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
According to historical Nielsen data[1] from 1991 to 2009: most Americans.

Even back to 1950, for per household data, it was above 4 hours.

[1] https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2009/average-tv-viewing-for...

>>Brybry+pF6
2022 data from the BLS: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11A.htm

Men spent 3 hours a day watching TV, and women 2.5 hours. But TV time is lower (around 2 hrs/day) from ages 20-44, then increases again after 45 and peaks at 75 years old at nearly 5 hours a day.

Households without kids watch more TV, which surprised me.

>>solard+2W8
That's a nice find. I think BLS leisure time data is from the American Time Use Survey [1] which I think is asking something similar to this questionnaire [2] on page 22.

I'm not sure that's saying household time. For example, when they survey a household it wasn't clear to me if they survey everyone in the household or just one person. If it's one person then it sounds like they collect how that one person (age 15+) spent their own time and if there were kids in their household.

So then it'd be accurate to say that individuals in households without kids watch more TV as a singular activity (the survey doesn't allow simultaneous activities).

In comparison Nielsen used TV viewing diaries and automated data collection meters. You could have the TV on in the background while doing chores and it would still count.

It's interesting that the 2009 ATUS survey [3] had a 2.82 hour/person average because that's fairly different from the Nielsen data (4 hours 49 minutes/person).

I wonder if this difference is people underreporting in ATUS or Nielsen overreporting or a factor of differences in limitations in ATUS (no simultaneous activities allowed, 15+ age limitation) or Nielsen.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/atus/data.htm

[2] https://www.bls.gov/tus/questionnaires/tuquestionnaire.pdf

[3] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/atus_06222010.pdf