Glossary: gaming and TV terms on Starlink

Network and gaming

Ping (latency): The round-trip time for a small packet to reach a server and come back, in milliseconds (ms). Lower is better. Games show it in the scoreboard or network stats.
Jitter: How much ping changes from one moment to the next. Steady 50 ms often feels better than ping that jumps between 25 and 90 ms.
Packet loss: Packets that never arrive. Even 1–2% shows up in games as rubber-banding, missed shots or voice chat cutting out.
Rubber-banding: Your character snapping back to an earlier spot because the game server and your console briefly disagreed. Caused by loss or spikes, not by low speed.
Tick rate: How many times a second a game server updates the match. Higher tick rates make ping and spikes more noticeable.
Matchmaking region: The server area a game puts you in (US East, US Central, US West…). Ping depends on the distance to that server, not just on your internet.
Dedicated server: A game server run by the publisher. Most big online shooters, sports and battle royale games use them, so your home network setup matters less.
Peer-to-peer (P2P): Players connect directly to each other, or one player hosts. P2P games are where NAT type matters most.
NAT: Network Address Translation: how a router lets many devices share one internet address. Consoles grade how reachable you are as a NAT type.
NAT type: Xbox says Open, Moderate or Strict; PlayStation says Type 1, 2 or 3; Nintendo Switch grades A to F. Stricter types can block some party chats, lobbies or hosting.
CGNAT (carrier-grade NAT): When an internet provider shares one public IPv4 address among many customers. You can’t forward ports through it, which is why hosting from home is hard on it.
IPv4 and IPv6: Two versions of internet addresses. IPv4 addresses are scarce and often shared; IPv6 gives each device its own public address, and some consoles and games can use it.
UPnP: Universal Plug and Play: lets a console ask the router to open the ports it needs automatically. It helps with your own router’s NAT, not with a provider’s CGNAT.
Port forwarding: Manually telling a router to send certain incoming traffic to one device. It needs a public address to work from the internet.
Bypass mode: A Starlink router setting that turns off its Wi-Fi and routing so your own router can take over.
Ethernet (wired): A cable from router to console or PC. Removes Wi-Fi as a source of lag and loss; the single best fix for most gaming problems.
Cloud gaming: The game runs on a data-center computer and streams to your screen like video, while your button presses travel back. Needs steady speed and low ping.

Satellite

Low Earth orbit (LEO): Satellites a few hundred miles up, like Starlink’s. The short distance is why ping can be in the tens of milliseconds.
Geostationary (GEO): Satellites about 22,000 miles above the equator that appear fixed in the sky. Satellite TV (DISH, DIRECTV) and older satellite internet use them; the distance adds about half a second of ping.
Obstruction: Anything (trees, roofs, chimneys) that blocks part of the dish’s view of the sky. Obstructions cause short dropouts, which games feel as disconnects.
Network congestion: Many users in an area sharing capacity at once, typically in the evening. Starlink gives some plans higher priority than others when that happens.

TV and streaming

Live TV streaming service: A cable-style channel bundle delivered over the internet (YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, Fubo, DIRECTV Stream). The industry term is vMVPD.
Local channels: Your market’s ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS stations. Streaming services carry many of them; an antenna gets them over the air.
Over-the-air (OTA): Free broadcast TV picked up with an antenna. Uses no internet data.
ATSC 3.0 (NEXTGEN TV): The newer US broadcast standard that some stations now use alongside the old one. It needs a compatible TV or tuner.
Cloud DVR: Recordings kept on the streaming service’s servers instead of a box at home. Playback uses internet data like any stream.
Regional sports network (RSN): A channel that carries local pro teams. Availability on streaming services varies by market.
Blackout: A game you can’t watch on a service in your area, usually because a local channel or another service has the rights.
Bitrate: How much data a stream sends each second, in Mbps. 4K uses several times more than HD.
Mbps vs GB: Mbps is speed (megabits per second); GB is an amount of data (gigabytes). One hour at 8 Mbps is about 3.6 GB.