On 1/6/20 2:42 PM, Sabri Berisha wrote:
----- On Jan 6, 2020, at 1:44 PM, Michael Thomas mike@mtcc.com wrote:
Hi,
On 1/6/20 1:21 PM, Sabri Berisha wrote:
Low Earth Orbit satellites do not have a fixed position and move in a low orbit. But at what cost to latency? Sounds like gamers would probably hate it. Oneweb claims 32ms average. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/onewebs-low-earth-sat...
This is one of the main advantages of LEO over geostationary. LEO is around 1,200 miles above the earth, GEO is around 22,000 miles above the earth. That's a big difference in latency. Remember that radio travels at the speed of light.
That translates to ~118ms for GEO, and 6.4ms for LEO (one way trip). That means that the round-trip latency without any transponder latency equals 12.8ms for a low earth orbit signal, compared to 236ms for a GEO signal. Big difference.
This is a good read perhaps: https://www.iridium.com/blog/2018/09/11/satellites-101-leo-vs-geo/
Yeah, I know the difference. GEO sucks mightily. But doesn't this have a lot to do with what your closest base station is, or is that insignificant in the face of 2400 miles up and down? I just checked with my provider and it's about 20ms first hop, which seems pretty high to me. And I wonder about jitter too since it's moving and handing off. Mike