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SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

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Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#91

Post by londons_explore »

rvnx wrote: post #80
kilroy123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I mostly agree with you, as I too have traveled a lot (I've been to all 7 continents). I've been to many places with very poor internet. Still, I think you're missing one very important point. The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. Just how they use the iridium constellation, only phone calls aren't enough in the 2020 and beyond. They need the same system but w…

About the DoD, I think Starlink will be beneficial as UAVs will be able to stream with less latency and higher quality, which eventually means better targeted democracy.

"targeted democracy", my new favourite phrase of the day

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#92

Post by aaron695 »

MrLeap wrote: post #76

A lot of these comments read kind of like the ones when dropbox did a ShowHN. "Why not just use rsync?" I suspect starlink will change the course of human history in substantial ways. It already stands to be the most positive technological development for my life since I've been living. At the very least, until the market adjusts, it will provide a verdant field of lifestyle arbitrage.

Worse than 'dropbox'

There are 3 billion people without internet. It's not a human right, but it's the next tier.

There's a clear path to hooking many of these people up. For instance aid organisations. Unlike installing the scam computer labs where they can just forget upkeep and training, it's known upfront costs they have to be accountable for. And better, small businesses like cafes.

But the 1% are worried it might make their stars look less authentic and their bored ultrarich reddit life needs drama.

Because in reality they don't want to actually go to space and be with the stars, screw that tech of cheap launches and using space, it's just about the books and TV and the appearance.

People are both awful to others and so uninspiring as a default setting.

[edit] For the Flagged reply, it's not logical. The now is a mass of high entropy. The battle forward is already reducing that. This is about caring about their healthcare as human beings for instance, not their crappy Facebook posts. We are about to be hit by AI to mass spam us all, can't you see that? I understand the 'I like real stars' and 'nice conversations', but this is bigger than that. They are people.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#93

Post by canadianfella »

clon wrote: post #51

As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I'm biased against the massive cost of the StarLink pollution fleet to our ability to gaze at the wonders above. I think the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a much higher priority project for humanity, than StarLink. That said, I think Elon needs to travel the world a little more. Several of his attempts to solve purported world-relevant issues may be founded in limitation…

Show me your self driving rickshaw.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#94

Post by londons_explore »

adventured wrote: post #69
kilroy123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I mostly agree with you, as I too have traveled a lot (I've been to all 7 continents). I've been to many places with very poor internet. Still, I think you're missing one very important point. The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. Just how they use the iridium constellation, only phone calls aren't enough in the 2020 and beyond. They need the same system but w…

> The math just doesn't add up. Can you demonstrate that math in a comprehensive manner? I've seen this kind of claim repeated frequently and it's never supported. > The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. The biggest user of Starlink by an extreme margin will be consumers. It won't be a close comparison. There will be at least a million consumers eventually using Sta…

From a business perspective, what matters is $'s, not Gbps.

I'm pretty sure the US military will be paying more $'s than any other country's people.

And it'll be used for being able to fly drones with weapons to kill anyone in the world in 30 mins. With that ability, you can decommission a lot of aircraft carriers and spend that cash on decent connectivity for your drone fleets...

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#95

Post by viraptor »

adventured wrote: post #69
kilroy123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I mostly agree with you, as I too have traveled a lot (I've been to all 7 continents). I've been to many places with very poor internet. Still, I think you're missing one very important point. The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. Just how they use the iridium constellation, only phone calls aren't enough in the 2020 and beyond. They need the same system but w…

> The math just doesn't add up. Can you demonstrate that math in a comprehensive manner? I've seen this kind of claim repeated frequently and it's never supported. > The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. The biggest user of Starlink by an extreme margin will be consumers. It won't be a close comparison. There will be at least a million consumers eventually using Sta…

I'm also curious about specific math.

But I think the DoD billing would be different than you describe. Specifically, even if they're not pushing GBs of video all the time, they'd be paying a lot for guaranteed bandwidth at any time. Pure speculation on my side though - mostly based on seeing overinflated requirement docs.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#96

Post by tonyarkles »

clon wrote: post #51

As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I'm biased against the massive cost of the StarLink pollution fleet to our ability to gaze at the wonders above. I think the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a much higher priority project for humanity, than StarLink. That said, I think Elon needs to travel the world a little more. Several of his attempts to solve purported world-relevant issues may be founded in limitation…

> ...jungles of Cambodia, trekked across Myanmar, stayed in villages of central Iran, driven across the deserts North Africa. Never have I felt deprived on good connectivity, even in the deserts of Iran.

That makes me even more grouchy about my current situation :D

You don't have to get too far off a major highway in rural Saskatchewan to have miserable connectivity. You can generally connect to an LTE tower, but between the distance to the tower and how oversold they are, it's a total crapshoot as to whether you'll actually be able to use it. Because the towns are too far away from the switches, the only wireline connectivity you're going to get is 56K dial-up (maybe only 33.6K...).

When they announced the "Better Than Nothing" Beta, I was very excited because "Better Than Nothing" is "Better Than What I've Got" at our rural spot most days.

Edit: I missed your comment in the middle there:

> How is it that in rural US there is no alternative to satellite internet?

Well, the RM (~= county) we're in has a land area of 336 sq.mi. and a population of 275 people (0.8 people/sq.mi.) I have no idea what the population density is like in the Cambodian jungle, but looking at a table in Wikipedia suggests that the least-dense province has about 6 people/km^2 compared to our 0.3/km^2. It's just really really uneconomical to build out wireline service.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#97

Post by bob33212 »

MrLeap wrote: post #76

A lot of these comments read kind of like the ones when dropbox did a ShowHN. "Why not just use rsync?" I suspect starlink will change the course of human history in substantial ways. It already stands to be the most positive technological development for my life since I've been living. At the very least, until the market adjusts, it will provide a verdant field of lifestyle arbitrage.

It is infrastructure expansion. Just like if someone built an electric grid or new road. Plenty of people may be happy with their existing roads, but making a new one opens up opportunities to people who do want to use the new infrastructure.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#98

Post by londons_explore »

dkarp wrote: post #64
darkhorn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Starlink's main customer the USA army?

Early on there was also a lot of talk about High Frequency Trading firms being a prime customer. Once they have inter-satellite laser links, the latency over large distances can be significantly less than via undersea fiberoptic cables. I believe this is to do with the difference in speed of light in the cable and also indirect path that light takes as it bounces along a cable. Over inter-continental distances, the b…

Laser links can bring in the HFT traders, but having laser links might lock starlink out of some markets.

Some governments would be happy to let a foreign company run internet services for their people if they can guarantee the data must flow through a ground station within the country. If the satellites have lasers though, the government cannot guarantee that, and therefore may ban the service entirely.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#99

Post by bloopernova »

MrLeap wrote: post #76

A lot of these comments read kind of like the ones when dropbox did a ShowHN. "Why not just use rsync?" I suspect starlink will change the course of human history in substantial ways. It already stands to be the most positive technological development for my life since I've been living. At the very least, until the market adjusts, it will provide a verdant field of lifestyle arbitrage.

RE: Starlink changing the course of human history.

Exactly. We've already seen Russian authorities say that people will be arrested for using Starlink. All of a sudden, governments have lost the ability to shut off the internet without some serious jamming.

Just thinking of the post-disaster communications potential is pretty staggering.

(I feel compelled to mention that I'm not a "fan" of Elon Musk.)

I'd love to see a multi-link mesh appear across the world, with Starlink stations, wifi, 4/5G, fibre and cable, etc etc. I honestly think that basic low-broadband speeds should be free to everyone in the world, and so should the ability to serve up content from a cheap Raspberry Pi.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#100

Post by HenryKissinger »

aaron695 wrote: post #92
MrLeap wrote: post #76

A lot of these comments read kind of like the ones when dropbox did a ShowHN. "Why not just use rsync?" I suspect starlink will change the course of human history in substantial ways. It already stands to be the most positive technological development for my life since I've been living. At the very least, until the market adjusts, it will provide a verdant field of lifestyle arbitrage.

Worse than 'dropbox' There are 3 billion people without internet. It's not a human right, but it's the next tier. There's a clear path to hooking many of these people up. For instance aid organisations. Unlike installing the scam computer labs where they can just forget upkeep and training, it's known upfront costs they have to be accountable for. And better, small businesses like cafes. But the 1% are worried it mig…

> There are 3 billion people without internet. It's not a human right, but it's the next tier.

The half of humanity without an Internet access is for the most part poor and uneducated people from third world countries.

I don't want these people on the Internet.

The state of online discourse outside of tightly moderated niche communities like HN is already awful. Cranks, bigots, conspiracists, and other trashy people abound. And that's with only the top half of humanity having access to the Internet.

If the other half gets access then I see no choice but to balkanize the Internet into walled communities. Any discussion forum worth reading will become invite-only and be locked behind layers of passwords and access gates.

Anyone with an Internet connection can google "HN" and land on this page.

Now you're going to have 3 billion mostly illiterate people roaming the web, opening Facebook groups, posting anything that's on their mind on any forum they can.

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