
Starlink network topology simulations and predictions - mastax
https://www.reddit.com/r/starlink/comments/9sxr3c/_/
======
lambdadmitry
I guess the elephant in the room is spatially uneven bandwidth demand. How
many Netflix 4k streams will the constellation handle if a significant portion
of London residents switches to Starlink? The simulation says a few dozen sats
visible at any moment; will they handle a few terabits that I think London
might saturate?

~~~
badwolf
>How many Netflix 4k streams will the constellation handle if a significant
portion of London residents switches to Starlink?

I wonder if as access to orbit cheapens how long it will be until we start
getting orbital datacenters/CDNs specifically to mitigate this type of issue.

~~~
Armisael16
How would you set something like that up, orbitally speaking? Wouldn't the
satellites move past <insert city here> pretty quickly?

~~~
badwolf
I imagine an orbital server farm would probably be in a higher orbit than the
Starlink satellites, and would just connect to them, vs people planetside
connecting directly.

Starlink sats already move past <planetside location> quickly, which is why
they propose loads of satellites and phased array antennas that switch from
satellite to satellite as they move by.

~~~
mechagodzilla
How does that provide an advantage over having the same data-center on the
ground? The starlink satellite still needs to communicate with both downstream
clients and some kind of upstream link (whether that link is geographically
above or below it doesn't seem to provide any obvious advantages for the
starlink satellite itself, and the advantages to having the datacenter on the
ground are numerous).

