs to cover costs as it scales and offer tiered packages to offset this bandwidth issue. Instead you have Elon making unfounded claims, about it being given away for free, and then threatening to pull connectivity etc... obviously he got spoken to by the DoD, who pretty much prop up SpaceX, and the aerospace Industry as a whole is mainly military so that kind of behaviour will be stamped out at asap.
This is my biggest issue, that we all thought we would have created a path decentralized internet but its just as egregious as another telecoms except this one is done capable of being derailed and undoing all the immense work of amazing techs/engineers by what is essentially PT Barnem 2.0.
They're also increasing the size (and probably bandwidth) of each satellite by a factor of 5 or so with gen2.
Total constellation size would be like 40,000 satellites. Overall that means roughly 50-100 times the current bandwidth.
Total constellation size would be like 40,000 satellites. Overall that means roughly 50-100 times the current bandwidth.
1TB cap is a lot of internet, especially for sat connectivity.
Considering the speed of my “unlimited” cellular data from T-Mobile gets deprioritized after 50 GB, and Comcast limiting me to 1.2 TB per month, I would have expected a satellite Internet to put up a much lower cap than 1 TB. I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep on lowering that cap as they add more users.
If it's a contract term it isn't that unreasonable.
If it's a unilateral change it likely isn't legal in many countries.
Not that musk seems to generally care much about the law.
If it's a unilateral change it likely isn't legal in many countries.
Not that musk seems to generally care much about the law.
All Starlink customers are month-to-month.
With a large initial hardware but that can’t be used for anything else. I could see my European consumer protection authority ruling that they need to offer the option of hardware buyback in cases where the contract changes.
wait you're trying to tell me a musk solution like his tunnels aren't scalable?
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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33473757