Black out coming; Elon Musk says Starlink active in all continents even Antarctica
(www.ndtv.com)
❄️ INCLUDING ANTARCTICA ❄️
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I like Starlink, but I take issue with this statement..
This is what we in the trade call 'bollocks'. Information travels at the speed of light in a vacuum, the same as it does in a fibre optic cable.
Where it benefits is from a reduced number of devices between the endpoints which take a couple of milliseconds each to process and route the traffic - that doesn't actually mean the traffic travels faster, there's just fewer devices to slow it down as it moves across the network.
There is also the delay of traveling up to the sat and back down. Bell System in the '80s used to use satellites for long distance calls but quit because of the lag.
Latency is a problem with geostationary satellites because they orbit 22,000mi away from earth, for a 44,000 mi round trip. Starlink uses low earth orbit, only 500 miles up, so the trips are much shorter.
I live in the Ozarks with no good alternatives for internet. I have Starlink and my latency is hovering at 25-90 ms. Up and down speeds are enough to enjoy this site and stream Rumble no problems.
Name checks out.
I gamed on Starlink. It was actually a really good experience. ... That is, until spring came, and one giant tree blossomed and blocked a small portion of the path, and when I gamed, it was partially obstructed view. I removed the tree, ran into other issues with Starlink (ended up being a ethernet cable adapter) and I already switched back to cable. (also, I cut that pesky tree down). Now, I don't know whether to go back to starlink or stick with cable.
Starlink - more expensive, surprisingly better than the local cable and fiber optic
Cable - cheaper, "faster", supporting Breezeline, Canadian company (with ties to comcast possibly)
Additionally, your "satellite dish" sends and receives signal from another satellite, so there is a duality of losses found. Plus the round trip function as you mentioned. (is 22,000 miles right? That seems a bit high IMO. No sauce from my end, just intuition.)