[Fischgericht]

[Due to the part of the spectrum I am on, I do not have believes or opinions.]

The laser based inter-links still not working has been subject on various conferences like AngaCOM etc.

But in my case: I have simply tried it *). And every Starlink user can do it, too: Use traceroute. And if you think "they might be hiding the hop-to-hops between Sats!", you can dig deeper using MTR behind the modem or simply rooting the modem itself.

Last time I have connected to a v3 Sat however was ~6 months ago. Maybe an active user reading this can try today?

[lxgr]

You're equating occasional dropouts (which can happen for all kinds of reasons even in bent-pipe topologies) with the absence of inter-satellite links. That makes no sense.

The empirical way to test for the existence of ISLs would be to go to the middle of an ocean, safely out of reach of any ground station, and see what happens. If you get a connection, that can only be due to ISLs.

It seems like your actual complaints are with network/routing stability, and you're drawing invalid conclusions from there.

[niwtsol]

Do you have a link to a blog or writeup regarding the inter-links not working? Hard to find it without getting lost in "Troubleshoot your starlink device" SEO hell.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Do you have a link to a blog or writeup regarding the inter-links not working?

The simpler answer is intra-constellation communication is a bleeding-edge technology. It's an extraordinary challenge for which extraordinary proof is needed to show success, not the other way around. SpaceX has solved most of the gating technical problems. But getting it to work reliably enough that it becomes more economic than ground-based backhaul will take time.

[lxgr]

> intra-constellation communication is a bleeding-edge technology

Iridium has been successfully doing it for a quarter of a century now.

[inemesitaffia]

An even simpler answer is Starlink is available in locations too far from ground stations.

Ergo they are served via laser.

Cook Island

Ascension Island

Iran

Venezuela

Cuba

Galapagos/Easter Islands

Vanuatu

Eastern Ukraine

Syria

Lebanon

Iraq

Iqaluit

Antarctica, as South as the South Pole

Tristan de Cunha

The range of the ground stations are under 1500 miles and I really don't know where people are getting the idea that the lasers don't work.

[Fischgericht]

"The range of the ground stations are under 1500 miles and I really don't know where people are getting the idea that the lasers don't work."

Maybe because v1 and v2 did not even have working lasers on the hardware level...?

The idea is coming from "reality", Starlinks own reporting, industry talks, tech press etc.

Anyway, to shorten this we can agree that we have different definitions of what one expects from having a dedicate backbone. I would expect seamless handover amongst other things, which I have never ever seen, and unless you show me a video recording of a 24h Starlink session with MTR running I simply will trust the data I have over a random claim.

As said elsewhere in this thread: It is extremely hard to find detailed benchmarks from happy Starlink users. Next to all positive content is paid content. And a quick look at trustpilot & co clearly hint that there a huge chunk of Starlink customers might be unhappy. And even if it's just because their online gaming sessions getting interrupted on every Sat hand-over, which exists in reality, but not in your mind :)

Seriously, if you have access to any benchmark data sources, please gimme. I'm not here for "winning" an argument. Data, Data, Data.

[inemesitaffia]

I've pointed out where you can get the data from a professor.

You can also fly to one of the many Islands (or Iqaluit) I've mentioned and do your testing.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-laser-system-is-beaming...

It's quite fascinating, there's people who's only (or first) experience with Starlink is via lasers and there's people on the Internet who'll tell you it doesn't work (I forgot to mention Georgia and Kazakhstan)

You really will hear everything on the Internet.

[Fischgericht]

You are aware that you are giving more weight to photos done of a powerpoint presentation over actual data points?

Sorry, that's not a path I am willing to follow. Religion is not my cup of tea.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Maybe because v1 and v2 did not even have working lasers on the hardware level...?

Did those islands have Starlink until lasers?

[inemesitaffia]

He's pretending not to understand geography or distances.

I'm very fascinated especially given the existence of community gateways on several islands that can only be served by lasers regardless of the presence of ground stations.