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The Internet

Starlink Will Hit 300Mbps and Expand To 'Most of Earth' This Year (arstechnica.com) 161

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps "later this year," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter this week. SpaceX has been telling users to expect speeds of 50Mbps to 150Mbps since the beta began a few months ago. From a report: Musk also wrote that "latency will drop to ~20ms later this year." This is no surprise, as SpaceX promised latency of 20ms to 40ms during the beta and had said months ago that "we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021." It sounds like the speed and latency improvements will roll out around the same time as when Starlink switches from beta to more widespread availability. Two weeks ago, Starlink opened preorders for service expected to be available in the second half of 2021, albeit with limited availability in each region. Reader xonen writes: Starlink has become available in my country, The Netherlands. I verified pricing -- it's the same prices in Euros as in the USA in dollars, which was to be expected due to sales taxes being about equal the difference in value between dollars and euro's, so 99 euro monthly, and 499 up front for the hardware. From the email:

Starlink is now available for order to a limited number of users in your coverage area. Placing your order now will hold your place in line for future service. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis. During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all. As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically. The Starlink team will provide periodic updates on availability as we launch more satellites and expand our coverage area. Depending on your location, some orders may take 6 months or more to fulfill. To check availability for your location, visit Starlink.com and re-enter your service address. Thank you for your interest in Starlink and your continued support!


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Starlink Will Hit 300Mbps and Expand To 'Most of Earth' This Year More

Starlink Will Hit 300Mbps and Expand To 'Most of Earth' This Year

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  • ..in theory, its possible that a low orbit network can ultimately provide lower latency than terrestrial solutions on average.
    • Really depends on what or where you're trying to connect to. If you're in South Korea playing Starcraft against another opponent in South Korea it's effectively zero ping. Unless you have a country that spans a massive amount of land (U.S. or Russia for example) or have mostly international traffic, the terrestrial network is probably faster.

      • If they can do satellite to satellite optical communication and the opponent is on the opposite end of South Korea, then the ping would be indistinguishable from ground fiber, maybe the ground fiber would be slower because light travels slower in glass than a vacuum.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        So Starlink most recently operates at an altitude of 540km. That means roughly 2ms of one-way latency incurred by the physical limits of EM, 4ms round trip, 8ms round trip minimal add for reaching terrestrial targets. Now you won't see that latency because of other issues, but when comparing how it might be disadvantaged fundamentally by being a satellite, that's a plausible number to reference.

        Measuring latency to the very nearest IP enabled part of infrastructure from my local telco, well, it's widely var

        • Starship and super heavy launcher is designed to launch 300 starlink says at once. Launching once a month is 3600 says a year launching twice a month like the f9 currently does is 7200 out of the 12,000 they want

          Annually

          Starship super heavy will have dozens of Leo launches and landings prior to Luna or ma yours launches

        • Measuring latency to the very nearest IP enabled part of infrastructure from my local telco, well, it's widely varying but it did no better than 14ms round trip. So at least by physics, they are in the same ballpark.

          Yeah, this is really the biggest variable for most people. Where do you live and where are you connecting to?

          Fiber in my office has 1ms to the local IX and a couple datacenters are peered directly into it in the same building, and a few more about 10 miles away in the 'burbs. So a CDN in the IX is ~2ms or less. Azure though is about 13ms away.

          Across town though from working at home to my remote workstation is regularly though around 8-10ms. If I could get fiber at home I bet I could get it down to about

  • Most of Earth? (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @12:29PM (#61095984)

    Including Myanmar [slashdot.org]?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      It is unlikely that SpaceX will attempt to offer service anywhere that they lack local regulatory approval.

  • This thing is either the best or worst thing, depending on your POV and patience (I happen to think it's a mostly good thing). Is there anything preventing a Starlink handset-type voice terminal?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vix86 ( 592763 )

      Is there anything preventing a Starlink handset-type voice terminal?

      Only if you are interested in carrying around a collapsed antenna. Starlink uses a phased array antenna which are pretty large at the moment. I could see the design shrinking a little bit over the years and maybe someone will come up with a fold up antenna design for it, but I doubt it will ever be shrunk into a handset.

      • Is there anything preventing a Starlink handset-type voice terminal?

        Only if you are interested in carrying around a collapsed antenna.

        Eric Cartman is ready [reddit.com] ...

      • The usual way: Smartphone, Wifi and Viber or Signal and Bob's yer Oncle.
      • I wonder if there is any hope of bursting tiny messages like SMS at higher power without such antenna gain. At least then I wouldn't have to carry a personal locator beacon.

        • I wonder if there is any hope of bursting tiny messages like SMS at higher power without such antenna gain. At least then I wouldn't have to carry a personal locator beacon.

          I suspect it would be a poor move - because you'd have several satellites in view and would use up a frequency/timeslot on more than one of them without the big antenna to point your shout at the target.

          I'd have hope for a smaller solution: A small collection of antennas and a phone that's aware of the satellites in view, doing "steerab

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      handset-type voice terminal

      Not sure. It's my understanding that Starlink ground antennas utilize both mechanical pan and tilt to orient the dish(?) plus phased array to select the best satellite. The algorithms for steering both might not be optimized for someone walking around with a handset. That said, many portable Iridium ground stations consist of a flat panel antenna that must remain stationary plus the phone part. There should be no (theoretical) problem connecting an IP phone to a Starlink antenna mounted on a temporary stand

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Guspaz ( 556486 )

        The mechanical pointing is just to make sure the dish is pointed in the generally optimal direction, it's not used for any sort of tracking or alignment. That's all done via the phased array beam steering.

    • Mobile phone no. However I can see starlink rv and starlink boat becoming super possible and increasing their sales drastically.

      Receiver density though maybe an issue

      • Iridium works basically "OK", if you're willing to accept it's quirks, but the fees are *astronomical*. I don't pay for this directly, but my company pays something like $2400 a year for an hour of voice calls through the network. SMS through Iridium aren't charged the same way though, and they seem to be basically "free", if you're subscribed to any Iridium service.
        • $2400 does not sound so astronomical. They are selling the final nines of connectivity, not a replacement for a cell phone. Like anything else, incredible uptime ((in this case uptime by geographic area) has ever escalating costs.

  • maybe this will push caps up and prices down on the land line ISP's

    • Probably only the ones that have been able to remain the only provider in the area. My prices already came down a lot over the last decade after another provider set up shop and there are two DSL providers that don't have the best speeds, but offer basically rock bottom prices.

      If I were stuck with someone like Frontier I'd just drop them. I don't care what they cut their price to, they're just not worth dealing with. The old cable company I had to use went out of business for that reason because they wer
    • If you still have a cap, you have no sympathy from me.

      Surely in the past 10 years your local providers franchise agreement had to be renewed and surely you made sure the people in position to effect said agreement would demand no cap or a different provider gets the franchise agreement. Surely. Yeah? Or were you here complaining on slashdot looking for a federal solution to your local problem instead? Thats why you get no sympathy.

  • Something for future (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @12:33PM (#61096008) Homepage

    I got my "Available for Order" email 10 minutes ago here in Toronto Canada. As it's lower performance and significantly higher cost than my current service, I'm going to hold off for now but let's see what happens going forwards. Chances are my existing service will become cheaper and faster to keep customers from going to Starlink.

    Regardless, this is a remarkable achievement considering the Starlink satellite constellation was largely privately funded and is sent into space using reusable launchers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      Starlink isn't designed for urban areas like Toronto. You have much cheaper options there for one thing but there is also the problem that Starlink can't handle vast numbers of concurrent connections from one location (i.e it would over saturate the satellite connection and performance would degrade significantly).

      • this. i really really wish spacex would have limited the first batch of users to rural folks who do not have any other viable option.
        Right now i'm stuck w/ vilesat, at $160 a month for 70% uptime, 660ms pings (best case scenario). Meanwhile friends in town who have at least 3 other options are already getting their dishes to fuck around with.
        Not going to lie, slightly irked by that. =/

    • Regardless, this is a remarkable achievement considering the Starlink satellite constellation was largely privately funded and is sent into space using reusable launchers.

      It was 100% privately funded, so far. The $886 million over 10 years from the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund subsidy hasn't kicked in yet. It was only awarded in December, after all. To this point, the US federal government has made a profit off of the deployment of Starlink, not paid for it, by charging SpaceX range fees for every launch.

      As many launches as Starlink requires, and as expensive as it is to use Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (yes, that's its name now), the US government may still

    • A lot of people seem to have seen this as a way to get a better deal on internet and that always seemed like an imagined promise to me. This is going to be a god send for people who have no options or very poor options, mostly in rural areas. But if you live in a city its kind of a bizarre solution to the problem.

      But the good news even if you don't use it will have a positive impact on you. Its mere existence will cap the amount of bullshit the existing players can pull, which makes me wonder how it ever go

    • As it's lower performance and significantly higher cost than my current service, I'm going to hold off for now but let's see what happens going forwards. Chances are my existing service will become cheaper and faster to keep customers from going to Starlink.

      Why would your existing provider lower costs to compete with a more expensive, lower performing competitor?

      • I'm assuming Starlink will be faster and have higher data rates in the future making them a threat to the status quo.

        • It looks like Starlink will always be Asynchronous service though. DOCSIS 4.0 is pretty much ready and will be up to synchronous 10g up\down. GPON fiber is already offering 10g equipment.

          You'll likely never see 10g upload speeds over Starlink. You might see that within a year or two from the more technologically progressive providers.

    • Yeah, I got mine yesterday here in Texas, so they're clearly expanding southwards quite a bit from where they were previously. The notice indicated they were looking to expand into my region in mid-to-late 2021.

      Like you, I'll be keeping my existing service, at least for now. My current service is a smidge cheaper at $85/mo. for 400/40 mbps with no data cap, but Starlink's 50-150/20-40 mbps bandwidth is in no way a dealbreaker for me*. Moreover, the $85 I currently pay is after an annual song and dance in wh

  • Great if true, but then why do they need 30,000 satellites instead of the 2000 they will have up by then? Is it so that they can serve more customers per area, or is it to achieve full 24/7 global coverage?

    • Re:Interesting (Score:4, Informative)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @01:26PM (#61096222)

      Each satellite supports IIRC ~20 Gbps of throughput and covers (ignoring overlap) a circle with a radius of 941km, which is ~2.8 million square kilometres. They'll achieve full global coverage pretty soon, after that adding more satellites are mostly about increasing the available capacity per square kilometer, as well as the benefits of having more satellites visible in terms of dealing with obstructions and failures.

    • Great if true, but then why do they need 30,000 satellites instead of the 2000 they will have up by then? Is it so that they can serve more customers per area, or is it to achieve full 24/7 global coverage?

      All of the above plus higher throughput per customer. Just like cellular phones, Starlink works in cells. The more satellites, the more cells, the less sharing within a cell, the better the speed per subscriber.

    • Coverage is quickly becoming global already so more satellites are needed mostly for capacity. Musk understands the engineering concept of redundancy well and wields it like a medieval war hammer. The Starlink sats are intentionally designed to be as small and cheap as possible so the network could be started quickly, ramp up capacity over time and if some fail, it has no noticeable effect on the overall network and costs to replace are minimal. SpaceX has the ability to manufacture 6 Starlink sats per d

  • This could potentially make Elon a ton of money (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DeplorableCodeMonkey ( 4828467 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @12:41PM (#61096040)

    What Musk very well may have done is just set himself up to be the warlord of all rural internet access in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and other under-served regions. If they can sustain 300mbps for rural users, this will be an absolute game-changer that will bring unprecedented competition and favors. For example, it would be cheaper for poor local governments to subsidize the purchase of Starlink accounts than to create a municipal ISP.

    If I were in charge of Verizon or AT&T, I'd be very worried.

    • Once Starlink meets my current usage|costs I'm dropping Verison like a spent welding rod.

      • Exactly - can't wait to drop Comcast like a hot buttered cat.

        • at least you have the option for comcast. you don't understand pain until you try using viasat (vilesat) over VPN. I can't see hughesnet or viasat/exede staying in business once starlink reaches the masses. the value proposition is just bonkers out of whack. $160 for 1995 tier internet.
          if i were a betting man, i'd short the ever living shit out of their stock.

      • Once Starlink meets my current usage|costs I'm dropping Verison like a spent welding rod.

        Ditto me and AT&T (which I've had for two decades).

        Also I'm moving out of Silicon valley this year. Starlink means I will not have to accept a connectivity hit if I move to a remote region.

        In fact I will get a massive upgrade when I switch. Country living AND better net! Bring it on, Elon!

    • Re:This could potentially make Elon a ton of money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @01:16PM (#61096186)
      Consumers are going to be icing on the Starlink money cake. The big money is going to be in the commercial and government spaces. Washington state was already testing it out during their last wildfire outbreak and it was working well for them. Military is testing it too. Then there are all the remote, ass-end of nowhere facilities (gov and private) out there. Monitoring stations, oil fields, large commercial agriculture, etc. Once they get laser links fully deployed (currently testing on their polar orbit sats) it will be able to displace the really, really expensive sat services used in the marine industry. Plus the high-frequency traders are salivating over a sat-to-sat link from the major cities to the big stock exchanges.

      For consumers, I don't think that it will be much competition for Verizon or AT&T, at least no where they actually care about. Places that already have true high-speed internet are probably going to be too crowded for Starlink to be a viable alternative to those other ISPs. Even Musk has said it's more for lower population areas. Rural areas stuck on DSL, well, honestly if it wasn't for the subsidies the big telcos would probably be glad to kick those customers to the curb anyway.

      • They are already kicking us to the curb. (AT&T)

        Phase 1: Accept no new orders in DSL regions. [CHECK!]

        Phase 2: If it "breaks", we can't fix it under our "best effort" declaration. No more service for you!

        Phase 3: I'm sorry, but the DSL central components have gone out. And we aren't going to fix it.

        We don't care how much money we got for "underserved" areas.... we are discontinuing all future service to those areas. And keeping the money!

        • Happened to me just outside Cleveland, Ohio, about 6 years ago. UVerse branded DSL broke, and after weeks of runaround, their subcontracted tech finally admitted (off the record) that they purposely do not fix DSL, as they want people to order fiber instead, which at the time wasn't even available yet, although it is now. I switched to cable Internet and never looked back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China is already talking about doing their own system, and I'm sure others are too. Maybe it will be this century's version of AM radio, soft power and global advertising.

      Anyway the price will probably come down a lot. There will also be geo-politics to determine which system is available and which is blocked in each country.

  • Alright, so the service will be nearly everywhere. But what about those of us for whom 'Where' is malleable?
    I am at the Gulf Coast right now, and might be in the Pacific Northwest next week. After that, and every few days or weeks, I'll be someplace else.

    This would be an ideal setup for me, provided the receiver can be easy enough to move with me.
    There have been 'travel ready' receivers for Dish and Direct TV for some time now.
    Does anyone know how complicated the aiming and calibration process is fo
    • Mobile users aren't currently supported and will not work with current configuration. They will support mobile users in the future though. there is talk about airlines and people on boats etc will be covered eventually
      • Is this due to settings in the receiver that depend on spatial orientation? I can't imagine these satellites will be internally maintaining a list of which ids can communicate with them based on where they are in orbit.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          This is from the FAQ:

          Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to all users within a designated area on the ground. This designated area is referred to as a cell. Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be scheduled to serve your Starlink and you will not receive internet. This is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary geofencing.

        • your receiver is authorized to a region so you can move around that region but if you go outside that region you get [no-service]. Eventually they'll open it up but it's still really new and they have to get more sats up over time.

        • Is this due to settings in the receiver that depend on spatial orientation? I can't imagine these satellites will be internally maintaining a list of which ids can communicate with them based on where they are in orbit.

          They do, actually. The system as a whole is very much targeted for fixed service right now. Beta users have already tried moving their terminals away from their official service addresses and they do stop working when they go far enough.

          The limitation appears to be in the routing algorithms, though SpaceX isn't disclosing details. The dish goes through a very generic automated orientation process when it is powered up, so there's no limit there. The system works out the optimal pan and tilt on its own.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hawk ( 1151 )

            KISS calls for getting it running and debugged for dishes in a known location before adding the ability to figure out where the dish is , . ,.,

      • Somebody in an RV they move at most once per day is a far cry from terrestrial cellular service that is trying to keep up with somebody in a moving vehicle handing off from cell to cell without dropping existing connections.

    • The starlink dish aims itself, it pretty much has to because starlink is not geostationary so sattelite locations are constantly changing.

      As I understand it current starlink beta services are registed to a single location and are likely to stop working if you move the dish too far from that location because the sattelites won't allocate you time slots correctly. Exactly what too far is doesn't seem to be clear.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The Starlink dish is self orienting so if you are moving locations a lot you will just need 10-15 minutes at each site to make a connection to the satellites in that region. If you mount the dish to a set of collapsible tripod legs it should be easy to move locations at will. If you have an RV or some other large vehicle that you are traveling with you could also just mount the dish to the roof and then let it auto-orient once you are at your location.

    • They are explicitly limiting each node to a specific "cell" location ATM as they are building out the network which precludes RV use and mobile users. Technically there really won't be anything preventing the mobile use of them in the future once the network is denser and has the capacity to handle transient users.

      As for the setup it's pretty straight forward. You mount the current hardware in the general area specified by the setup instructions and then the internal setup takes over which locks in the dish

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      The aiming/calibration process of Starlink is:

      1) Put the receiver on its stand or some other mounting mechanism
      2) Put the stand somewhere with an unobstructed view of the sky
      3) Plug it in and turn it on

      The dish uses some motors to point itself in a vaguely optimal direction, but all the satellite tracking/aiming is done via the phased array electronic beam steering. It is literally plug-and-play.

      Right now it doesn't support use while moving, and is somewhat geoblocked. Both of those are temporary restrictio

    • The dish has motors on it, and when you turn it on, it points the antenna toward the area of the sky where it will be able to see the most satellites.

  • I looked into this for my parents for their RV but when I looked at the signup process it seems the system relies (at least currently) on the user being stationary. Can anybody confirm or deny that? If that is so, is it a temporary limitation during the beta stage?

    • I received my unit last week.
      Based on the documentation in the order form, you cannot move your terminal from the address you register with Starlink.

      Some internet sleuthing seems to be saying that for now at least, your terminal is going to be locked to specific region of satellites. So if you move too far, while your terminal may be able to see other Starlink satellites in the constellation, those satellites won't allow the connection (or maybe the terminal won't), but it is software locked at some level.
      S

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        This limitation could be implemented during the beta testing to assure that the areas that are being targeted are actually the area that the receiver is in. I can't see any technical reason for locking in the location of the receiver.

  • I know satellite has been terrible in most places I've seen it used. This sounds about 100 times better. However they are getting low latency instead of the junk latency with other providers is the best part.

    • The low latency is from the less distance a Starlink signal travels vs. something HughesNet.

      HughesNet is a geosynchronous (GEO) satellite that basically stays over the same spot of Earth as we rotate. To do that you need your sat to be 36,000 km above Earth.

      Starlink operates at 550km above Earth. Round trip is 1,100km vs 72,000km.

      HughesNet (and others) put their as GEO because getting a sat up is expensive, they don't want to do a lot of them, so they build a big one that can service a large area and stic

  • What is "available"? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @01:43PM (#61096302) Journal

    Starlink is now available for order to a limited number of users in your coverage area. Placing your order now will hold your place in line for future service.

    So, it's available to order, and to pay for, but not actually to use yet.

    Is it actually working at scale anywhere in the world? I'm not saying Elon Musk has a habit of overpromising, but he's kind of got a habit of overpromising.

    As someone in a rural area, I pay $300/month for 2mbps and a data cap of 225gb. I would love to switch to Starlink once it's available, assuming it works as advertised.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guspaz ( 556486 )

      They had 10,000 active customers at the start of this month, and appeared to be accelerating adding customers. They recently switched from a beta invite system to open signups with a queue. Basically they're in a growth curve now, ramping up the rate of new signups as they scale their operations.

    • I live in a rural area but luckily Comcast business serves me, I pay roughly what you pay but with no data caps and they prorate my service for any outages (I live in a forest, trees take out service several times a year). I'm guessing I'm less rural than you, even though I have to drive past 5 different farm stands to get to a city large enough to have a grocery store.

      I think the trick to rural broadband is to frequently look for a better deal. ISPs are slowly moving outward and year to year it changes wha

    • I have it now and have been using for a week and a half. Extremely happy with the performance. Feels like I moved the house into the 21st century! Real Internet finally, $100/mo for 40-60 Mbps (had 110 Mbps once!) speeds

      Am in rural WI and am paying $135/mo for phone company 1.5Mbps DSL and landline, $130/mo for satellite TV, and $150/mo for "unlimited" cellular with a 15Gb capped hotspot. Get rid of phone company and Dish network, reduce cell plan and I am saving $$$

      You get the dish, cables, power supply (P

    • Re:What is "available"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @05:31PM (#61097260)

      Is it actually working at scale anywhere in the world? I'm not saying Elon Musk has a habit of overpromising, but he's kind of got a habit of overpromising.

      Theoretically, Musk isn't overpromising. These don't use a curved satellite dish like traditional satellite receivers. They use a phased array antenna. A curved dish has one focus point, and you have to physically point it at the satellite for it to work. That's why satellites in geosynchronous orbit are so popular - they don't move relative to the Earth, so you can point your dish at the satellite once and forget about it.

      In contrast, a phased array antenna is flat. It's made up of a grid of small receivers, each operating independently. If you imagine a radio signal coming in from the side, it will hit some receivers before others. If you offset the receive time for each receiver, delaying it a different amount for each receiver so the signal hits them all "at the same time", then you've effectively "pointed" the phased array antenna at the signal source. You've synchronized and added together the signals coming from a certain direction, while desychronizing signals coming from other directions. This can be done in software - it doesn't require you to physically move the antenna or hardwire in some delay at each receiver. You can just buffer the signals each receiver receives for a short period of time, and pick and choose the signal each receiver recorded at a different time to "point" your antenna. Since you're only limited by the speed of your computing power, instead of the speed at which you can rotate a satellite dish, it allows you to quickly and effectively track moving targets like Starlink satellites (the military uses them to track and shoot down incoming missiles). That's what allows Starlink to offer service with satellites in low earth orbit, instead of geosynchronous orbit. The antenna they give each subscriber can track moving satellites via software.

      The real key though is something I've mentioned here starting nearly a decade ago, back when 802.11ac was first showing up. A phased array antenna allows you to bypass the Shannon bandwidth limit of a shared communications channel [wikipedia.org]. Normally if there's a shared communications channel - like satellite transmission frequencies - the broadcasts of one transmitter interfere with the broadcasts of another. Like multiple people talking at the same time in a crowded room, their voices all intermingle and it becomes difficult to pick out what any one person is saying. Much less what all of them are saying (something satellite Internet has to do since it has to hear and understand the transmission from all users simultaneously).

      Well, not only does a phased array antenna allow you to "point" the antenna in a certain direction in software, it allows you to do so after the fact, multiple times, in different directions. If you imagine a second signal arriving at our antenna from a different direction, it too will hit all the individual receivers, but in a different order and a different pattern. You simply take the signal data recorded by those receivers over a short span of time, process them again - this time using different delay offsets so that the signals from the second source all arrive "at the same time." And now you've effectively pointed your antenna in two different directions at the same time. Repeat for multiple directions, and you're able to "aim" the antenna at every person in the room who is talking, and amplify what they're saying while attenuating what everyone else is saying. And you can clearly hear what each person is saying (or what each Starlink user is transmitting). You've bypassed the Shannon limit by turning the single shared communications channel, into a bunch of point-to-point communications channels with minimal crosstalk (noise) between each channel.

      So that's the theory. It remains to be seen how well this will work in prac

    • Go to https://www.reddit.com/r/Starl... [reddit.com] and see how many happy users there are already.

  • Confirmed I am not on Earth (Score:5, Funny)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2021 @02:19PM (#61096494) Homepage Journal

    I live in the Bay Area and starlink.com says service is not available at my address. I always suspected that Silicon Valley wasn't on planet Earth.

  • I'll be purchasing Starlink as soon as I can. I live in a rural Ohio town that has had ONE option for the past 15 years and that option is expensive and stinks. Starlink costs a bit more but I'll be getting it just to spite these a-holes that have had complete control for years. I got my invite email a few weeks ago and I can pre-order if I wish. Bye-bye Spectrum!

  • As a rural customer with limited options right now 300ms would be a godsend. My current provider gives me around 40mb/sec but it varies wildly. Anywhere between 150 on a really good day to less than 1mb on a really crappy day. Outages are not as frequent as they once were (i.e. daily) but it's not as solid as I would like.

    I too got the email letting me know that I could sign up. The only hesitation is they did warn about possible outages as they exit beta testing. I'll probably wait until Q3 or Q4 of this y

    • As a Central European Rural Customer, all of 30 km outside the city limits, it would be a godsend also. The only option here is WiMax, which is maxed out - obviously. If Starlink service would deliver something better than 300 kbps (nevermind 300 Mbps), then I would be jumping with joy.

  • Slashdot keeps reporting areas blocking the entire Internet over local concerns of rebellion, so would all traffic from StarLink have to hit a ground station for censorship, or do they plan to go point-to-point? That's not how DBS Internet works in the USA.

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