<story><title>SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up</title><url>https://testmy.net/hoststats/spacex_starlink</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>apexalpha</author><text>Eventually everyone is going to get connected, yes.&lt;p&gt;I mean someone in Norway also had to draw a powerline to these people, to use electricity. Why not draw a fiber link, too? It&amp;#x27;s just part of infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not saying that Starlink isn&amp;#x27;t useful. I&amp;#x27;m just really wondering what the implications for astronomy are going to be, whether we will always see these things at dusk.&lt;p&gt;Now it&amp;#x27;s Starlink, but what if 3 or 4 companies in total want to have a network? What if on top of that China and India want their own, just like GPS?&lt;p&gt;It just seems we&amp;#x27;re running head first into this without anyone thinking of the implications or governance of it.</text></item><item><author>sgt</author><text>But are all villages in France like that? I doubt it.&lt;p&gt;Even in Norway there are thousands of people without access to sufficiently fast broadband, and some 80k DSL customers who apparently will never get fiber at all. The proposed solution for the latter is to use 4G&amp;#x2F;5G, which comes with its own issues of course.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say even in well developed countries, Starlink is a nice option to have. As I understand it, the 42Mbps they see now is only going to improve as well.</text></item><item><author>apexalpha</author><text>So I guess companies will now fill the entire global sky with thousands of sats just to make up for the fact that the US government ignores rural houses when it comes to digital infrastructure?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sorry but how is 42Mbps worth spamming the entire nightsky with to the point that it prevent astronomers from obtaining useful data? Not even 10Mbps upload?&lt;p&gt;My inlaws live in a village in France that has 70 people total. It&amp;#x27;s 25min drive to a bakery, 45min drive to anything resembling a supermarket. I&amp;#x27;d say it&amp;#x27;s rural.&lt;p&gt;They now have 16Mbps *DSL and are scheduled to get Fiber in 2021. Next village already has it.&lt;p&gt;But because the American government refuses to invest in infrastructure the rest of the planet just has to accept some American company is going to put 14,000 sats in low orbit?&lt;p&gt;Besides the progress this resembles I still think it&amp;#x27;s pretty strange the US government can greenlight this plan even though it has global implications.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ballenf</author><text>Hopefully using satellites like this is a temporary solution for the next decade or two until we have a better solution.&lt;p&gt;Their limited lifespan is what makes me much less pessimistic than I would be. They have relatively high maintenance costs which means that if utilization is low, it won&amp;#x27;t make sense to keep replacing them.</text></comment>
<story><title>SpaceX Starlink average speedtest is 42.3Mbps down / 9.7 Mbps up</title><url>https://testmy.net/hoststats/spacex_starlink</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>apexalpha</author><text>Eventually everyone is going to get connected, yes.&lt;p&gt;I mean someone in Norway also had to draw a powerline to these people, to use electricity. Why not draw a fiber link, too? It&amp;#x27;s just part of infrastructure.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not saying that Starlink isn&amp;#x27;t useful. I&amp;#x27;m just really wondering what the implications for astronomy are going to be, whether we will always see these things at dusk.&lt;p&gt;Now it&amp;#x27;s Starlink, but what if 3 or 4 companies in total want to have a network? What if on top of that China and India want their own, just like GPS?&lt;p&gt;It just seems we&amp;#x27;re running head first into this without anyone thinking of the implications or governance of it.</text></item><item><author>sgt</author><text>But are all villages in France like that? I doubt it.&lt;p&gt;Even in Norway there are thousands of people without access to sufficiently fast broadband, and some 80k DSL customers who apparently will never get fiber at all. The proposed solution for the latter is to use 4G&amp;#x2F;5G, which comes with its own issues of course.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say even in well developed countries, Starlink is a nice option to have. As I understand it, the 42Mbps they see now is only going to improve as well.</text></item><item><author>apexalpha</author><text>So I guess companies will now fill the entire global sky with thousands of sats just to make up for the fact that the US government ignores rural houses when it comes to digital infrastructure?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sorry but how is 42Mbps worth spamming the entire nightsky with to the point that it prevent astronomers from obtaining useful data? Not even 10Mbps upload?&lt;p&gt;My inlaws live in a village in France that has 70 people total. It&amp;#x27;s 25min drive to a bakery, 45min drive to anything resembling a supermarket. I&amp;#x27;d say it&amp;#x27;s rural.&lt;p&gt;They now have 16Mbps *DSL and are scheduled to get Fiber in 2021. Next village already has it.&lt;p&gt;But because the American government refuses to invest in infrastructure the rest of the planet just has to accept some American company is going to put 14,000 sats in low orbit?&lt;p&gt;Besides the progress this resembles I still think it&amp;#x27;s pretty strange the US government can greenlight this plan even though it has global implications.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Aeolun</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m just really wondering what the implications for astronomy are going to be&lt;p&gt;More space based telescopes?</text></comment>