The main point of inter-satellite links is to provide coverage to areas beyond single-hop (subscriber to satellite to ground station) coverage. (Theoretically they can also be used to provide extremely low latency intercontinental routing, but for most traffic, the goal would be to minimize routing in space.)

Since the entire constellation is known a priori, all paths can be precomputed centrally, just like in a non-moving network, and that routing information can then be propagated to terminals and satellites. There’s no need to dynamically make complex “mesh” routing decisions at the edge.

802.11r controls faster key exchanges in 802.11 roaming scenarios – what’s the relation to satellite ISPs?

It seems like you have some axe to grind with Starlink and are collecting evidence through that lens.

I think we are simply talking about two different things here.

I mentioned 802.11r not due to the key exchange implementation details, but to point to the general point: Seamless handover requires shared state between cells.

This is not about static vs dynamic routing, you are thinking on the wrong layer here. We are in L1+L2 land.

On Starlink, the last time I tested a handover between two Sats in 2025 still involves a downtime of at least 5 seconds, and both L2 info and NAT state being lost.

In regards of axes: I am not much into emotions. Of course the data says that Elon Musk is the cancel cell that will play a huge part in destroying the western civilization. But as I do not like the western civilization and humans in general much, this does not trigger much emotions.

And even if I hated Elon Musk: We are talking about technology, R&D and implementation details here (which I enjoy!). I do not have emotions on IP protocols and such :)

No, in reality it's really very simple: My data says that Starlink just is not worth it. It is not commercially feasible. It pollutes the space with tons of trash that will harm productive future space missions and projects. It's highly overrated and overhyped. It's very hard to find positive reviews that haven't been paid for.

Or, executive summary: Starlink is a dead end, and without the Elon cult nobody after looking at a hypothetical business plan would invest.

And finally: Anecdotical evidence collected from my own tests and those of friends all says: It's just shitty. However: That of course depends on your use case. For some an 8 seconds drop-out might mean "patient dead". For others it might be "I will retry loading this after grabbing a cup of coffee". My peer group might have higher standards than others.

Of course Sat internet has its place as a niche business. But as you surely are aware in the US it was and is tried to steal tax money meant to build fiber by claiming Starlink would be equivalent. And you might also remember that if someone would not have pulled the emergency break, you know would have air traffic controllers seeing planes with 100ms+ of latency AND every now and then losing contact to all airplanes for 8 seconds.

And all of this has been tried before. Over in Europe, we 10 years ago had those fights where Viasat & co claimed to be an alternative when we got the "basic human right to broadband".