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
Netflix uses 3-7GB an hour. The average person is spending 4-5hrs a day watching TV. I’d say most are above 100GB/month.

But that’s me.

>>garcia+y66
Who has 4-5 hrs a day to watch television? ..or am I completely out of touch?

>>seemaz+lf6
_actively_ watch? Probably not many. Having it on as background noise however? 5 hours is pretty easy

>>edude0+eg6
Is that still a thing with young people? I associate leaving the TV on in the background as an older generation thing.

>>colord+jA6
I'm middle aged. This kind of background noise sounds terrible to me.

Maybe I just grew up in a quiet place.

>>dguest+dB6
John Von Neumann liked to do math with the TV on as background noise. Genius.

>>dr_dsh+rP6
I heard all those stories about Von Neumann working like that. According to a biography, his wife once designated a room as his office and he became very angry about that since it was too quiet for him to work there.

Personally I need almost complete silence in order to get anything done, his abilities in this regard always fascinated me.

>>jimmy7+VX7
It's just a different kind of environmental requirement.

It's useful for some people to have recognisable sounds going on while they work, so they have something to latch their focus if they lose it for a second. Whether that be music, or every seinfeld episode on a shuffled loop on the TV.

I have found it useful in the past to listen through every song I have on shuffle while I read, which was nice when I took a few-seconds break every couple of pages and came across a song I wouldn't have picked out otherwise. Alt-tabbing out of a podcast or something completely wrecks my focus on both for some reason though.