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Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

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Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#61

Post by publicmenace »

shaklee3 wrote: post #49
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #7

So Starlink has been so effective and so popular that — utterly unsurprisingly — it is becoming more congested and they're raising rates. This is good news and not bad. It's a strong sign that the model fundamentally works and they will be able to fund continuous improvements to meet strong demand.

no, it's not a strong sign of that. it's a strong sign that with VC money and government money you can offer unrealistic service at unrealistic prices. but when you need to start showing that you are profitable and launching satellites to maintain the current network is also expensive, both your service and prices start to get more in line with what everybody else already had. The honeymoon phase of starlink is over.…

Almost all of Starlink’s competitors are completely dependent on government money. The FCC spends billions a year cutting checks to rural ISPs to subsidize them. The FCC took Starlink’s subsidies away because the Biden admin hates Musk now. But I think Musk will still beat many of these clown companies anyway.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#62

Post by eganist »

n8henrie wrote: post #57
LightHugger wrote: post #41

It went up only 10$ per month in congested areas, and went down by 20$ in uncongested areas. It's still 90$ if you are rural. They are trying to encourage against people using the service in urban congested areas. Starlink, at least right now, is not ideal for urban situations, that's not very surprising, maybe with newer gen sats capacity will raise, but if not, it's not an "unreliable luxury", it's still perfect fo…

$90 if you're rural?! I'm now going to be paying $120. I live in a small town on the Navajo reservation. We don't have postal service, many here don't even have running water or electricity. The alternative ISP is 6 mbps max. Any idea how I apply for this rural pricing?

Not sure where they got that figure; I just spot-checked a few rural homes in reservations and got back the same 120 figure you did.

Fingers crossed something exists for you though.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#63

Post by pastage »

daedalus_j wrote: post #34
Fatnino wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet 70+% of the money that ends up allocated will find its way into established isp pockets with absolutely nothing to show for it in return.

This is it exactly. I've got clients I work with in two federally recognized under-served areas that ISPs have gotten government grants for supporting. And yet, when you try and talk to the ISP about problems with the 2.5-down-.4-up DSL line they provide their literal reply is "You're lucky you have a dialtone." This is at a location 1.7 miles down the road from a school that has gigabit fiber. The existing programs…

I am guessing your are in an urban environment, if it is not too urban two miles is a great half year weekend project for laying fiber yourself.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#64

Post by chrisco255 »

Gigachad wrote: post #13
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #7

So Starlink has been so effective and so popular that — utterly unsurprisingly — it is becoming more congested and they're raising rates. This is good news and not bad. It's a strong sign that the model fundamentally works and they will be able to fund continuous improvements to meet strong demand.

If the area is that congested, it's probably in need of wired connections. All the customers suddenly leaving might push ISPs to upgrade their offerings in these areas rather than seeing the customers as a captive audience.

I'd love to believe that, but having seen my parents own street overlooked by cable providers for two decades despite the fact that it's no longer rural and surrounded by tens of thousands of suburban households that have mowed down all the orange groves and cow pastures, they still do not have cable internet as an option in 2023.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#65

Post by chrisco255 »

anaganisk wrote: post #36
huevosabio wrote: post #14

I have Starlink in an Airbnb in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. It has been a blessing. It used to be that we had to deal with either cell carrier 4G wifi or wait until the phone company would finally extend service one block away from its current service area. Even if you had access to either, both solutions were pretty bad. They were so unreliable that some coworking spaces had *three* providers: "broadband", 4G, and old…

I'm pretty sure you can't just launch satellites into orbit randomly without govt blessing it or stream data to ground stations legally (Eg: India doesn't like satellite phones), at a certain point Starlink could itself be the monopoly you dread.

Doubt it since there will probably always be lower latency and higher reliability on fiber connections.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#66

Post by lazide »

anaganisk wrote: post #36
huevosabio wrote: post #14

I have Starlink in an Airbnb in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. It has been a blessing. It used to be that we had to deal with either cell carrier 4G wifi or wait until the phone company would finally extend service one block away from its current service area. Even if you had access to either, both solutions were pretty bad. They were so unreliable that some coworking spaces had *three* providers: "broadband", 4G, and old…

I'm pretty sure you can't just launch satellites into orbit randomly without govt blessing it or stream data to ground stations legally (Eg: India doesn't like satellite phones), at a certain point Starlink could itself be the monopoly you dread.

Well, you CAN do all of those things - until a gov’t comes knocking anyway.

Paperwork isn’t required to launch a rocket, just to not get arrested later when they try to find who did it.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#67

Post by chrisco255 »

dougmwne wrote: post #6

We have a cottage where we are considering getting starlink at. This service still seems like a game changer to me. If 4g is also available, running a router with dual-wan sounds like a great option to mitigate connection dropouts. We will try that. If you’re really serious about living in the back of beyond and your income depends on your ability to be on zoom calls, then it’s a small price to pay.

I do full time RV. I basically do this. I have a 4G router and the starlink. I just switch to 4g during the rare times the Starlink is slow. It works great.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#68

Post by runarberg »

steponlego wrote: post #59
ianlevesque wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last-mile rural electrification will never reach everybody in the USA. It's just too many people to service. Roosevelt would've mandated free service for the poor for all new startups, among other considerations which would have made making a new a rural electrical utility a complete non-starter. If you want Electricity, you can pay for it.

Many rural areas do not have power and never will.

But they still need internet?

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#69

Post by stametseater »

I don't think Starlink is commercially viable in the long run unless Starship starts flying regularly. With Starship operational, maintaining a constellation of tens of thousands of satellites should be 'easy'. But with only F9, they have to launch at an insane pace just to keep a few thousand satellites up there. They're presently at 3.5k satellites of their desired 42k.

In fact I think this and similar missions are the true raison d'etre of Starship. Mars colonization isn't going to happen, it's a huge joke. Nobody will have Mars colony infrastructure ready to ship for decades at least, SpaceX is barely even pretending to invest in this. Mars colonization customers just don't exist and couldn't justify the money SpaceX is spending to develop Starship. Therefore, Starship exists to launch massive satellite constellations, particularly Starlink. And it wouldn't exist at all if SpaceX thought they could pull it off with just F9. F9 is a stopgap, to buy them time for Starship's development.

Re: Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

#70

Post by chrisco255 »

shaklee3 wrote: post #47
tcrenshaw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, geosat is reliable until it rains. Then your slow speeds drop down to nothing. TBF, I've not used starlink yet.

that's not true. satellite internet within the last 15 years has used adaptive modulation and coding, and rain doesn't have nearly the effect you're saying unless it's torrential and at an angle.

Yeah I've used the Starlink in both rain and snow and it's worked admirably through both. Occasionally you get a real dense, severe thunderstorm that affects it, but for most weather it works fine.
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