Comment on The plan for nationwide fiber internet might be upended for Starlink
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 days agoLight in glass is actually surprisingly slow
After some distance, starlink would have better latency, as while the signal needs to go through a bunch of km of slow atmosphere, it would make up for that by having a big part of the signal go through vacuum between satellites
But latency isn’t everything
Fiber (when properly installed) is very stable. Satellite and mobile is always at least a little bit flaky
TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 6 days ago
St*rlink orbits at 500 km so you would need to be like 1200 km by land away from your destination to have a better latency
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 6 days ago
Hard to calculate exactly.
Latency is lower through the atmosphere than in glass (I thought that air was worse, but turns out it’s not. Makes sense. Glass is solid after all)
So it could be even closer than that. But there’s also the problem of the SL base station having to do the last bit of the route through fiber to the destination again. Do it also depends on where the base station is located in regards to the destination
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Starlink can be more direct as well. The further fiber goes the less direct it is.