If you are subscribed to Starlink (internet), what is it like when relying on satellite connection for both online live service play (as in multiplayer) and casual gaming? I’ve heard that star link internet sucks, is the subscription even worth the money? How well does satellite connection hold up in comparison to oceanic fiber optic cable internet? (Which is the most common form of connecting for the majority as it’s been around longer).
Those of us subscribed to Starlink aren’t here because we have options. Honestly, it’s decent. IIRC it’s $110/mo for on average 300 down 15 up. Is that amazing? No. Is fiber better? Yes. But they’re not marketing to people who have fiber as an option. They’re marketing to people like me, who used to pay $460/mo for 60/15 microwave internet with frequent downtime -and- data caps. If you have to ask “but which one is better”, the simple answer is generally fiber > starlink > cable > microwave > dsl/satellite > dialup. And I refuse to rank 5G service because that depends on too many factors.
60/15 for $460/no? What the actual shit? Even in my country where things tend to be more expensive than others in the continent, the internet is WAY cheaper.
Oh, that was absolute highway robbery. But we had no other options and they knew it. They robbed us blind, and we dropped them the instant starlink became available.
I have a coworker occasionally on starlink. The big issue with both videoconferencing and I would assume also gaming, is the handover. Each satellite is in view only for around 90 second, then the antenna hast to switch to the next. This means that your latency keeps fluctuating and you drop packets every 90 seconds during the handover. It sounds miserable.
Used a Starlink connection for a few months. Starlink is incredible… compared to the alternatives people a million miles from anything have. It can certainly be used for gaming, with <100 ping. It’s not terribly impressive by urban standards, though.
Just watching users hit my servers with Starlink connections … they constantly drop and reconnect, sometimes on 5 different IP’s within a half hour. I can probably go to prometheus right now and SS a graph.
Their customers in the US are mainly people who have to ditch their local WiFi provider. You’ll get disconnects a lot.
The comparison to subsea cables can’t be made yet, because Starlink doesn’t work that way yet. You are routed up to a reachable satellite maybe at most one or two hops over the inter satellite laser links to other satellites (but it’s hard to confirm anything concrete), and then quickly back down to the next reachable ground station. From there it’s fiberoptics.
I’ve been thinking more about this: It seems unlikely they will ever provide a significant portion of intercontinental traffic, even if there is some latency benefit. The fundamental issue is one of bandwidth. You can stuff fiber optics full of data in ways most lay people wouldn’t believe. Using different frequencies you can put many data channels parallel. 88 x 200 Gigabit/s per fiber is no issue at all with components we bought 5-10 years ago already for our use case on land, and spectral efficiency is still getting better. A typical subsea cable will have around 8 fiber pairs, so 8 x 88 x 200 G in both directions for one cable is probably normal.
The intersatellite links on Starlink satellites are reportedly also at 200G, and there are three of them on there, but intended to go to different neighbors I think. I’m not familiar with the specifics of free space optics, but I expect both wavelength division multiplexing and space division multiplexing will be much harder.
So only applications where latency is really critical will probably be able to buy into that limited intercontinental bandwith. High frequency trading maybe. And then diplomacy and military, where the tapping resistance plays a bigger role than the latency.
If available in your area, you should try out the 5g services. I use one and I play counter strike well and I get 200-300mbps down normally. When I got it, the first month was a trial period where you set it up and if it sucked, it was no charge. Plus sign up offee was good so look out for anything offered
I’m probably wrong but I recall ping times were like 200ms or something? I’ve played with worse but it wasn’t awesome. I’m too lazy to Google it though so grain of salt and whatnot
I use it (begrudgingly, but options out here suck), you’re wrong. It’s closer to 70-80ms at worst. Though it has definitely improved over time, it may have been worse during the early beta.
Geostationary satelites at 38000±2000km distance take around 125ms up and the same back down for about 250ms for you to reach a server, maybe you were thinking of that. My uncle has that on his farm in Australia. It’s bad, you can’t have a good IP based phone call because the delay is too long, people keep starting to talk at the same time.
Starlink flies in low earth orbit 450 - 500 km, so maybe up to 1500 km distance from you if its at the edge of reachability, for a worst case. That’s 5 ms, or 10 ms from you to the server. At those low distances the buffering overhead of their system will dominate like with Wifi. I don’t know how it works for Starlink specifically.
I think the real killer issue for starlink and realtime tasks is the constantly changing latency, and the handoff between satellites.
You are probably thinking of ping times on the old satellite internet services. Those were terrible , barely better than dialup. Starlink is LEO so ping is much better
As much as I hate the Melon Husk it’s my only option since I don’t have a LOS for any fixed wireless service and it’s been working great so far. There is fibre coming to my area soon-ish but for gaming it’s been working great. My partner and I have been able to game online at the same time along with have a stream going and downloading ISOs.
When it first came out I had Starlink for a short while, there were no good wired options available in the area. It could have pretty good speeds here and there, but was wildly inconsistent. Playing an MMO was alright in lower density areas, like a dungeon or in a solo zone, but in busier areas it could struggle.
It was fantastic for downloads and streaming videos when there was a healthy cache built in, though!
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It was, I used it, but my conscience wouldn’t allow me to give more money to a nazi when I had alternatives.
Those of us subscribed to Starlink aren’t here because we have options. Honestly, it’s decent. IIRC it’s $110/mo for on average 300 down 15 up. Is that amazing? No. Is fiber better? Yes. But they’re not marketing to people who have fiber as an option. They’re marketing to people like me, who used to pay $460/mo for 60/15 microwave internet with frequent downtime -and- data caps. If you have to ask “but which one is better”, the simple answer is generally fiber > starlink > cable > microwave > dsl/satellite > dialup. And I refuse to rank 5G service because that depends on too many factors.
60/15 for $460/no? What the actual shit? Even in my country where things tend to be more expensive than others in the continent, the internet is WAY cheaper.
Oh, that was absolute highway robbery. But we had no other options and they knew it. They robbed us blind, and we dropped them the instant starlink became available.
Starlink cannot be better than cable for gaming. You’re gonna get double across the world pings even if what you’re connecting to is next door.
Even dsl would be better honestly.
Depends on where you live. Where I am, cable is 1GB and with DSL I had 600/150.
Definitely. I have coax cable, as do most people outside of cities and get 1000/50.
Yeaaah, here in the US DSL is more like 6/1.5 at best. And no, that’s not a typo.
$460/mo, holy hell!
I pay about that much for my internet, but it comes with a bonus apartment included in the price. Oh, and it’s 200/200
Where do you live that any of these prices are affordable or reasonable?
Nevada, USA
Insanity. Prices are just unbelieveable. I have never seen 100+€ for any monthly rate ever for any telecomms service.
I have a coworker occasionally on starlink. The big issue with both videoconferencing and I would assume also gaming, is the handover. Each satellite is in view only for around 90 second, then the antenna hast to switch to the next. This means that your latency keeps fluctuating and you drop packets every 90 seconds during the handover. It sounds miserable.
Used a Starlink connection for a few months. Starlink is incredible… compared to the alternatives people a million miles from anything have. It can certainly be used for gaming, with <100 ping. It’s not terribly impressive by urban standards, though.
Just watching users hit my servers with Starlink connections … they constantly drop and reconnect, sometimes on 5 different IP’s within a half hour. I can probably go to prometheus right now and SS a graph.
Their customers in the US are mainly people who have to ditch their local WiFi provider. You’ll get disconnects a lot.
Casual MMOs? Sure.
Counterstrike tournaments? Nope.
The comparison to subsea cables can’t be made yet, because Starlink doesn’t work that way yet. You are routed up to a reachable satellite maybe at most one or two hops over the inter satellite laser links to other satellites (but it’s hard to confirm anything concrete), and then quickly back down to the next reachable ground station. From there it’s fiberoptics.
I’ve been thinking more about this: It seems unlikely they will ever provide a significant portion of intercontinental traffic, even if there is some latency benefit. The fundamental issue is one of bandwidth. You can stuff fiber optics full of data in ways most lay people wouldn’t believe. Using different frequencies you can put many data channels parallel. 88 x 200 Gigabit/s per fiber is no issue at all with components we bought 5-10 years ago already for our use case on land, and spectral efficiency is still getting better. A typical subsea cable will have around 8 fiber pairs, so 8 x 88 x 200 G in both directions for one cable is probably normal.
The intersatellite links on Starlink satellites are reportedly also at 200G, and there are three of them on there, but intended to go to different neighbors I think. I’m not familiar with the specifics of free space optics, but I expect both wavelength division multiplexing and space division multiplexing will be much harder.
So only applications where latency is really critical will probably be able to buy into that limited intercontinental bandwith. High frequency trading maybe. And then diplomacy and military, where the tapping resistance plays a bigger role than the latency.
If available in your area, you should try out the 5g services. I use one and I play counter strike well and I get 200-300mbps down normally. When I got it, the first month was a trial period where you set it up and if it sucked, it was no charge. Plus sign up offee was good so look out for anything offered
I’m probably wrong but I recall ping times were like 200ms or something? I’ve played with worse but it wasn’t awesome. I’m too lazy to Google it though so grain of salt and whatnot
I use it (begrudgingly, but options out here suck), you’re wrong. It’s closer to 70-80ms at worst. Though it has definitely improved over time, it may have been worse during the early beta.
That sounds more accurate honestly. I’ve never had it but read about it in regards to this years ago. Honestly that’s doable if you can swallow it.
Geostationary satelites at 38000±2000km distance take around 125ms up and the same back down for about 250ms for you to reach a server, maybe you were thinking of that. My uncle has that on his farm in Australia. It’s bad, you can’t have a good IP based phone call because the delay is too long, people keep starting to talk at the same time.
Starlink flies in low earth orbit 450 - 500 km, so maybe up to 1500 km distance from you if its at the edge of reachability, for a worst case. That’s 5 ms, or 10 ms from you to the server. At those low distances the buffering overhead of their system will dominate like with Wifi. I don’t know how it works for Starlink specifically.
I think the real killer issue for starlink and realtime tasks is the constantly changing latency, and the handoff between satellites.
You are probably thinking of ping times on the old satellite internet services. Those were terrible , barely better than dialup. Starlink is LEO so ping is much better
As much as I hate the Melon Husk it’s my only option since I don’t have a LOS for any fixed wireless service and it’s been working great so far. There is fibre coming to my area soon-ish but for gaming it’s been working great. My partner and I have been able to game online at the same time along with have a stream going and downloading ISOs.
https://blinqblinq.com/starlink-latency-and-ping-times/
When it first came out I had Starlink for a short while, there were no good wired options available in the area. It could have pretty good speeds here and there, but was wildly inconsistent. Playing an MMO was alright in lower density areas, like a dungeon or in a solo zone, but in busier areas it could struggle.
It was fantastic for downloads and streaming videos when there was a healthy cache built in, though!