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OneWeb’s low-Earth satellites hit 400Mbps and 32ms latency in new test
OneWeb says a test of its low-Earth orbit satellites has delivered broadband speeds of more than 400Mbps with average latency of 32ms.
"The tests, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, represent the most significant demonstration of the OneWeb constellation to date, proving its ability to provide superior broadband connectivity anywhere on the planet," OneWeb said in an announcement yesterday.
The company said it's on track toward creating "a fully functioning global constellation in 2021 and delivering partial service beginning as early as 2020." The test described yesterday involved six OneWeb satellites that were launched in February. OneWeb says its commercial network "will start with an initial 650 satellites and grow up to 1,980 satellites."
While the 32ms latency figure is an average, the 400Mbps result seems to be the peak speed delivered during the test. OneWeb said its test also demonstrated "seamless beam and satellite handovers; accurate antenna pointing and tracking; [and] live-streamed video at resolutions up to 1080p."
OneWeb originally promised service in Alaska "as early as 2019," but by February 2019 the company said it would only be able to provide customer demos by 2020.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday July 18 2019, @01:08PM (2 children)
Back in the 90s I was looking into TCP/IP over a satellite telephone network. For our constellation, if the bird was close to the horizon we were looking at 250 ms round trip just from the dish to bird to dish. Granted, there were 2 different dishes involved. But it didn't take much for the round trip to exceed 100 ms.
If they're going to get 32 ms that means they have a lot of satellites, which means a lot of handoffs, which will eat into your bandwidth. Also remember, just like wifi not all your bandwidth goes towards talking to grandma. The protocol itself is going to need some bandwidth to operate.
This will be fine for Netflix and such, but forget playing Call of Duty or Fortnight. Unless your goal is to keep your K/D ratio a low as possible.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday July 19 2019, @01:41AM (1 child)
DUDE
What altitude were the satellites orbiting at?
I don't think you get what has changed with these new constellations.
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(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday July 19 2019, @03:19AM
Not sure, but if memory serves horizon to horizon was something like 15 minutes. Definitely not Geo-synchronous.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.