zlacker

[return to "Starlink's laser system is beaming 42 petabytes of data per day"]
1. mrb+b46[view] [source] 2024-02-02 01:00:29
>>alden5+(OP)
So that is "432 Mbit/s per laser, and 9000 lasers total". I don't know you guys but I find that statement much more relatable than "42 PB/day". Interestingly, they also say each laser "can sustain a 100Gbps connection per link" (although another part of the article even claims 200 Gbit/s). That means each laser is grossly underused on average, at 0.432% of its maximum capacity. Which makes sense since 100 Gbit/s is probably achievable in ideal situations (eg. 2 satellites very close to each other), so these laser links are used in bursts and the link stays established only for a few tens of seconds or minutes, until the satellites move away and no longer are within line of sight of each other.

And with 2.3M customers, that's an average 1.7 Mbit/s per customer, or 550 GB per customer per month, which is kinda high. The average American internet user probably consumes less than 100 GB/month. (HN readers are probably outliers; I consume about 1 TB/month).

◧◩
2. menset+yv7[view] [source] 2024-02-02 14:51:54
>>mrb+b46
My parents moved in and, being old, stream TV all day (instead of cable) and end up using about 40 GB per day with 1080p. We keep hitting our max of 1.2 TB set by our cable company (because there are others in the home!).

I should probably see if my router can bandwidth limit their mac addresses...

[go to top]