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US agency will not reinstate $900 mln subsidy for SpaceX Starlink unit
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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It's physics. The old satellite Internet uses geosynchronous satellites. That orbit requires the satellite to be 22,300 miles up.
The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. So the 44,600+ mile round trip takes almost a quarter of a second (250ms) just for the signal to travel up to the satellite and down to the ground station.
250ms added to the normal Internet travel time each way makes for a very delayed internet connection (in practice, 650ms average latency or 2/3rds of a second ). Voice chat has notable pauses, online games becomes practically unplayable, and so on.
It's a bit hard to visualize sub 1s times, but if you say "how are you" at a normallish speed, the words "how are" would take close to 2/3rds of a second.
Starlink satellites are only 340 miles up. A round trip is less than 4ms. So the packet and the response from the Internet reach you sooner. Also each satellite can handle a fair amount of bandwidth which if the number of users is kept in check means closer to modern bandwidth. Looks like Starlink latency runs about 25ms on land and 100ms in remote areas (far away from a ground station).
Regarding bandwidth (how much data they can send at once), HughesNet seems to offer a max of 50mpbs while Starlink's current top (business) service is 500mbps.
So they're both satellite Internet services, but because in the difference in how they are deployed they offer very different speeds and latencies.
Excellent explanation
Starlinks latency with no nearby ground stations will probably get better as more laser links go up as well allowing for more direct routes.
Although the better solution is more ground stations.