The one thing I find iffy is that the current generation of Starlink Sats aren't supposed to do Sattelite to Satfelite communication, so the actual latency benefits around the globe aren't going to materialize the first couple of years. I'm really interested when they plan to have their service to be actually competitive latency-wise.
The latency will be about 20ms higher than a terrestrial pure fiber based internet customer in the same location as the earth stations. For example whatever the latency is from the north bend WA site to downtown Seattle (a few milliseconds) plus 20ms. This is a considerable improvement over the absolute bare minimum rtt ping time on a Geostationary based VSAT which is 492ms.
There are a lot of terrestrial wireline last mile access technologies that already introduce 15-25ms latency on the last mile segment. Such as ADSL2+ on old POTS copper wiring or a heavily loaded docsis3 cable network. That is just from the home modem to the neighborhood's closest network node.
Absolutely, huge improvement, i'm just looking forward to the times when actual intercontinental latencies are LOWER than typical terrestrial connections.
Most DOCSIS 3 cable internet connections I've tested are under 10 ms round trip to the gateway. With consumer fiber, it's usually under 5 ms. These are far better than anything SpaceX will do.
PC gamers will want wired internet. Everyone else could probably do with deal with 80 ms without even noticing, so SpaceX will be very successful as long as it's affordable and reliable.
For some remote places that may not matter as much. For example in the rural Rocky Mountains you are limited on internet options. This could still be much needed competition.
