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Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

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Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#361

Post by TulliusCicero »

strbean wrote: post #200
TulliusCicero wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if we restrict the subsidy to farmers and others where we need them to live in rural areas, that's fine.

But not the educators teaching the farmer's kids, or the doctors and nurses treating their wounds? What about the clerks at the grocery store serving those farmers? The liquor store? Trying to create an elaborate regulatory regime to decide who is justified to live in a rural area is absurd and a waste of money. Especially considering that most people living in rural areas are either employed in a necessary industry…

> But not the educators teaching the farmer's kids, or the doctors and nurses treating their wounds? What about the clerks at the grocery store serving those farmers? The liquor store?

They can be in a small town in the region, which is where the school and liquor store probably already are.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#362

Post by TulliusCicero »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #240
TulliusCicero wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a social democrat, I'm fine with subsidies in general, I just want them to be applied intelligently. Spending a lot of money to subsidize someone's lifestyle that's intentionally inefficient isn't smart. I'm all for helping the poor, but we should do it in a way that gets us a lot of bang for the buck.

Yes all of the farmers should move to the cities.

No, but many rural people could live in small towns.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#363

Post by TulliusCicero »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #229
TulliusCicero wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a social democrat, I'm fine with subsidies in general, I just want them to be applied intelligently. Spending a lot of money to subsidize someone's lifestyle that's intentionally inefficient isn't smart. I'm all for helping the poor, but we should do it in a way that gets us a lot of bang for the buck.

Having grown up in rural Kansas and now being an urban tech worker, I think you have a derogatory and ignorant view on people who live rurally.

You're welcome to believe that, but if you provide only insults and no reasoning it's pretty hard to take you seriously.

Especially when you threw out some lame strawman about Somalia. Surely you can do better than that?

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#364

Post by infinitewars »

mattmaroon wrote: post #360
infinitewars wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at just the satellites, the build + launch costs are about $2.5M ea, which is impressive to be sure. But they only last 5 years, so that's $500k per year replacement costs. Then if you look at their capacity, they still can't meet their FCC / RDOF broadband designation speeds, but let's be generous and say they can serve 1000 simultaneous users per satellite (their current ratio, let's say it's good enoug…

I live in a city. Like a large number of Americans, I had one broadband provider available for 20 years. (Something like 75% of us have 1 or 2). The price was high and the service was bad. I struggled to reliably achieve 20mbs at $80/mo. Starlink is better than that, and it’s millions of people. 5g home internet is slow to spread here too. Their market is large.

Yes and unless you're paying Starlink say $300/mo, they are taking a loss to serve you internet. Cities are especially difficult for them because more users are in the same spot beam so everyone shares the spectrum and they need even lower oversubscription ratios.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#365

Post by infinitewars »

panick21_ wrote: post #319
infinitewars wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink's main goal isn't consumer internet, it's being the backbone for Golden Dome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dome_(missile_defense_s...

Man this dumb conspiracy again ...

This is widely reported and documented, including by Reuters,

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/musks-spa...

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#366

Post by vablings »

sandworm101 wrote: post #298
modeless wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have it exactly backwards. It is far less complex and expensive and resource intensive to build Starlink than to run a new copper or fiber line with associated telecom equipment on both sides to every rural residence in the US, let alone worldwide. Yes, despite the large cost of launching satellites. And it's especially good that we don't have to force everyone to subsidize inefficient monopoly utilities with our…

Maybe today, but internet over radio cannot defeat physics. There is only so much bandwidth, so much space in the RF spectrum for data. But landline internet is effectively limitless. You can always lay a second, or twentieth, fiber run. A 10cm bundle of fibers can carry more bandwidth than the entire starlink network many times over, with much lower running costs. The most effective in rural areas is generally a com…

You can beat the physics here though. There are several techniques in signal processing and beam forming that can be used to make insane high-speed transmissions, the days of geostationary broadcast for all radio traffic are over when it comes to advanced radio communication.

Radio technology is truly the closes thing to black magic. I wish there were more places to learn and read outside of an EE degree

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#368

Post by shagie »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #362
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes all of the farmers should move to the cities.

No, but many rural people could live in small towns.

The 80 year old house on a woodlot that a teacher is living in should be closed so they can buy a more expensive one in town?

This isn't (all) new construction of people deciding to cast off the shackles of urban living and shoveling sidewalks and deciding to move out into the more rural parts of the state... but rather people living in houses that are 50 or more years old that their parents passed on to them.

These are houses that were built in the early to mid part of the previous century that had two wires running - one for power, one for phone.

The idea that because you are not-farmer you should live in a city seems quite prescriptive.

People are living in rural parts of the country not because of the convinces of urban living, but rather because that's where they can afford to buy an old house and even with the additional utility costs (buying propane, septic, well) it is still less expensive than trying to buy a new construction house in the suburbs.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#369

Post by ACCount37 »

rob74 wrote: post #311
andrewharvey wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this. Except it's no longer only in rural areas, grid connected utilities are now costing more than being off grid in the cities too. Starlink residential 100 Mbps is cheaper ($69/mo AUD) (ignoring hardware and setup costs) than 50 Mbps fixed line internet ($80/mo AUD). Depending on location, home solar + batteries will usually work out cheaper than being on the grid within the battery warranty period too.

The question that comes up then is: how much traffic can Starlink handle until it gets saturated? I'm not sure it can handle even a significant percentage of the users that currently use wired connectivity. And if they see that demand for their services starts overwhelming supply, they will definitely raise the prices...

Starlink has, essentially, fixed capacity per area. Thus, sparsely placed rural users are "cheap" to Starlink.

Densely placed city users would strain the system, but cities also favor wired connectivity.

That makes the two complimentary. Wired makes the most sense in urban formations, satcom makes the most sense in Bum Fuck Nowhere.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#370

Post by theultdev »

LoganDark wrote: post #267
theultdev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people concerned with that hypothetical can use a VPN. At most they could see domains, ip addresses, timestamps, and http-only sites (are there any left?) But the person sitting next to you can see everything.

> But the person sitting next to you can see everything. Privacy filters are a thing.

you're literally an inch away from someone.

they are essentially looking head on at it.

that may work for business class, but not economy.

privacy filters aren't magic.

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