Finally

[MidEngine]

Good riddance DSL

[jminer]

@midengine I am so excited to see how this scales. As a lover of cabins out in the middle of nowhere and keeping my job this has exciting possibilities.

[MidEngine]

@jminer That's me, live in a remote rural area and have had no options other than DSL. This is a game changer!!

[ForSweden]

Does Elon just drop the Doge in the dish?

[Highlander]

@midengine Couple of my friends have star link and love it.

[HammerheadFistpunch]

@midengine I would love having this in my remote place, but its really only a summertime thing and the cost is too damn high.

[davesaddiction]

@midengine

Subscribed.

Really interesting to see how you like it.

We got lucky and our rural electric provider ran fiber, so we were able to drop DSL several months ago.

[gmporschenut also a fan of hondas]

@jminer good bye night sky

[facw]

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas We do much worse to the night sky for less benefit. Seems like it's mostly a problem for astronomers anyway (and one they should be able to compensate for).

I'm ready to join the freakout if we start talking about space-based advertisements though.

[ibRAD]

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas I saw a 'batch' of the satellites go across my sky this summer. I've heard they are supposed to turn to an angle that doesn't reflect back to earth once they are positioned. I'm still not on board with Musk though.

[facw]

@ibrad I'm not up to date with what SpaceX is doing to reduce light (aside from the fact they said they'd do something), but they are definitely supposed to move apart as they deploy so you don't have obvious lines of satellites.

[davesaddiction]

@facw

The benefit for developing nations is going to be immense.

[ibRAD]

@facw If they maintain the same altitude, it's not going to work for me anyhow. They were just above the treeline as is... and trees tend to grow!

[Thomas Donohue]

@jminer Ditto, but so far the reviews I've seen on connection drops for conf calls and video aren't too good. Lots of variables, but hopefully it improves over time and usage.

[jminer]

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas once the satellites reach their orbit they're not visible to the naked eye.

It is strange to see a batch in a string right after they launch though.

[jminer]

@thomas-donohue hope so, I had satellite internet back 10 years ago and it was as bad as dialup so when you don't have another option this sounds promising!

Cell tethering doesn't usually work great either so options here make me happy.

[davesaddiction]

@jminer

I assume Elon & Co have solved the latency problem?

[facw]

@davesaddiction You probably don't want to be a pro gamer on it, but it's supposed to be pretty usable (quick look quotes a 45ms median latency). My understanding is that they are dealing with it by running more satellites, and in lower orbits, to reduce the distance the signal has to travel. They are also doing some stuff with point to point communication between the satellites, which may lead to a shorter path as well.

[Thomas Donohue]

@davesaddiction avg latency is well under 50ms, which isn't that bad. The target is 20ms which is very usable for most applications. The satellites are only ~350 miles up, so figure 700 miles of equivalent fiber distances, i.e. NYC to Atlanta. For comparison, I think traditional Geo-sync satellites are 20,000+ miles up.

Disconnects are the bigger issue, which should be solved by more satellites....similar to the way the cell network developed, eliminating the dead zones and dropped calls.

My non-existent, off-grid cabin in the woods seems closer than ever!

[spacekraken]

@jminer said in Finally:

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas once the satellites reach their orbit they're not visible to the naked eye.

It is strange to see a batch in a string right after they launch though.

Um.... no. They're literally a constant issue for research astronomers and very visible to the naked eye, at least in any place where you can properly see dark skies. Worth it for fast internet? Quite possibly, but they are unquestionably light pollution and have cut deep sky observing/imaging times to about 50% of what it was before their launch cause you can't record data with stuff flying across your field of view.

I should say, I'm ornery about this mostly cause I have lightning fast cable internet, so the only impact of starlink is that half of the astronomy photos I've taken since July 2020 has had at least one of the fuckers in it. Which means if you want 4 hours of data, you have to shoot for 8 hours now. If I didn't do astronomy and needed the service I'm sure I'd have a different view.

[jminer]

@spacekraken they're definitely visible when doing astral photography or observatory work but to be honest outside of it being an inconvenience I don't get the big deal. Space is already full of junk that interferes with this and these are useful junk.

The ability to bring internet to disconnected rural and tribal regions that have been ignored by typical infrastructure for decades literally can change the lives of communities. That seems like it's worth a minor inconvenience to a very small group of people.

I'm normally firmly in the camp of keeping the wild free of human change and interference but this does seem extremely low impact to me.

I've also recently been out somewhere 150 miles from a major metro area on a clear night and saw no starlink satellites with my naked eye, but that's one anecdotal example. Where I live I have a not very dark night sky and you're a lot closer to truly dark sky than I am.

[spacekraken]

@jminer said in Finally:

@spacekraken they're definitely visible when doing astral photography or observatory work but to be honest outside of it being an inconvenience I don't get the big deal. Space is already full of junk that interferes with this and these are useful junk.

There were about 6000 sats before Starlink, yes, but the VAST majority weren't in 325 mile orbits. Starlink sats wouldn't be (nearly as) visible if they were in the 1000mi-20,000mi orbits that most communications sats are. Put it this way, that 1 in 2 photos getting photobombed I mentioned? It was approximately 1 in 100 in 2019.

The ability to bring internet to disconnected rural and tribal regions that have been ignored by typical infrastructure for decades literally can change the lives of communities. That seems like it's worth a minor inconvenience to a very small group of people.

When it starts being used to help rural/tribal regions and not just folks like us who can pay $500 for setup, I'll probably change my tune a bit haha. Elon has historically been terrible about making things affordable (35k tesla?) so I'd love to see change for this. So far everyone I know with starlink makes six figures... It's not exactly cheap.

I'm normally firmly in the camp of keeping the wild free of human change and interference but this does seem extremely low impact to me.

I think it's a major bias on my part and I might come across as too harsh, sorry. That said: it's huge impact when it affects your income, and a bunch of my friends have been severely impacted cause they do research astronomy for work.

I've also recently been out somewhere 150 miles from a major metro area on a clear night and saw no starlink satellites with my naked eye, but that's one anecdotal example. Where I live I have a not very dark night sky and you're a lot closer to truly dark sky than I am.

Glad to hear it, and yes it varies a lot place to place. I think I'm also smack dab in the middle of the main starlink orbits at 45 degrees latitude.

[davesaddiction]

@thomas-donohue

Are you off-grid if you have internet access?

[orneryduck]

@midengine said in Finally:

@jminer That's me, live in a remote rural area and have had no options other than DSL. This is a game changer!!

Until it snows/rains.

DSL is the best bet for rural (data point: career telecommunications networking engineer and frequently lived in rural markets).

Starlink is a fantastic solution for developing markets or ones that are victim to peer satellite solutions (HughesNET) or equally weak point-to-point wireless shot systems.