Why SpaceX is Making Starlink
Real Engineering4 HN recommenders · 2019–2020
7.4M views · explainer · dated · Uploaded 2019-06-15
Real Engineering explains why SpaceX is building Starlink, including the economics of satellite internet. It covers the latency advantage of light in vacuum over fiber for long-distance links.
Recommended as a clear explanation of Starlink's purpose and the case that it can beat fiber on latency for long routes.
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7 comments from Hacker News
Real engineering made a video on it: [VIDEO] I recommend watching. The channel does really good explanations.
Someone smarter than I made this, which you may or may not agree with... "Why SpaceX is Making Starlink" [VIDEO] TL;DR -- satellites can be faster than cables in certain cases
Real Engineering has an interesting video on why it would be useful for firms trading internationally [VIDEO]
[VIDEO] According to this Engineering Explained video, it may be possible to achieve a lower latency using Star Link than over fiber if the points are far enough. People like high frequency traders might be willing to pay a ton for such a thing.
Light travels 47% slower in a fiber optic cable than it does in the vacuum of space. [1] [1] [VIDEO] (the whole video is worth watching, but that timestamp answers your specific question.
Right, so if you can't go through the crust then going up would be another option. Over long enough of a distance, say NYC to London (or even farther), the overhead of going up first and then a "straight" line horizontally (it's not completely straight because it has relay between the satellites via LOS laser but each arc would be fairly long) and back down would be shorter than a line following the curvature. (Edited: This is wrong. I had conflated the lower latency with shorter distance as others have pointed out.) BTW, I want to give full credit to my source: [VIDEO] It also does a much better job of explaining it than I have but it is a convincing argument for how Starlink can be useful and why traders would be willing to pay a lot for it.
This video[1] speculates that Starlink will achieve lower latency than fibre Internet. Latency-sensitive industries like finance are very willing to pay a lot for improved latency. [1] [VIDEO]