New internet service for rural areas coming soon

[Ramesis]

Did you watch the video?

"acceptable for gaming"

Acceptable for the rural folks BUT acceptable for those that b*tch about lag, stuttering and ping times?

 

[Mister Fork]

I’m an amateur astronomer and live on a farm. While I think cheap/fast internet is a good idea, those frucking satellites are a FPITA for scientific research. They’re destroying the night sky and messing up our ability to take photographs or conduct research.

NASA has already given Elon an earful about this - actually, every scientist who rely on the sky has given him a piece of their mind. So, the next batch are guaranteed to be dark - we’re waiting to see if he keeps his promise...

...or if we lynch him. 




 

[Mano]

I have a Meade reflector telescope. It is one of the less expensive models. I live in the city and we have lots of light pollution so I have not noticed the satellites yet.
I imagine they are all on the ecliptic and I'll take a look.

Making them darker would help and maybe in the next generation they could make them smaller.

 

[CptTrips]

Of course I did... nothing was explained on how they are going to get around the physics
of the speed of light much less latency
 

I'm confused.  I don't understand where we are having the disconnect.  I thought the video was fairly self-explanatory. 

Here is what I took away:

1.  Speed of laser light traveling in straight line of sight, in the vacuum of space, is faster than light traveling through internal refraction though (lots of zig-zag bouncing between the boundaries) a glass fiber.

2.  The new sats are orbiting at a much, much lower alt than the current conventional sats.  That means shorter transit distance between sat and receiver/xmitter, which means lower latency. 

3.  Current estimates is that the system can provide latency to rural connection of maybe as low as 20ms, which is more than sufficient for competitive gaming.  I'm 10 miles from HTC server as the crow fly's and my broadband cable connection is 34ms.  So if they achieve anywhere near that , it will be impressive.

So where is the disconnect?

 

[CptTrips]

I’m an amateur astronomer and live on a farm. While I think cheap/fast internet is a good idea, those frucking satellites are a FPITA for scientific research. They’re destroying the night sky and messing up our ability to take photographs or conduct research.

NASA has already given Elon an earful about this - actually, every scientist who rely on the sky has given him a piece of their mind. So, the next batch are guaranteed to be dark - we’re waiting to see if he keeps his promise...

...or if we lynch him. 

I'm much more concerned about encroaching light pollution.  It saddens me the number of young people I've talked to who have never seen the Milky-Way except in pictures because they have always lived in a city.

Out at my land I have built a roll-off roof observatory and have a 12" Meade CAT on a permanent EQ wedge and pier.  It's not been fully functional for the last couple of years because the drive gears got damaged.  I have a set of precision milled brass gears to replace the cheap nylon OEM gears, I just have to get around to doing the major surgery.  Besides that dang thing is HEAVY! 

I hope to get it all fixed and the observatory cleared out/ squared away and ready for operations by Fall.  I'll post pics when I get things cleaned up.  Right now it's full of storage until  I get the scope fixed.   

 

[Mano]

I'm confused.  I don't understand where we are having the disconnect.  I thought the video was fairly self-explanatory. 

Here is what I took away:

1.  Speed of laser light traveling in straight line of sight, in the vacuum of space, is faster than light traveling through internal refraction though (lots of zig-zag bouncing between the boundaries) a glass fiber.

2.  The new sats are orbiting at a much, much lower alt than the current conventional sats.  That means shorter transit distance between sat and receiver/xmitter, which means lower latency. 

3.  Current estimates is that the system can provide latency to rural connection of maybe as low as 20ms, which is more than sufficient for competitive gaming.  I'm 10 miles from HTC server as the crow fly's and my broadband cable connection is 34ms.  So if they achieve anywhere near that , it will be impressive.

So where is the disconnect?

 

Perfect. You get it. Great explanation.

 

[Ramesis]

I'm confused.  I don't understand where we are having the disconnect.  I thought the video was fairly self-explanatory. 

Here is what I took away:

1.  Speed of laser light traveling in straight line of sight, in the vacuum of space, is faster than light traveling through internal refraction though (lots of zig-zag bouncing between the boundaries) a glass fiber.

2.  The new sats are orbiting at a much, much lower alt than the current conventional sats.  That means shorter transit distance between sat and receiver/xmitter, which means lower latency. 

3.  Current estimates is that the system can provide latency to rural connection of maybe as low as 20ms, which is more than sufficient for competitive gaming.  I'm 10 miles from HTC server as the crow fly's and my broadband cable connection is 34ms.  So if they achieve anywhere near that , it will be impressive.

So where is the disconnect?

 

1.  Speed of laser light traveling in straight line of sight, in the vacuum of space, is faster than light traveling through internal refraction though (lots of zig-zag bouncing between the boundaries) a glass fiber.

    Uhhh, first, laser light is still light and according to physics is capped at the speed of light and the zigzag u reference increases the distance of travel

2.  The new sats are orbiting at a much, much lower alt than the current conventional sats.  That means shorter transit distance between sat and receiver/xmitter, which means lower latency.

    You confuse the latency with distance traveled... latency  is the turn around time from reception to transmission due to the electronics involved and the shorter distance is only shorter at the point directly beneath... the farther the receiver is 
    from that point, the more time it takes the receiver to receive it

3.  Current estimates is that the system can provide latency to rural connection of maybe as low as 20ms, which is more than sufficient for competitive gaming.  I'm 10 miles from HTC server as the crow fly's and my broadband cable connection is  34ms.  So if they achieve anywhere near that , it will be impressive.

    The operative word is maybe, I won't believe it until I see it and as far ur 34ms broadband... stick with the broadband before signing up

 

[Meatwad]

I thought the speed of light is a constant?

[CptTrips]

Speed of light in a vacuum is a limit.  It can never go faster than that.   

Light can travel slower in other mediums.

Review how a refractive lens works.

[Ramesis]

Speed of light in a vacuum is a limit.  It can never go faster than that.   

Light can travel slower in other mediums.

Review how a refractive lens works.

Such the atmosphere... u just killed ur argument
 

[CptTrips]

Such the atmosphere... u just killed ur argument
 

I really don't think I'm going to argue this with someone who doesn't understand how the speed of light works.

[Arlo]

I really don't think I'm going to argue this with someone who doesn't understand how the speed of light works.

 

[Vulcan]

Did you watch the video?

Of course, Elon talks a lot of baloney, but according to the video, the much lower alt the these sats will stay at pushes latency into the 20ms range acceptable for gaming.  We'll see, but that is the  claim.

You need to double check that. Latency is the first hop, from your RF (not light/laser) ground station to the satellite is expected to be 20-35ms. Then it has to travel across their network in space and get back down to the ground. ie. another 20-35ms. So your ping to HTC is going to be 40-70ms + whatever the mesh routing time is within the satellites.

Of course that does not factor in that the satellite you share might be congested.

[Vulcan]

Hiya Vulcan

I am by not means an ISP guy but in your opinion you don't believe that if Aces High is connected to this satellite service and players using StarLink cannot get better lag and latency numbers than what they get with their current Sat link set up?

If I understand correctly you do not need big d/l and u/l speeds to play AH. StarLink is not for urban areas and is designed for rural areas. I would not expect saturation to be a big problem since rural area are not densely populated. If AH is connected,  players are not going through the nodes and hops of the internet backbone. They are out of that loop.

I do not know if this service is going to work for gaming, but I do hope that people who live in rural areas have superior service available at a competitive price. Also, people who travel allot will have another way to connect.

Amazon may have a similar system up and running soon. We shall see.

 

I would expect it to provide decent enough web browsing. But given the issues with ground stations talking to satellites... the stuff elon dances around... I doubt it will make a good gaming option. You'd be better off with 4G/5G.

[Vulcan]

I really don't think I'm going to argue this with someone who doesn't understand how the speed of light works.

Don't forget that fibre cable is giving the signal a clean isolated environment to travel over. How will space light sources such as the sun impact on the laser signals?

If I understand correctly the satellites are non-geostationary therefore you will need to have station handoffs? And how will the ground stations deal with high speed internet RF management when satellites are moving at 7km/sec.