[genewitch]

i really don't want to be this person, but Starlink is a mesh network, i have a crap connection to it, and i still routinely get over 200mbit download and 30-50mbit uploads. and a ping 1/3rd of my at&t connection (minimums around 19ms, which i haven't seen since i lived on the west coast)

> After all if it worked you wouldn't need carriers at all, yet here they are...

It'd work fine in more dense areas. Probably not the higher band 5G stuff, but lower bands and 4G. There's no carrier incentive to do this, that's why OP said "mandated".

[viraptor]

I'm not sure I'd call it a mesh. If you have both full control over all the nodes and monitoring from a central place, the problem is significantly simpler. Mesh typically implies independent/unpredictable actors and self reorganisation / self healing.

Centrally pushing new routes based on quality/load data is not it.

[kalleboo]

> Starlink is a mesh network

Are the inter-satellite links actually active yet? Last I heard Starlink satellites all still needed to be in range of a ground station (explaining the lack of ocean coverage for their marine service)

[genewitch]

my internet exit point varies. Sometimes it's in TX, but the last time i checked i was exiting in Bellevue, WA. as opposed to any other provider around me which always exits from an F5 in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX.

I'm not sure this proves it, but i can't think of many reasons for that to be the case.

[Panzer04]

Currently, AFAIK starlink is still Point-to-point, bouncing once to a satellite and back down to fixed ground stations. They intend to add inter-satellite links, but I'm not sure that's the case yet.

[FL410]

ISL is active