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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

#191

Post by davidy123 »

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…

Yes. I am in rural(ish) Canada. A community got together and with regional and national funding created https://fibreargenteuil.ca/en/ It was intense, they had to fight, sometimes publicly, tooth and nail with the utility pole controllers. But I'm typing this from fast, reliable (knock the nearest of many trees) fibre internet with very reasonable (all things considered, though I wish they had a more basic tier for down and out folks) pricing.

I follow a few rural internet groups, at first most members thought Starlink would be all they'd ever need, now they are very unhappy.

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

#192

Post by upofadown »

The big gotcha with a system like Starlink is that the antenna has to be within line of sight of satellites that are at times quite low to the horizon. If you have obstructions that means that you are going to have dropouts, at least some of the time. Most people have to live with at least some obstructions, unless they want to put up a tower.

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

#193

Post by teekert »

adriancr wrote: post #180
teekert wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile here I am in the Netherlands (semi-rural I'd say), having two fiber modems installed because we have 2 competing fiber networks here. At least one of them goes to 2500/2500 for about 75 eur a month. Probably it'll go much higher in the future.

which provider goes to 2500/2500?

Delta does, although I see now it's 8000/8000 (XGS-PON): [0] I need new gear ;)

It's a bit annoying to find, everything is hidden behind area code filters.

[0] https://www.delta.nl/internet/glasvezel/xgspon/

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

#194

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

zwirbl wrote: post #183
marcyb5st wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2.5 Gb/s symmetrical is a sweet deal. Here in Italy in a town of 3k people I got "only" a 1Gb/s symmetrical, but so far I can't complain. It costs 25€/month so it's a pretty great deal

and here in Austria I just cannot get symmetrical, running on 1000/50 Mb/s right now

Well, consumers in Austria and Germany have by far the shittiest internet in all of EU.

That's what you get when you let your corrupt politicians sell your national infrastructure and customer base to private monopolists who will rentseek you instead of competing and investing in infrastructure.

I remember walking into an A1 shop browsing for internet offers for my new apartment and the lady working there straight up told me "you don't need more than 80 mbit" without even asking what I do with it or what I need it for, as if 80mbit is the national standard all citizens should get, like in communism.

Gigabit here is a rare and expensive luxury while in most of EU is a freely available commodity.

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

#195

Post by Panzer04 »

Jedd wrote: post #182
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…

Also Australian - based in Hunter Valley (~ 200km north-west of Sydney). Definitely rural. I replaced our Skymesh (geo-stationary) satellite (the only barely viable alternative) two years ago with Starlink. Skymesh gave me ~600ms RTT to Sydney servers, and maybe 25Mbps down (at 3am, clear sky, etc). Data cap was around 120GB / month, IIRC. Pricing was probably 75% of what I'm paying for Starlink now. We can kinda sor…

The 3G service will be replaced with 4G/5G - it will probably be better, in all likelyhood. The range is based on the spectrum used, not the technology. 3G was kept around only because of old mobile devices (eg. PoS terminals) that needed it to function, not because it was any good.

It's kind of amusing to me that you blame our private telecom industry. I'm relatively sure Australia has some of the best mobile connectivity on the planet, with generally extremely high speeds, high data caps and usually, relatively good coverage. It is absolutely not a given that government service would be better.

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

#196

Post by rkangel »

martinald wrote: post #176
rkangel wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK was a bit slow to get going but is going in the right direction at a reasonable pace now. Openreach has been doing a rollout covering most people and the DCMS voucher scheme is funding independents to fill in the gaps. I believe there will still be a rural segment relying on cellular for a while yet, but it's a shrinking minority.

Most of the altnets are not government funded - there was a ridiculous amount of money put in them from the low interest rate period, many many billions. I very much doubt they will get a good return given the crazy level of overbuild going on. I have now 4 separate infrastructure-wise FTTH networks available to me in my London apartment.

I believe (without supporting data) that most altnets that are expanding coverage to people with poor broadband are government funded. The economics in London are quite different than that of a rural village.

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

#197

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

> I would love to ask the Starlink support team for more information since I own the equipment, but I can't because there's no email address, phone number, chat, or other way to message support

That seals it. Better to buy HughesNet or similar. It may be slower but at least you can get support.

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

#198

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

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 that were true they could afford support chat outsourced to a 3rd world country but they can't even do that.

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

#199

Post by stuaxo »

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.

Honestly don't understand why people didn't see this one coming.

Congestion seemed like an obvious outcome from the point they announced the idea of internet via satellite ?

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

#200

Post by mschuster91 »

pengaru wrote: post #159
lstamour wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the US is huge, but if an area can get power, we should be able to rollout fibre along the same routes. It just takes a bit of work.

Starlink is delivering internet to otherwise off-grid homes... Solar+battery tech has made power lines not only unnecessary, but in some states arguably not worth the fire risk anymore.

> Solar+battery tech has made power lines not only unnecessary, but in some states arguably not worth the fire risk anymore.

Power lines aren't an inherent fire risk. Unmaintained power lines, however, are.

Primarily, you need to maintain clearance from bushes and trees.

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