The Starlink satellites orbit closer to the earth than other comms satellites (iridium, oneweb). Closer distance = faster times, in addition to laser links between sats and other spectrum differences.
Downside to lower orbit means they won't last as long (a few years) before they are pulled down into earth's atmo. Which is fine since their rocket company will just send up some more cheaply.
In theory, the laser links may bring Starlink below terrestrial latency for point to point communications beyond a certain distance. Light travels through fiber at 7/10ths of the speed of light, but pretty much the actual speed of light through a vacuum. Once you get past the 340km * 2 round trip on both ends, you're actually moving bits around much faster than is physically possible with fiber. Probably even faster than that considering that fiber optic backbone isn't a straight line between you and your destination.
Chances are, you, dear reader, will not get any of this sweet, sweet, low latency.
Most likely these laser links only go from each satellite to the one ahead and the one behind, in the same orbit. That is good enough. For example, there is an orbit that goes right over New York, London, and Hamburg.
Who wants low latency most is hedge funds. It would be surprising if Starlink did not make anyone who wants it pay through the nose to get traffic one millisecond faster than fiber, 100x that for 2ms, 100x that for 3ms, and on up for longer links. What they would really be buying is not so much getting their own packets N milliseconds ahead of the fiber crowd, which is OK, but rather for their slightly poorer competitors to get packets only N-1 milliseconds ahead, which is super-great.
In fintech, they like to say a microsecond is an eon, a millisecond an eternity. When they can get a millisecond jump on the competition, that can mean millions of dollars every day. So, they will pay it. Gladly.
So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years? What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up?
> So stupid question but I guess it isn't worth it to somehow push them up with small corrections/booster-like things? At least to save it for a few more years?
Yes, they send them up with a certain amount of propellant to do that, once that runs out they fall down.
> What happens when they fall? Do they more or less burn up?
Yes. They're small enough to burn up completely, and low enough to do that quickly rather than creating a space junk problem.
Downside to lower orbit means they won't last as long (a few years) before they are pulled down into earth's atmo. Which is fine since their rocket company will just send up some more cheaply.