zlacker

>>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).

>>mrb+b46
Most customers aren't served by lasers, their data goes up to the satellite and down to the nearest gateway. Lasers serve customers out of range of a downlink gateway, and the traffic probably travels the minimum hops needed to get to one.

>>bottle+Xk6
But with lasers, it makes sense to route your packets via space. For example traffic to a different continent would be faster (and cheaper) through space. Furthermore, I assume lasers have more capacity than gateways, so they could increase capacity of one satellite by bundling with more gateways.

>>whazor+LM6
I thought that Starlink always "landed" to a base station back in the same jurisdiction? I think relaying through space could open a regulatory can of worms.

>>beejiu+gW6
What kind of worms?

>>psd1+mZ6
All countries have strict regulations on radio waves, whether that's sending or receiving. The UK for example requires a license for base stations that stipulates things like geographical boundaries, etc.

You can't freely blast radio waves into a country without falling subject to its varying regulations, but the regulations for "pre Starlink" satellite broadband/phones/etc are fairly well established.

>>beejiu+bq7
Well maybe it makes sense for US costumer to send their traffic down from Starlink in Canada and then via fiber to the USA? I do not really see the problem if the traffic is encrypted and forwarded.