Starlink's current problem is capacity(jeffgeerling.com)
jeffgeerling.com
Starlink's current problem is capacity
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/starlinks-current-problem-capacity
78 comments
> You can't get these speeds with even VDSL..
That's not quite true. At least in germany, VDSL2 with "supervectoring" profile 35b [1] is routinely used, advertised as 250 Mbit internet service [2].
Technologically it's quite a waste of hardware resources and electric power to put these kind of data rates on old twisted pair copper cables (instead of using fiber everywhere), but that seems to be the status quo here right now.
(And I'd guess that the ratio of people being in need of satellite internet is much lower in germany than it is in the US).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL#Vplus/35b
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervectoring
That's not quite true. At least in germany, VDSL2 with "supervectoring" profile 35b [1] is routinely used, advertised as 250 Mbit internet service [2].
Technologically it's quite a waste of hardware resources and electric power to put these kind of data rates on old twisted pair copper cables (instead of using fiber everywhere), but that seems to be the status quo here right now.
(And I'd guess that the ratio of people being in need of satellite internet is much lower in germany than it is in the US).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL#Vplus/35b
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervectoring
Oh man, I remember a podcast with a network guy in Germany and he hated 'super-vectoring' so much and ranted about it. Basically a way for the telco to get lots of money for not building any fiber.
Interesting, and what speeds can a average customer on the top tier actually get?
In the UK the fastest profile used is 17a, which is then capped by our telco at 80 down 20 up line rate. The reality is that only a few percent of users actually achieve these speeds; the median speed is just over 50Mb and 30Mb or less is not uncommon.
We do have Gfast in some urban areas but its only useful if the cabinet is less than 200M or so away. We are actually making good progress on 1-10Gb FTTP coverage now though.
Just thought it was a interesting if not suprising note that Internet from space which travels hundreds of miles through free air to the ground station where it hits fibre is faster than we can achieve over a few hundred metres of twisted copper pair with a consumer level budget.
We do have Gfast in some urban areas but its only useful if the cabinet is less than 200M or so away. We are actually making good progress on 1-10Gb FTTP coverage now though.
Just thought it was a interesting if not suprising note that Internet from space which travels hundreds of miles through free air to the ground station where it hits fibre is faster than we can achieve over a few hundred metres of twisted copper pair with a consumer level budget.
I'm currently on profile 17a, I pay for 100 Mbit (downstream), and get like 90 Mbit actual IP protocol bandwidth (wget tops out at 10.7 MB/s). But I think the ATM signalling that's still used on the underlying VDSL physical layer is eating a significant portion of the bandwidth (due to the high frame header overhead).
Sounds like you have a nearly perfect line and very close to the Cabinet?
In the UK lines can typically be 500M while worst case may be 1KM or more from the Cabinet. We do have alot of aluminium or cca based lines as well due to copper conservation in world war 2.
All in your perfect 17a vdsl line is still slower than Jeff is complaining about over starlink (100mb)
In the UK lines can typically be 500M while worst case may be 1KM or more from the Cabinet. We do have alot of aluminium or cca based lines as well due to copper conservation in world war 2.
All in your perfect 17a vdsl line is still slower than Jeff is complaining about over starlink (100mb)
Yes, I can see the cabinet from my window, so maybe less than 100 meters cable. Inside big cities that seems to be the state-of-the-art. They must have placed a lot of cabinets in recent years. I'm surprised those cabinets don't give up a noticeable amount of heat, they don't even have noticeable active cooling. That's a huge amount of DSP operations that they are running, like a hundred DSL modems crammed together. But maybe modern ASICs can run a single 17a VDSL line at a just few watts.
Right now the modem reports a (link layer) data rate of 98338000 bit/s. Wget tops out at 10.7 MB/s.
100 Gbps over fiber is now the new norm.
Not for FTTP :). In the UK we mostly have XGS PON or GPON with maybe a few hundred thousand active ethernet lines.
You can always order a 1Gb service, sometimes a 2.5Gb or 3Gb service rarely a 10Gb service at consumer prices if you have FTTP here. What about in your area?
You can always order a 1Gb service, sometimes a 2.5Gb or 3Gb service rarely a 10Gb service at consumer prices if you have FTTP here. What about in your area?
Many apartments in big cities in the US have telecom infrastructure which behaves similarly to a wet string and can only pull a few megabits down on a good day. There is no alternative for them except T-Mobile Home Internet (5G) if they are lucky.
500Mbps for $60 is already expensive and slow all over Europe, for example $30 for 1 Gbps in Spain.
Starlinks <200Mbps for $124 is very expensive. You can get 100 Gbps for $5500, that is $5,5 for 100 Mbps.
As an internet provider since 1987 myself, I think all of the above is slow and expensive, I am not kidding, $1 for 100 Mbps is fair and still allows us ample profit margins.
Starlinks <200Mbps for $124 is very expensive. You can get 100 Gbps for $5500, that is $5,5 for 100 Mbps.
As an internet provider since 1987 myself, I think all of the above is slow and expensive, I am not kidding, $1 for 100 Mbps is fair and still allows us ample profit margins.
You’re not getting it. This is 100Mbps in the middle of a field or out in the ocean somewhere. Coupled with being unmetered for ~$100/month is a pretty good deal.
An incredible deal, would be thousands a month for much worse service with traditional satellite providers.
Typical 1G FTTP in uk is around £35 but you won't be able to get that in a RV half way up a mountain.
Typical 1G FTTP in uk is around £35 but you won't be able to get that in a RV half way up a mountain.
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My phone's 5G connection is 550Mbps.
Thank god for civilization!
Thank god for civilization!
Great! Now you can use up your 15 gigs of data in under 5 minutes.
I think their biggest issue is the mechanical engineering of the dishes. They use non-standard mounts, and (despite using bog-standard outdoor/riser-rated cat 5e cable) non-standard ethernet connectors.
For people replacing an existing internet connection with starlink, the cost of swapping out the existing (perfectly good) cable and antenna mount dwarfs the retail (and even manufacturing) cost of the dish.
Also, they don't document the electrical requirements for the ethernet cable, so people end up guessing, forcing it to turn on the on-board heater, then checking for voltage droop.
Even oversubscribed, they're better than most rural ISP options though.
I agree that the starlink customer support people are extremely overworked. In my experience, they're also completely incompetent.
The "impossible to update out of date firmware" issue is ridiculous, especially since they specifically market the RV service for use cases where you buy the dish and then pause the service for the 11.5 months of the year when you're not using your RV.
For people replacing an existing internet connection with starlink, the cost of swapping out the existing (perfectly good) cable and antenna mount dwarfs the retail (and even manufacturing) cost of the dish.
Also, they don't document the electrical requirements for the ethernet cable, so people end up guessing, forcing it to turn on the on-board heater, then checking for voltage droop.
Even oversubscribed, they're better than most rural ISP options though.
I agree that the starlink customer support people are extremely overworked. In my experience, they're also completely incompetent.
The "impossible to update out of date firmware" issue is ridiculous, especially since they specifically market the RV service for use cases where you buy the dish and then pause the service for the 11.5 months of the year when you're not using your RV.
Do you happen to know anyone who managed to figure out what the electrical requirements for the cable are? We tried mounting the antenna outside and connecting the cable via an external box to the inside (using cat 6 cable), but Starlink immediately started complaining about a 'bad connection', which went away when we routed the cable to the power brick unimpeded. But it would really be much neater if we could use our own house's ethernet wiring. But evidently Starlink doesn't like it.
I'm on the original, round dish, not the rectangular new one. I wonder whether this can be done on the round dish, as that one used even more power.
It's pretty low as long as its not a rev1_preprod, the rev2_proto2 and proto4 models use 30-50W for me.
>I think their biggest issue is the mechanical engineering of the dishes. They use non-standard mounts,
They sell for $15 or so pipe adapter. Works perfectly well with pole that dishtv was mounted on. The none-standard mount that they have (at least on new dishes) besides actually mounting dish to pole also has function of holding cable in place
They sell for $15 or so pipe adapter. Works perfectly well with pole that dishtv was mounted on. The none-standard mount that they have (at least on new dishes) besides actually mounting dish to pole also has function of holding cable in place
Don't quite understand why you would like to use Starlink in a city, especially without roaming support. Damn hipsters. What is awesome about it is to have internet in remote location that have no chance of ever getting a land line.
In cities and suburbs it will often be the case that there is a single cable provider who charges approximately the same as starlink due to being a regional monopoly. At my old place the sole choice was cox who had monopoly on internet
because the only other option was at&t dsl that offered 5mbs download for $60+/month. I was seriously considering starlink.
Two blocks over there was google fiber and at&t fiber but might as well have been 100 miles away for all the good that did me. Actually it would have been better because I wouldn't get adds telling me about fiber only to find it wasn't available.
Two blocks over there was google fiber and at&t fiber but might as well have been 100 miles away for all the good that did me. Actually it would have been better because I wouldn't get adds telling me about fiber only to find it wasn't available.
For me it's incredible that it's like that in the US (I assume you're in the US as you mention "google fiber" and "at&t").
You folks have to change that, decouple who lays cables from who can use them, or at least make companies who lay cables let any provider access them, etc... - look at how some european countries deal with it (at least the ones that have the most happy users - details will probably be important) and do the same => no risks.
(Repeating what I wrote in the past ) I'm in Switzerland living nearby Zurich but using a small regional Internet Provider located 50km away (outside the region I'm living in) and my parents are in a different region in a 800-souls village and use a major national provider, and we both ended up getting FTTH, with similar costs and great reliability - cables in both cases initially layed down spontaneously by companies not directly related to the providers, hoping that we would start using them at some point (I waited for 1 year being scared of complications but my parents switched immediately as their old ADSL connection was extremely unreliable) => this is a practical demonstration that this system works & good for everybody (customers & providers & whoever lays down the cables), therefore no reason not to adopt it.
You folks have to change that, decouple who lays cables from who can use them, or at least make companies who lay cables let any provider access them, etc... - look at how some european countries deal with it (at least the ones that have the most happy users - details will probably be important) and do the same => no risks.
(Repeating what I wrote in the past ) I'm in Switzerland living nearby Zurich but using a small regional Internet Provider located 50km away (outside the region I'm living in) and my parents are in a different region in a 800-souls village and use a major national provider, and we both ended up getting FTTH, with similar costs and great reliability - cables in both cases initially layed down spontaneously by companies not directly related to the providers, hoping that we would start using them at some point (I waited for 1 year being scared of complications but my parents switched immediately as their old ADSL connection was extremely unreliable) => this is a practical demonstration that this system works & good for everybody (customers & providers & whoever lays down the cables), therefore no reason not to adopt it.
The US is an (unevenly distributed) hellscape for anyone dependent on government regulation for basic quality of life. Regulators are wholly captured for most industries. Air quality, e.g., is not actually enforced by EPA, if the offender is a big and old chemical factory, particularly if people being gassed might be black.
They don't even need to bribe inspectors; the agency itself just rolls over on its own.
They don't even need to bribe inspectors; the agency itself just rolls over on its own.
LTE or 5G is going to be much more efficient to provision anywhere that's not rural. Starlink cannot work well at even moderate densities, the "cell" is just too large and would have too many customers in it if it were reasonably popular.
I'm in a city center, and my small office network is currently 4G through a Samsung phone because it's faster than anything I can get on the landline.
This is a city where some buildings have up to about 200Mbit/s on either cable or FTTP, but these are not available at all properties. The best landline speed I can get is "up to" 17Mbit/s downlink, which is slower than the phone, the landline uplink is ridiculously slow, and to top off the landline is more than twice the price of unlimited 4G.
I'd like the speed and latency of FTTP, and failing that a good speed of VDSL over FTTP, but since I can't get either and I'm on the top floor of a 4 story building, I've wondered if Starlink would be an improvement over 4G.
This is a city where some buildings have up to about 200Mbit/s on either cable or FTTP, but these are not available at all properties. The best landline speed I can get is "up to" 17Mbit/s downlink, which is slower than the phone, the landline uplink is ridiculously slow, and to top off the landline is more than twice the price of unlimited 4G.
I'd like the speed and latency of FTTP, and failing that a good speed of VDSL over FTTP, but since I can't get either and I'm on the top floor of a 4 story building, I've wondered if Starlink would be an improvement over 4G.
The Internet options available in the city can be surprisingly awful. And not just on speed/capacity basis, but on customer service as well. I have lived in many places where what Starlink is offering now is better than any service available for purchase.
For me - backup Internet for a large-scale power outage or other event like an ice storm that knocks down telecommunication lines.
I've worked from home via the Internet since the late 90's, and having a backup has been drilled into me as a hard requirement from hard-won experience. Living in Chicago this came in handy just last year when a box truck took out my primary fiber connection and most of the block for a few days, and I failed over seamlessly to Comcast.
When/if I get approved for Starlink, I'll cancel comcast and be using it as my backup. Hopefully they become mobile soon as well, so I can take it with me on adventures.
I've worked from home via the Internet since the late 90's, and having a backup has been drilled into me as a hard requirement from hard-won experience. Living in Chicago this came in handy just last year when a box truck took out my primary fiber connection and most of the block for a few days, and I failed over seamlessly to Comcast.
When/if I get approved for Starlink, I'll cancel comcast and be using it as my backup. Hopefully they become mobile soon as well, so I can take it with me on adventures.
You can get the "RV" variant now at starlink.com/rv. It's a little bit more per month but allows roaming and turning it on and off. On the downside, it's explicitly lower priority on the network than the fixed ones.
I use 5G as a backup. It costs me only around 40 USD and includes the modem which I have attached to my router.
If you are in a city there are cheaper back solutions than starlink.
If you are in a city there are cheaper back solutions than starlink.
When my local fiber backbone was cut last year, many neighborhoods including mine lost service. Guess what happened to the 5G? I had a hotspot for backup use, and it was useless. Turns out the towers use the same backbone!
Would it make sense to have such an expensive backup system for an event that happens once every few years and is fixed in a day?
Granted I’m rural, but ours took a week and a half to get back online when a forest fire burned a microwave tower. It took out Charter cable to our house & Verizon. I am a fully remote tech worker, and this was bad (I had to work remote-remote during this time).
On another topic, I have had Starlink since early 2021. A lot of the people I see complaining are not the target audience. We live 3 hrs from the nearest airport, and it’s night and day difference for everyone outside our “town” who were either using a local WISP or Hughesnet. There are more of those people out there than you think ;)
IMO Starlink is not going to replace hardwired connection options or local 5G, but that’s okay. At least in the USA, there is a lot lot land not covered by cell service. I carry an Iridium messenger in the car just in case I break down in one of these areas (it has happened to me, and is not fun trying to get a tow truck).
On another topic, I have had Starlink since early 2021. A lot of the people I see complaining are not the target audience. We live 3 hrs from the nearest airport, and it’s night and day difference for everyone outside our “town” who were either using a local WISP or Hughesnet. There are more of those people out there than you think ;)
IMO Starlink is not going to replace hardwired connection options or local 5G, but that’s okay. At least in the USA, there is a lot lot land not covered by cell service. I carry an Iridium messenger in the car just in case I break down in one of these areas (it has happened to me, and is not fun trying to get a tow truck).
Unfortunately it was a couple weeks, not a day. And it’s pretty cheap, only $110/month for Starlink compared to $50/month for a T-Mobile hotspot that didn’t help at all during the outage.
A day? Maybe not - In most cases I could simply drive somewhere for a day or two and get work done.
For something that spans a week or so like my fiber outage? Worth every penny. As an employee it's my duty to have reliable "transportation" to work - in this case that means Internet access.
I did use a 4G LTE hotspot when I lived in less dense suburbs - it worked quite well. In the city core though, I've found that when there is a widescale outage mobile data slows to a crawl and is unusable for work purposes.
It's expensive, but when I was contracting being unable to take a sev0 on-call escalation would have cost far more in opportunity cost than paying for the backup line for a year.
For something that spans a week or so like my fiber outage? Worth every penny. As an employee it's my duty to have reliable "transportation" to work - in this case that means Internet access.
I did use a 4G LTE hotspot when I lived in less dense suburbs - it worked quite well. In the city core though, I've found that when there is a widescale outage mobile data slows to a crawl and is unusable for work purposes.
It's expensive, but when I was contracting being unable to take a sev0 on-call escalation would have cost far more in opportunity cost than paying for the backup line for a year.
Tethering to my phone is my backup.
Although it's more than a backup, I use it daily when I go sit in a park to work, or work from a cafe or whatever.
Although it's more than a backup, I use it daily when I go sit in a park to work, or work from a cafe or whatever.
I’m in San Jose. My choices are 25Mbps DSL or cable internet through Xfinity. After my previous interactions with Xfinity I will never touch them again.
Starlink is looking pretty good by comparison.
Starlink is looking pretty good by comparison.
You should also check out recent wireless options like T-Mobile's 5G Home Internet, which reportedly works quite well, and it makes a lot more sense (in my opinion) from an infrastructure standpoint than urban Starlink, unless you just absolutely require an internet connection that can continue working during a city-wide internet disruption. It's also like half the price of Starlink, with no upfront cost at all, IIRC. I've also seen people online get speeds upwards of 700Mbps, which is higher than I've seen anyone report on Starlink, but it is apparently highly variable from location to location based on your local cell network infrastructure.
I think Verizon and AT&T also offer 5G Home Internet options, but T-Mobile's offering seems to be the best from what I've seen online.
(Keep in mind that all of these services provide a specialized box that acts as a cell modem and router, and it should offer much stronger and better connectivity to the carrier's network than a mobile phone.)
I think Verizon and AT&T also offer 5G Home Internet options, but T-Mobile's offering seems to be the best from what I've seen online.
(Keep in mind that all of these services provide a specialized box that acts as a cell modem and router, and it should offer much stronger and better connectivity to the carrier's network than a mobile phone.)
I’m in a cell phone dead zone :(
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People hate the cable company. There are a lot of rich people in cities who would love to burn dollar bills to spite the cable company, they compete with people in a radius of 300 miles or so for bandwidth.
I have one and it’s both a middle finger to the cable company and supporting the development of Starship.
Even without Starlink, you could have convinced me to donate $100 a month . The fact that my donation comes with a pretty amazing piece of tech is a bonus.
Even without Starlink, you could have convinced me to donate $100 a month . The fact that my donation comes with a pretty amazing piece of tech is a bonus.
You are already donating via federal subsidies. They absolutely do not need your money.
Yes. I have access to Comcast cable, but I happily pay >2x for much slower local-ISP microwave service.
AT&T terminates fiber 1/10 mi from my house, built out under the $0.5B federal broadband subsidy many years back. But FCC did not require them to light it, so AT&T never bothered.
Who is worse, Comcast or AT&T? Each is worse than the other.
AT&T terminates fiber 1/10 mi from my house, built out under the $0.5B federal broadband subsidy many years back. But FCC did not require them to light it, so AT&T never bothered.
Who is worse, Comcast or AT&T? Each is worse than the other.
I'm one of the people who doesn't seem to have any issues with it since beta. I did spend weeks setting the thing up to get a clear view of the sky, and topped some trees. Trees have grown back in, and my sky view is a lot smaller now. But it's still working the same as before. I would think these issues would be a lot more universal. But maybe, despite being in one of the first cells that were opened up, my cell is just not very full...
It seems really hit-or-miss. Nearer cities, cells seem to have that 'rush-hour' problem. More rural areas don't, as often.
Some of it probably comes from whether a particular ground station (there aren't very many still, per cell at least) is saturated by traffic from a metro area or not.
Some of it probably comes from whether a particular ground station (there aren't very many still, per cell at least) is saturated by traffic from a metro area or not.
Seems just as finicky as cell tower extenders. I recently installed a Waveform log periodic MIMO antenna and the amount of testing and crawling around on my roof to get the best signal was pretty crazy. We are talking <1 degree angle affecting 10+ MbPS level of performance.
I think StarLink could stand to build terrestrial "Not-Satellites" in areas that are very densely built, if they could get it past the FCC. Something similar to 5g microcells that users could switch to if they want better bandwidth.
I mean, why go to the Satellite network if you are less than 10 miles from a city center. Then you could leave the satellite uplinks to surrounding rural areas and users looking for ultra low latency.
I mean, why go to the Satellite network if you are less than 10 miles from a city center. Then you could leave the satellite uplinks to surrounding rural areas and users looking for ultra low latency.
You mean, like a cellular network?
the key thing is that the expensive part of a cell network is covering all the low density areas. SpaceX would only need to build out a cell network in the densely populated parts which is roughly 10000x less area and use starlink for everyone else
What can they offer that 5G doesn't in an urban environment? You can get 100 mbps on a 5 w energy budget in a city.
I think the question is, why do people subscribe to Starlink in an urban environment that already has 5g available. The answer is probably that even if the terrestrial sites go down, you still have a satellite uplink. Edit: Or "It's Starlink!"
Maybe they could do this in like RV parks where there'd be a lot of Starlink users - force the individual dishes to connect to a local network then have one big dish on property that links to the sats.
As someone work in the telecommunications/service provider sectors. Capacity management is both an art and science on top of it with tight budget constraint. It always amaze me what we/ISP can accomplish given how lean the engineering team/budget is.
With a good population of Marine customers, even without laser links, they could hopscotch packets down to another terminal, up to another bird, down again, as many times as needed to get to shore.
Probably not more than a half-dozen extra hops, usually. And, better than no service at all.
But with, what, 4k birds up, and speed below 50Mbps? More birds won't help data rate much if licensed RF bandwidth is saturating.
Probably not more than a half-dozen extra hops, usually. And, better than no service at all.
But with, what, 4k birds up, and speed below 50Mbps? More birds won't help data rate much if licensed RF bandwidth is saturating.
I don't think this is any surprise... It is entirely expect that when user number in shared area increase they have each less capacity available. And there might not be viable solutions to this when satellites are used.
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Peak time speeds are definitely a bit lower than when I was one of the only customers in the area, but it's still very good. Almost always >50Mbps, which is faster than the DSL alternative available.
I wonder what the impact on astronomy will be from attempts to increase capacity.
Starlink is my best option, it’s only going to get better.
I think the US created Starlink for military use. It provides world wide coverage and very small latency that helps a lot with UAVs. UAVs that aren't in line of sight need satellite communication. They just allow the public to use part of it, so as to reduce the cost of the system.
The real big-ticket customers will be hedge funds getting trans- and intercontinental financial data a few ms ahead of competitors.
It would not be surprising if Starlink charged them 100x as much for each ms of latency boost. They would be paying not so much for the ms ahead of fiber as for their lower-paying competitors to get less ahead of fiber.
In fintech, they say "a microsecond is an aeon, a millisecond an eternity". You can do millions of computations in a ms.
It would not be surprising if Starlink charged them 100x as much for each ms of latency boost. They would be paying not so much for the ms ahead of fiber as for their lower-paying competitors to get less ahead of fiber.
In fintech, they say "a microsecond is an aeon, a millisecond an eternity". You can do millions of computations in a ms.
The US didn't create Starlink, SpaceX did and they did it without a government grant. They did what they thought would solve the issue of internet connectivity and make a lot of money with it.
Sure they will have many government including military, emergency services, coast guard, NASA and so on.
Starlink has many use-cases for the military they certainty didn't create it with that application as the primary goal. The primary goal is making money to fund SpaceX.
Sure they will have many government including military, emergency services, coast guard, NASA and so on.
Starlink has many use-cases for the military they certainty didn't create it with that application as the primary goal. The primary goal is making money to fund SpaceX.
Delivering even 30-100Mbps to half a million customers all over the world is no mean feat. Complaining that your speeds dip below 100Mbps on a unmetred low latancy satellite connection is just pathological. Most of the world do not have access to this speed on fixed line networks. You can't get these speeds with even VDSL.. Fttp and cable are the only fixed technologies beating a satellite. Have a think about that.
That works out at several terabits of traffic at peak times. I think they should be able to make good improvements with more ground stations and inter satalite links even if they never launch another satellite.