Reply to: StarLink

[mattster]

FTTC is a dead end designed to help BT hold onto its line rental tax. FTTP is expensive to rural areas because of the cabling costs for relatively few subscribers. I'm on FiWi where radio connects me to a fibre backbone. Radio is much cheaper and quicker to install

If StarLink get to deliver reliable 100Mbs+ connections with low latency then it'll be attractive to a lot of rural businesses and households and at 1GBs+ probably a no brainer

Quite right. I only have a landline because you need one for broadband - I imagine it is the same for many of us. It would be nice to finally cut that particular cord.
I don't really have a strong personal use-case for 1Gbps, but I'll think of something. Multiple 4k streaming would push you over most fibre connections right now, and I imagine that will be fairly mainstream before too long.

[tazdevil]

FTTC is a dead end designed to help BT hold onto its line rental tax. FTTP is expensive to rural areas because of the cabling costs for relatively few subscribers. I'm on FiWi where radio connects me to a fibre backbone. Radio is much cheaper and quicker to install

If StarLink get to deliver reliable 100Mbs+ connections with low latency then it'll be attractive to a lot of rural businesses and households and at 1GBs+ probably a no brainer

[mattster]

According to offcom you are doing fairly well

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...as%20(47.8Mbps).



Technical limit on FTTC is 80Mbps but 60 is more realistic.

Yeah, not too bad - we are very close to the exchange, so even though our lines are aluminium (and keep breaking), we do OK. In fact, we are so close to exchange that our "cabinet" is actually in the exchange (or just outside it, maybe). Still, unless they manage to improve the performance of FTTC itself (anything in the pipeline there? It is kind of astonishing how fast they have got it since the 1200/75 modem days on essentially the same wires), I don't really see where any further improvement is going to come fro until they go full FTTP. That is going to cost an extraordinary amount of money if they want to service people outside of the towns.

[vetran]

Feedback from beta users online so far seems very positive, especially given the current level of service is supposed to be nowhere near what is coming. UK users reporting reliable 150Mbps, some US users occasionally getting over 200. Apparently 300 for everyone is slated by the autumn, and the ultimate goal now is 10Gbps with sub 30ms ping (https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/1312...gbps-to-10gbps). If they get anywhere near that at current pricing then it might actually become rather attractive just about anywhere. I wonder how many global users it could support?
I am semi rural and on standard fibre, maybe 50Mbps on a good day. I get the impression that that is as good as it is going to get for us for the forseeable, as the next step would be FTTP - quite a different proposition rollout-cost wise to FTTC.

According to offcom you are doing fairly well

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...as%20(47.8Mbps).

However, Ofcom noted there is less variation in the length of copper line from the street cabinet to the user’s premises when using FTTC, thus they found that average FTTC download speeds in rural areas (43.8Mbps) were closer to those of urban areas (47.8Mbps).

Technical limit on FTTC is 80Mbps but 60 is more realistic.

[mattster]

Feedback from beta users online so far seems very positive, especially given the current level of service is supposed to be nowhere near what is coming. UK users reporting reliable 150Mbps, some US users occasionally getting over 200. Apparently 300 for everyone is slated by the autumn, and the ultimate goal now is 10Gbps with sub 30ms ping (https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/1312...gbps-to-10gbps). If they get anywhere near that at current pricing then it might actually become rather attractive just about anywhere. I wonder how many global users it could support?
I am semi rural and on standard fibre, maybe 50Mbps on a good day. I get the impression that that is as good as it is going to get for us for the forseeable, as the next step would be FTTP - quite a different proposition rollout-cost wise to FTTC.

[AtW]

Sats will know where you are located and the account might have GPS coords associated with it...

[d000hg]

I wonder if the kit is portable and could work, say, in the middle of the South Atlantic while bobbing about on a boat?

Having seen the kit it is definitely portable. Guy I saw using it was planning to take it with him when they go RV-ing around so... probably. But only if they have coverage of the ocean.

[ladymuck]

I wonder if the kit is portable and could work, say, in the middle of the South Atlantic while bobbing about on a boat?

[vetran]

As a backup and as an alternate route that may mostly provide reduced latency in certain locations why wouldn't financial or other businesses want it?

Its another tool in the bag. Anything that allows people outside the south east work from home its a win.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Four year lifetime on the satellites.

Won't be long before they're asking about incept dates & killing people.

Probably by dropping on their heads.

[AtW]

Well I expect if you pay the extra, you get the guarantee.

Musk will pay with his bitcoins for any packet loss

[mattster]

So why would financial trading firms that want lower latency risk it?

Well I expect if you pay the extra, you get the guarantee.

[AtW]

I very much doubt it will be something guaranteed to all, not that anyone else would really need it.

So why would financial trading firms that want lower latency risk it?

[mattster]

No idea, but I expect that if it works there'll be some big-bucks option to prioritise the low latency connection - I very much doubt it will be something guaranteed to all, not that anyone else would really need it.

[AtW]

Well on that we can finally agree, and we can also agree that the raw physics of the setup at least allow the possibility of lower latency.

How consistent would it be though?

Would financial companies use inherently riskier sat feed?

If Musk gets new backhaul that cuts 20 ms for everybody then that would be worth a lot even if sometimes it won't work as consistently.