SpaceX Working With Cloudflare To Speed Up Starlink Service 60
According to The Information (paywalled), SpaceX is working with Cloudlfare to boost the performance of its satellite internet service Starlink. Reuters reports: The two companies are working on a way to increase Starlink's network of mini data centers around the globe that could help it deliver faster network speeds to its customers, the report said. According to SpaceX's website, Starlink users typically have download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps, with the "majority" over 100 Mbps. Upload speeds range between 5 and 20 Mbps.
Starlink (Score:3)
If the bottleneck is the ground network itself, I'll be quite surprised, but also judging Starlink for launching a global consumer and commercial satellite Internet service without sufficient ground bandwidth and networking (or knowledge of how to fix that themselves).
Re:Starlink (Score:4, Insightful)
This could be less about throughput and more about latency.
One of they key promises of starlink is low latency high bandwidth satellite internet, not just high bandwidth satellite internet. So putting more mirroring on the ground across the planet as the service expands makes sense from that perspective.
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Like all wireless services, the latency will depend on a number of factors that are out of the operator's control. Contention and interference being the big two. For satellite the round trip distance is always longer too.
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RTT on Starlink is actually quite good. With the added benefit of truly global networks can see reduced similar or even slightly reduced RTT over fibre if the routing is done intelligently.
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Stats I've seen show an average of 48ms to well distributed servers like Google and Cloudflare. On fibre I get 3ms or even a bit less sometimes. Even with a VPN bouncing the packet through Europe I get around 12-14ms.
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Stats I've seen show an average of 48ms to well distributed servers like Google and Cloudflare. On fibre I get 3ms or even a bit less sometimes. Even with a VPN bouncing the packet through Europe I get around 12-14ms.
Given Musk's repeated behaviour regarding official stats, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are fudged a bit with Starlink. Satellite connections have always been a last resort, either because you can't get anything else or as an one final backup connection. .
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I'd be interested as a backup if they had a pay-as-you-go plan, but the monthly subscription makes it not worth it. I'll stick with cellular.
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I'd be interested as a backup if they had a pay-as-you-go plan, but the monthly subscription makes it not worth it. I'll stick with cellular.
Interestingly I was StarLink as my primary and my fiber as backup because my fiber connection costs $0.13/GB.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are fudged a bit with Starlink.
How could they fudge the numbers if I am the one measuring latency?
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Think wildjokers. Think. Obviously Musk has his people install a rootkit on everyone's computer who has Starlink in order to spoof any latency tests.
Re: Starlink (Score:2)
Elon Derangement Syndrome?
Re:Starlink (Score:4, Informative)
The entire point of starlink is that it's in a low orbit, so latency can actually be lower than terrestrial as it doesn't get routed through a lot of endpoints and doesn't suffer from slowdown of speed of light in matter, mostly going through space instead. You're thinking conventional satellite, where satellites are in much higher orbits, which is where much of the latency commonly associated with satellite internet comes from.
So long range, it's likely to have better latency than terrestrial, not worse. This is why it's suitable for remote drone piloting as we've seen done in Ukraine.
Re: Starlink (Score:1)
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>and doesn't suffer from slowdown of speed of light in matter, mostly going through space instead
Re:Starlink (Score:4, Informative)
I typically get a sub 3ms ping time to Google on fibre. VPN pushes it up to 12ms, routing through France of The Netherlands. Starlink's typical ping time to Google is around 50ms.
In practice Starlink latency tends to be much higher than say fibre, because of several factors.
The number of ground stations is limited, so routing is often less than optimal.
The satellites use time slicing to transmit data, so every packet has to wait for a slice on a much lower bandwidth link than optical fibre.
Interference results in sudden latency spikes as packets have to be re-transmitted out of order.
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Have you considered applying reading comprehension yet?
I know, I know. You never did on this site to date. Why start now, right?
>So long range...
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You don't consider a round trip through Europe to be "long range"?
How many kilometres are we talking before Starlink has an advantage? Seems like you would need to find a sweet spot between not too close to avoid being beaten by fibre, and not too far for the increased radius of the curve to be an issue.
Have they got the satellite-to-satellite lasers working yet?
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Have they got the satellite-to-satellite lasers working yet?
Yes. But not all sats. currently in orbit have them. All the sats. launched in the last 18 months or so have them.
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I typically get a sub 3ms ping time to Google on fibre. VPN pushes it up to 12ms, routing through France of The Netherlands. Starlink's typical ping time to Google is around 50ms.
I can't get fiber. I can get Starlink.
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It's not bad. But WISP is only "not bad" too. The latency adds up for multiple DNS requests on the same site, for example. Their constellation has thousands of satellites but it still isn't enough to provide truly low latency because they're never directly overhead.
I wonder how much of a satellite's bandwidth is being eaten up by retransmits because of distance/signal issues. That would kill latency too.
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If they're just using the standard Cloudflare service, I'd agree that would be a red flag. If they were working to integrate Cloudflare caching tech into the dish itself they might be getting somewhere. The small latency really adds up. Imagine a first request to the NYT news site. If the dish starts acting as a sort of proxy, the first request could pre-cache DNS lookups for all the site's resources, including all scripting and advertising. That's a huge drop in latency. Any site that uses Cloudflare
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I wouldn't be surprised to see that as amount of customers grows, satellite-to-satellite bandwidth starts to become an issue. So perhaps it makes sense to have a globally distributed source of cached stuff instead of having to move data around between satellites when you don't have to.
Considering the scope of Starlink and what it does, I very much doubt they would use anything standard. Tailored services for their specific needs sound much more plausible.
As for cache wear for flash memory, that's a pretty b
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Data centers with fiber coming from multiple providers is where all of the ground stations should be when possible. Terrestrially, we don't have that except in a few major cities. Cell towers have the same issue but aren't serving hundreds of satellites, each with thousands of customers at once. They're served by a single fiber with a long run and I suspect a lot of Starlink ground stations are too.
But the fix might be backbone fiber companies building "meet me" areas all over with no data center require
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Who knows, maybe they are working with CF to have some form of cache on the starlink sats themselves?
Even 1TB of cache will probably make accessing the commonly used sites alot smoother. Not sure if there are space rated SSDs available, but I guess even multiple SSDs, sort of a raid / XFS / some other form of error correcting system can last the lifetime of a starlink sat (approx 5 years as I understand it).
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Modern caching doesn't provide anywhere near the benefits you think it does.
HTTPS put a stop to stuff like that, so unless everyone wants to put SSL certificates for their websites into the satellites, you aren't going to be caching anything.
Even mixed-mode pages don't render without error in the modern age, so you can't even "cache just the images", etc.
1TB of cache wouldn't do shit, either. Even at a paltry gigabit speed, that's only 8,000 seconds - about 2 hours - of upload/download to completely fill o
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Even slashdot you dont connect to just one server. There is several, and several databases.
Your statement is about 20 yeats out of date.
My work of 10 people has 3 different servers providing our needs.the ERP software uses that many plus another one
.
In a 100 person company there are multiple servers and load balancers.
To survive 100,000 users you need third parties
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You already are, right now.
Slashdot uses Cloudflare to buffer its server and CDN (like about half the internet).
This is probably just some high-level peering agreement between SpaceX and Cloudflare.
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I do not want cloudflare between me and the servers I want to communicate with
You don't communicate with servers, you access content. You've *NEVER* had the choice of which server you get that content from or where that server is located. Even in the earliest days of the internet that decision was made by someone else for you.
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The only servers you should need to communicate "directly" with in this case should be your own. At which point, I doubt that cloudflare is going to be intercepting a SSH session or such. If necessary, just use a VPN or similar. Which you might want to do just for the security in accessing the admin portions of your server.
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perhaps some of the star link uplink stations can't get better internet and so placing cloudflare caches at the uplink stations will help?
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Or (assuming they have the "space" (in terms of storage, processing power and power budget)) they are looking at setting up cloud flare caching on the Starlink satellites themselves?
Aaron Z
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I already posted this elsewhere, but it makes more sense to put the caching in the home dish equipment. The latency reduction for consecutive DNS requests being pre-cached would be huge. The home equipment has a relatively tiny eMMC without much spare capacity for wear leveling - but what could go wrong (ask Tesla)?
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The dishes are already quite expensive as it is. I doubt Starlink wants to increase the costs for new customers and make older customers upgrade
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Firmware updates are free. But they would likely burn up the storage using it for caching
Re:The Internet (Score:4)
I want to connect to the internet as a whole and directly to the servers I need to communicate with unfiltered, not cloudflare.
No one is preventing you from communicating with whom you need to communicate. The fact that someone decides that is cloudflare rather than their own service is of ZERO consequence for you. You are not in control of the other end of the pipe, never have been, not unless you own both ends of the pipe.
Almost nothing on the internet you access today is done without some form of CDN.
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I want to connect to the internet as a whole and directly to the servers I need to communicate with unfiltered, not cloudflare
I am not sure you understand how the internet works.
Starlink's Download numbers are a lie (Score:2)
Re:Starlink's Download numbers are a lie (Score:5, Informative)
. Where you hear the complaints are people who have other options like fiber and such and want to game on Starlink. Starlink should be because you can't get fiber, good wireless, or other service. It is not ultra low consistent pings for gaming type usage. It is for us out here where the city stops, want more standard internet services that are not as timing critical, and it has been a life changer. I can stream TV, work full time remote on zoom all day, and not have a hitch. Before Starlink, there were lots of compromises....
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People have trouble everywhere (even while other people have success). Especially people in valleys surrounded by trees. I'm not surprised being up at 10,000 feet makes it easier to maintain a consistent connection, but when the satellites are constantly moving you don't always have a clear line of sight before the next satellite comes into view.
Semi-dense rural areas outside of larger urban areas are probably the worst. Partly because they are marketing service to urban areas so the satellites are alrea
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Even
Re: Starlink's Download numbers are a lie (Score:2)
Starlink is quite clear about how much of the sky needs to be visible.
Can't imagine why people in poor conditions think it's going to be highly reliable with decent speed.
Yet, repeatedly, those I know with actual need for it are having great success.
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I don't think anyone cares that they don't have idealized conditions if it doesn't work. Especially if it's the only broadband option. So their experience is definitely relevant. The constellation is large but they still need a LOT more satellites to improve in this area.
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I concur with clifwlkr. I live on the shores of Lake Superior, beyond the reach of fiber, cable, or even fixed terrestrial wireless(*). For me the Starlink service has been very good, virtually indistinguishable from Comcast when I lived in town. I routinely get >100 Mbps down and >10 Mbps up, with pings to non-Starlink sites (ie., Google or Slashdot) typically around 65ms. So, no complaints here.
But I, too, have a completely unobstructed view of the sky. I'm surrounded by trees but my dish is hig
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One additional point: What was "beta" has now been price "optimized" so that over legacy satellite the only remaining advantages are 1.) unlimited data, with no slow downs (practically speaking, the other providers had 150GB caps with slowness after for that price) and 2.) low latency, which in my case would be nice
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I am guessing most of the people complaining about Starlink never had to live with Vi
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Seriously. Go to the reddit. While the fanboi group likes to shout down the people complaining, the experience is bad for many, many people.
It is the other way around. Some people have some issues, mostly because they have obstructions or live in a saturated market near a big city. Most people are super happy. I know I am. StarLink is the fastest internet I have ever had. It continues to get faster as they launch more sats. Peak time (7-11pm or so) doesn't experience much of a slow down anymore.
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Starlink's Download numbers are a lie
Seriously. Go to the reddit.
What you're describing sounds like classic selection bias.
I have no reason to doubt your statement that "the experience is bad for many, many people". At the same time, I have no reason to doubt the summary's claim that "Starlink users typically have download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps, with the 'majority' over 100 Mbps". Those two statements are in no way mutually exclusive. The minority of a product's userbase can still represent "many, many people", and those who experience bad service are more likel
cloudflare space x (Score:1)
Cos it'snot fair (Score:2)