I work remotely and use a starlink mini for work and general internet usage since I road trip in the summer a lot. For work I'm not using doing RDP/remote desktop stuff since I have a company-issued laptop, but I have some experience using it to stream graphics-intensive games from my home PC with a nice GPU to my phone with a mobile controller attached to it.
I saw around 50-100ms of latency in ideal conditions with a clear view of the sky. There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
I think the latency would be fine for working, but it will hardly be transparent. When using it to play games, I've mostly stuck to stuff that doesn't require fast responses or parry mechanics, etc.
Even without RDP-ing into another workstation, the latency spikes on video calls can be noticeable. Moment-to-moment video conferencing latency is totally fine, given that most of the major players in the space have pretty good latency compensation baked in.
A few details/complications:
- I'm usually within ~500 miles of my home, which is relevant because starlink satellites communicate with ground stations, and being closer to home will still have a meaningful impact on latency
- host PC is on a wired fiber connection
- I live relatively far north (~65N) and starlink's network isn't biased toward polar orbiting satellites, so my coverage probaby isn't representative of behavior further south. You can see a map of satellites and note the relatively poor arctic and subarctic region coverage here: https://satellitemap.space/
>There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
The satellites are in Low Earth Orbit and zipping across the sky at an extremely high rate of speed. If you were in the middle of absolutely flat nowhere-land, you could maybe get a few minutes on a single satellite before it goes over the horizon, not 30 minutes.
Agree that it's only a few mins per satellite, but interestingly I've noticed this pause every now and then (and 30mins seems around what I've noticed) in New Zealand. The latency just spikes and sometimes connections are lost for a brief period then suddenly everything comes right again. Curious why that happens. However it's one reason why I still recommend fibre or 5G if it is availiable as both seem to be more reliable than Starlink.
I work remotely and use a starlink mini for work and general internet usage since I road trip in the summer a lot. For work I'm not using doing RDP/remote desktop stuff since I have a company-issued laptop, but I have some experience using it to stream graphics-intensive games from my home PC with a nice GPU to my phone with a mobile controller attached to it.
I saw around 50-100ms of latency in ideal conditions with a clear view of the sky. There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
I think the latency would be fine for working, but it will hardly be transparent. When using it to play games, I've mostly stuck to stuff that doesn't require fast responses or parry mechanics, etc.
Even without RDP-ing into another workstation, the latency spikes on video calls can be noticeable. Moment-to-moment video conferencing latency is totally fine, given that most of the major players in the space have pretty good latency compensation baked in.
A few details/complications:
- I'm usually within ~500 miles of my home, which is relevant because starlink satellites communicate with ground stations, and being closer to home will still have a meaningful impact on latency
- host PC is on a wired fiber connection
- I live relatively far north (~65N) and starlink's network isn't biased toward polar orbiting satellites, so my coverage probaby isn't representative of behavior further south. You can see a map of satellites and note the relatively poor arctic and subarctic region coverage here: https://satellitemap.space/
>There are distinct large latency spikes every 30ish minutes, which I think is due to the dish switching between different satellites.
The satellites are in Low Earth Orbit and zipping across the sky at an extremely high rate of speed. If you were in the middle of absolutely flat nowhere-land, you could maybe get a few minutes on a single satellite before it goes over the horizon, not 30 minutes.
Agree that it's only a few mins per satellite, but interestingly I've noticed this pause every now and then (and 30mins seems around what I've noticed) in New Zealand. The latency just spikes and sometimes connections are lost for a brief period then suddenly everything comes right again. Curious why that happens. However it's one reason why I still recommend fibre or 5G if it is availiable as both seem to be more reliable than Starlink.