SpaceX Starlink Internet Experience & Performance

[peterhoeg]

Michael, from the article "offloading some systems and IoT devices to it". Just out of curiosity - what kind of IoT devices is generating so much traffic that you need to offload it to a secondary connection?

[jbean]

Are you for real? Adsl have 3ms latency to the provider server and Vdsl have 5ms. I have 200mbps Vdsl2 35b with actual 5ms tested with common online speed tests and that is with the "almost" fast path and byte swap activated for those ultra small packages. On that note i get ~75ms on Csgo both when i had Adsl fast_1 and Vdsl. You understand that if we add like 45ms more we go to the unplayable 120ms. Yes you heard correct those engines don't work at all at 100+ms, it's not a "what is noticeable" thing.

Again, on a fast profile, throw in interleaving and watch that latency go up. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have FTTN in their area or have super short lengths to the DSLAM. ADSL users especially. Also starlink can far surpass 200Mbps and even 300Mbps of VDSL, you need to start getting into pair bonding to really achieve fast speeds like that in xDSL anyway. It's either that and/or have a super short loop as the theoretical speeds aren't even attainable once you start getting a line even a little bit long, much less on a fastpath profile.

I'm not certain where you're located to get 75ms to csgo or how your ISP routes you but the latency numbers you state are being pulled right out of a hat, you're grossly overstating the latency many starlink users have to csgo -- i mean there's literal benchmarks you can look at to prove it. Many people I know just where I live get ~60ms on starlink itself. Again, Starlink isn't out to replace your internet, heck I've got FTTH here and prefer that any day over something like starlink, but for many users it's a very worthy option.

[theriddick]

Region locked blurays can be a pain to mess with but normally most device vendors allow the region code to be changed multiple times to compensate. Some may even have all regions supported at same time? (region free)

I assume that is the protection being talked about.

[bridgman]

I never got rid of my analog & vinyl - too many badly mastered CDs in the early days for me to ever be comfortable with the technology.

Back when copy protection meant someone yelling "NO, get your greasy fingers off that album"

[qarium]

If a technology keeps you from using it fairly, do not buy that technology. Blu-ray is technically superior to DVD, but all the advantages go out the window when you are not on Windoze. If they will not sell a better version on a technology that works on your system, you can still get it. Others rip such things all the time for torrents. I buy one copy. If it fails to work for me, I download a rip and feel no guilt. Nor should I.

right. problem these kind of people think they have monopoly and they think they can force people into their will.

but it is clear that this kind of slavery does not work over long time the market is split one group buy the old technology DVD ... the other group do online streaming.

and if you see the marketshare blu ray is already death ther was a time dvd was going down and blu ray was going up they thought this will go to the point dvd goes extinct but nothing what they wanted happened in 2022 people buy more dvd than blu ray and online streaming is killing the blue ray.

the market is crazy in 2022 people even start to buy VHS players again and people buy more and more analog vinyl records... people even buy cassettes players again...

[OmniNegro]

If a technology keeps you from using it fairly, do not buy that technology. Blu-ray is technically superior to DVD, but all the advantages go out the window when you are not on Windoze. If they will not sell a better version on a technology that works on your system, you can still get it. Others rip such things all the time for torrents. I buy one copy. If it fails to work for me, I download a rip and feel no guilt. Nor should I.

[qarium]

If it helps, most BluRay players run on Linux internally. I know my first one did (from the software licenses)... haven't had time to dig in to my new one (last of the Oppo players) but I wouldn't be surprised to find it ran LInux as well.

well i already have a usb blu ray burner for my pc and i can not watch blu ray on it on linux.

yes yes all the hardware players run linux internaly but you as a customer do not have any benefit from it.

if you ask me dvd is superior to blu ray plain and simple because the copy protection is easy to break and you can make a backup of your orginal copy on your harddrive.

[bridgman]

honestly i would buy discs but you know what did reallly stop me from buy discs... the incompatibility with linux. everything what is better than DVD like Blueray is in fact incompatible with linux. this means i can watch 4K movies on youtube the most without copy protection and even the rest on youtube with copy protection... but if i ever want something better than 720x480 pixel what a DVD gives me i can not play it on my linux pc. and to buy a blue ray player only to play copy protected stuff hell no.

If it helps, most BluRay players run on Linux internally. I know my first one did (from the software licenses)... haven't had time to dig in to my new one (last of the Oppo players) but I wouldn't be surprised to find it ran LInux as well.

[qarium]

Yep, I'm moving up in the world. If this keeps up then one day I will be able to watch movies without buying disks

you know what is the joke about buuying discs ? i am old-school even if it is a fact i can have 250/40mbps super vector DSL i still would buy Discs honestly i would buy discs but you know what did reallly stop me from buy discs... the incompatibility with linux. everything what is better than DVD like Blueray is in fact incompatible with linux. this means i can watch 4K movies on youtube the most without copy protection and even the rest on youtube with copy protection... but if i ever want something better than 720x480 pixel what a DVD gives me i can not play it on my linux pc. and to buy a blue ray player only to play copy protected stuff hell no.

and if you see the market they do the same in the past like 8 years ago there was a TV with integrated blueray player... today all the models only have DVD and if you see the statistic marketshare of dvd vs blueray the people buy more dvd in 2022 then blue ray this copy proetction bullshit is rejected in the market.

they destroyed the disc market completely i have a blue ray burner for MDISKs with 100GB per disc thats not bad for a read-only solution with 1000 years MDISK not bat at all.

just imagine this if there would not be copy protection and if they use AV1 video codex you could burn a lot of video time on 100GB 1000 year MDISK... but hell they destroyed the disk market.

[dtaht]

It is the wildly variable latency under load that I consider to be the
biggest problem starlink has. If they could flatten out the latency
under various loads, you'd hardly notice how variable the bandwidth
is.

It would be really great, if you are to continue to test, for you to
also test for that. There are mods for both speedtest.net and fast to capture that.

Also you can get a lot more detailed statistics as to the evolution of
the connections by using a tool like flent rather than speedtest. I
have a whole flent cloud dedicated to starlink testing you'd be
welcome to use - I'm trying to capture the moment they start using
laser links in particular. There's also a starlink mailing lists.bufferbloat.net with
greats like vint cerf an len kleinrock participating.

Here are some detailed plots I took last year of just their uplink
problem.


I am mostly looking to get baseline tests from various vantage points, w/o sqm. Starlink throughput is varying wildly from multiple locations. The latency seems to vary as a function of a fixed length fifo. Increasingly seems to vary at peak hours. Running tests for 300 sec to be sure to see at least one sat change.

Script:

#!/bin/bash
T=dishy-nick # a unique name for your site, + options like sqm on or off.
# other servers are in ontario, de, atlanta, mumbai,london - if the lasers go up testing those become interesting
# pick 2 close ones
for S in fremont.starlink.taht.net dallas.starlink.taht.net
do
flent -t $T --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -l 300 -H $S rrul_be
flent -t $T --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -l 300 -H $S rrul
for i in 1 4 16
do
flent -t $T-$i --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -l 300 --te=upload_streams=$i -H $S tcp_nup
flent -t $T-$i --step-size=.05 --socket-stats -l 300 --te=download_streams=$i -H $S tcp_ndown
done
done

# Most simplly there's an interesting rtt_fair test here, keep these for a baseline worldwide measurement run once a week

flent -x -l 300 --socket-stats --step-size=.05 -H de.starlink.taht.net -H london.starlink.taht.net -H singapore.starlink.taht.net -H fremont.starlink.taht.net -t $T rtt_fair4be