Live data from Hacker News

Oh, 2022

antipope.org

281–290 of 557 posts

Re: Oh, 2022

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go as far as to say that Starlink is now so good i honestly believe it's going to change the other industries and not just its own. As an example I've been looking at properties outside of suburbia since testing a friends Starlink terminal. I know i can get proper broadband on par with cable anywhere. It's changed my personal long term future plans. I think it's going to change a lot of things.

Question: How is starlink going to be a game changer in ways publicly funded infrastructure (either traditional cables or cables + 5G towers) aren’t? Your anecdote doesn’t really cover “game changer” since land outside of suburbia is pretty either scarce, big and expensive, underdeveloped, etc. and not many people want to live there (and I doubt fast broadband is the only thing holding people back). I honestly don’t…

Our experience differs from your view. We recently moved from the Bay Area to the Sierra Foothills, near Sonora. There is plenty of land with homes already in place, as well as land suitable for new construction. Land is available in sizes from 10,000 sq. ft. lots to 1,200 acres and everywhere in between. Electricity, propane, and water are commonly available. As a rule of thumb, prices are ~0.25xthe Bay Area.

Although Comcast is a thing in town, most of the otherwise eminently suitable locations have no cable access. The choices are old-style satellite or Starlink.

We have met an increasing number of people who have left the Bay Area and moved to our area. Nearly all of these are remote tech workers. They have generally held their noses and signed up for geosynchronous satellite while waiting for their Starlink service. Those who have transitioned to Starlink are very happy they made the move when they did.

I think Starlink will prove useful to so many people that it will increase pricing for rural real estate.

Re: Oh, 2022

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: How is starlink going to be a game changer in ways publicly funded infrastructure (either traditional cables or cables + 5G towers) aren’t? Your anecdote doesn’t really cover “game changer” since land outside of suburbia is pretty either scarce, big and expensive, underdeveloped, etc. and not many people want to live there (and I doubt fast broadband is the only thing holding people back). I honestly don’t…

there are a number of rural areas in the USA that politically show very low likelihood of getting something like a proper last mile broadband service built by wireline infrastructure any time soon (fiber and GPON or active ethernet). some rural counties in eastern WA are the exception.

Under-served rural areas in the USA tend to be pretty poor, and as is starlink (or starlink-like) internet is pretty expensive both for the service fee and hardware requirements. Perhaps the price will come down as operators proliferate and this will be affordable for these communities. But I still fail to see how this is a game changer.

Serving these communities with traditional infrastructure and maybe a 5G tower is very possible today, and frankly not that expensive for a country like USA. I think you undercount the political feasibility a bit. Politicians in the USA make a huge buzz about serving rural communities, infrastructure is a political buzzword at the moment. A good politician could easily capitalize on rural broadband. They don’t even have to be that well intentioned since they could take some lobby money from the telecom companies and bid out the infrastructure build out with conveniently specific requirements for contractors their family just so happens to own stock in.

Re: Oh, 2022

#283
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t starlink internet connection expensive atm? $99 per month plus one time h/w costs?

I pay like $94/month for DSL in a rural area. That includes a (mandatory) land line, and I'm "guaranteed" 10/1 Mbps--which I don't get. The only other options, until Starlink launches in my area, are traditional satellites. My neighbor previously had one of those, and he had an 8GB cap per MONTH. Plus the ping time averaged like 600ms. I'm not even mad about the price of $94. Internet is way, way worth it. The qualit…

the economics of consumer grade oversubscribed geostationary are terrible - it costs something like $200 million to build and launch a 5500 kg satellite into geo orbit, it'll almost certainly die in 15 years (Standard lifespan), and its aggregate capacity is TINY

actual dedicated 1:1 geostationary network capacity costs at a minimum $1600 per Mbps per month each direction (eg: 2 Mbps down x 0.5 Mbps up circuit would easily be $3500/mo)

Re: Oh, 2022

#284

Regarding spacex in this, my starlink terminal recently hit a milestone of 0.00% ICMP loss to terrestrial ISP things in the pacific northwest. Averaged over 5, 6 hour periods. 20 icmp pings every 60s, basically a default smokeping install set to once a minute. Previously it was running somewhere around 0.15% to 0.60% which was still totally usable... if you put a similar test setup on a noisy/oversubscribed coaxial c…

I'll go as far as to say that Starlink is now so good i honestly believe it's going to change the other industries and not just its own. As an example I've been looking at properties outside of suburbia since testing a friends Starlink terminal. I know i can get proper broadband on par with cable anywhere. It's changed my personal long term future plans. I think it's going to change a lot of things.

What are the chances of Starlink getting worse as adoption grows and available bandwidth gets saturated?

Re: Oh, 2022

#286

Asking because I have no idea - Will other mRNA vaccines have short-lived efficacy like the covid one does? Will you need an AIDS vaccine booster every six months?

I don't think it's quite accurate to say the existing mRNA vaccines are not effective, because the rate of hospitalization and rate of ICU admissions per capita for double-vaccinated people, vs unvaccinated people is really clear. The data is showing that the likelihood of severe illness in a delta or omicron-infected person who previously had both doses of vaccine is significantly less. https://jamanetwork.com/journ…

Not ineffective, but far less effective than what was promised and expected. They're helpful, it's true.

Re: Oh, 2022

#287

Regarding politics, information overflow, and general increase in lunacy. To put it simply, it was expected the level of noise and sensation will rise after smartphones emerged. Loud lunacy seems to be a great way to catch public attention currently and this is well understood by both the media, politicians and vegabonds of wealth. Sensational journalism was always a problem, now add to that billions of people able t…

> You don't have to follow news, politics and social media

But what about the hundreds of millions that don't opt out, and spawn the lunacy?

Re: Oh, 2022

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are a number of rural areas in the USA that politically show very low likelihood of getting something like a proper last mile broadband service built by wireline infrastructure any time soon (fiber and GPON or active ethernet). some rural counties in eastern WA are the exception.

Under-served rural areas in the USA tend to be pretty poor, and as is starlink (or starlink-like) internet is pretty expensive both for the service fee and hardware requirements. Perhaps the price will come down as operators proliferate and this will be affordable for these communities. But I still fail to see how this is a game changer. Serving these communities with traditional infrastructure and maybe a 5G tower i…

that's true in terms of average income, but $110/mo USD for starlink is about the same as a 20GB quota per month consumer geostationary service that is absolutely a terrible and miserable experience (viasat/wildblue/hughesnet etc). Or at most, $10-20 more per month.

Re: Oh, 2022

#289
post #163
post #61

> low-lying coastal nations like Bangladesh And lots of other places. About 1 billion people live along coastlines at 20 meters or less above sea level, and 200 million at 5 meters or less. I live in a wealthy country but well within the 5 meters range and am already having to think about whether it wouldn't be more prudent to sell my house today, now that it's still worth something, and emigrate to somewhere with a…

That's the point, isn't it: all those things aren't exactly equal. You likely don't even really have to worry about selling your house now...worst case you loose equity and move someplace else. Personally traumatic & unpleasant, but not exactly the end of the world. Here in the US, I expect people in Miami and Boston and NYC to be partying right up until the point the water laps up against their front door, and then…

So global warming solved by nuclear winter?

Re: Oh, 2022

#290

Regarding spacex in this, my starlink terminal recently hit a milestone of 0.00% ICMP loss to terrestrial ISP things in the pacific northwest. Averaged over 5, 6 hour periods. 20 icmp pings every 60s, basically a default smokeping install set to once a minute. Previously it was running somewhere around 0.15% to 0.60% which was still totally usable... if you put a similar test setup on a noisy/oversubscribed coaxial c…

That's awesome! On Starlink in Mendocino county (CA) (in the woods), I'm still dropping out for a few seconds every couple of minutes. Fine for calls, Netflix, and browsing, but most video games will boot me whenever they happen. Some streaming services seem to buffer far less than others. Disney+ seems to stop playing the moment it can't phone home.

Admittedly, most of my trouble is probably caused by the 70 meter coastal redwood on the western horizon. The network isn't quite dense enough yet that I can get a satellite visible at all times amongst the trees. It's just a bit sad, as the Starlink app reports like 95% clear sky. You really do need 100%.

Post reply on HN