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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

#81

Post by 20after4 »

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…

Where I live (Very rural part of southern Missouri) the service is oversold and very expensive. I was on the waiting list for 2 years and then they offered "RV" service at a best effort service level. The service was fast and reliable enough but I canceled when they raised the rate to $170 per month.

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

#82

Post by mike_d »

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…

> It's still 90$ if you are rural.

Rural areas are the only place there is demand for Starlink. Nobody buys 95% reliable internet in a city that has fiber.

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

#83

Post by crispinb »

runarberg wrote: post #68
steponlego wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many rural areas do not have power and never will.

But they still need internet?

Internet without connected power is pretty common around here. Internet is obviously needed for those who work from home. And it's increasingly required for the needs of everyday life (government services moving online, bank branches closing).

So, yes, absolutely - many people without connected power need the internet.

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

#84

Post by senectus1 »

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.

really looking forward to seeing starship get up there, then the V2 starlinks which will be an order of magnitude faster and better

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

#85

Post by senectus1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #71
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.

> It's a strong sign that the model fundamentally works I think that's a bit early to tell. If the launch costs + satellite costs don't add up to a very nice profit before the satellite de-orbits then that was a loss. This can look like it is working well until the number of satellites de-orbiting and needing to be replaced becomes larger than your temporary profits after launching the first constellation. This is wh…

I know three people in Australia personally that have starlink and are incredibly grateful and pleased they can get it.

The business model is strong, especially with V2 on its way

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

#86

Post by crispinb »

tedk-42 wrote: post #22

All these talks about Starlink -> Remember it's a bandaid solution to your governments poor planning and infrastructure rollout of a core utility / service. I say this as an Australian who watched one government plan a national rollout of fibre while another came in justifying most people don't need a connection better than 25/5 (based on usage data at the time) and went ahead and gutted the project. We're now trying…

> it's a bandaid solution to your governments poor planning and infrastructure rollout ..

Well yes, but a needed bandaid. That's what happens when governments vacate their role - individuals are left to manage on their own (and the devil take the hindmost).

Australian here like you. Generally appalled by the NBN debacle. Starlink's beyond my means, but if I had a remote job I'd find it a godsend where I live (rural Northern Rivers). Our "NBN" is SkyMuster, which is from all accounts not up to much (even if you can get the NBN to connect it).

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

#87

Post by 20after4 »

cma wrote: post #29
TradingPlaces wrote: post #17

$65 billion going into rural broadband over the next 5 years. Not finalized, but my read is the feds want fiber. They are wrangling over maps right now. https://www.commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2021/11/fact-sheet...

It seems like everywhere wired up for electricity should be able to have fiber. Or are repairs still so intensive that it really needs to be buried?

Fiber on utility poles is absolutely a thing, and it's usually far cheaper than buried fiber, not to mention easier to repair.

Here in the USA, the main reason that doesn't happen is incumbent providers. Whoever owns the poles is very unlikely to grant you access to hang fiber on them. The one exception is public utilities, they are generally required to offer open access, however, there are all kinds of rules about space between existing utilities and new ones. Unfortunately, you don't just have to deal with the local government because of incumbent providers, who are already hanging their wires on the existing utility poles. Phone and cable providers have incentive to make sure that the process is as arduous as possible and they will put up bureaucratic roadblocks and drag their feet at every opportunity.

This is just what I came to understand by spending a lot of time researching what it would take to start a rural ISP. It's a project that I abandoned after Starlink was announced.

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

#88

Post by rnk »

steponlego wrote: post #52
tedk-42 wrote: post #22

All these talks about Starlink -> Remember it's a bandaid solution to your governments poor planning and infrastructure rollout of a core utility / service. I say this as an Australian who watched one government plan a national rollout of fibre while another came in justifying most people don't need a connection better than 25/5 (based on usage data at the time) and went ahead and gutted the project. We're now trying…

Last-mile rural connectivity will never reach everybody in the USA. It's just too many people to service. Obama's net "neutrality" which thankfully got shit canned was going to mandate free service for the poor for all new startups, among other considerations which would have made making a new a rural ISP a complete non-starter. If you want Internet, you can pay for it.

We are talking about America. We decided everybody should get electricity and they got it with rural electrification. Should everyone lose the right to have electricity connections because you think it's too hard? Somehow other countries can do this with the US can't? We could decide just like we did for electricity that everyone should have 100 meg internet to their house.

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

#89

Post by jacquesm »

senectus1 wrote: post #85
jacquesm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a strong sign that the model fundamentally works I think that's a bit early to tell. If the launch costs + satellite costs don't add up to a very nice profit before the satellite de-orbits then that was a loss. This can look like it is working well until the number of satellites de-orbiting and needing to be replaced becomes larger than your temporary profits after launching the first constellation. This is wh…

I know three people in Australia personally that have starlink and are incredibly grateful and pleased they can get it. The business model is strong, especially with V2 on its way

I am sure there are people that are grateful and pleased they can get it. That doesn't mean that there are enough of those people to support a constellation the size that you need for global coverage.

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

#90

Post by mlyle »

shaklee3 wrote: post #74
mlyle wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do cheap launches help when spectral bandwidth over an area is going to be the true limitation? Spectral bandwidth doesn't matter so much with beamforming with reasonably narrow beams. At least not until you get to a lot of satellites overhead at once. Dishy probably obtains a beam ~3 degrees wide; there's a lot of 3x3 degree sectors in the sky. Similarly, the ground "cells" are 300 sq km; there's a lot of these in…

bandwidth matters a lot. it's why SpaceX pays so much on legal fees for fcc filings

> bandwidth matters a lot.

Sure, how much data you can exchange per satellite is roughly proportional to the bandwidth.

Increasing bandwidth or increasing satellites increases data rate.

> it's why SpaceX pays so much on legal fees for fcc filings

Note that a whole lot of the paper that goes to the FCC relates to the FCC's statutory authority over space debris and constellation licensing.

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