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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

#211

Post by teekert »

WeylandYutani wrote: post #140
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.

I ordered KPN gigabit internet but I live on my own and probably don't need the bandwidth. It's cheaper than Ziggo' coax though (300 mb).

I also don't need that much bandwidth directly. But, I'm a biologist specialized in the analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data. I'm also self employed and such bandwidths are true enablers of my business. I need Terra Bytes of data analyzed, most of this data comes from research institutes' IT departments. I can avoid a lot costs with a server at home. In fact, it can be a unique differentiator for me if I can sit in the niche where a couple of beefy cpus with a nice array of discs can still outperform the cloud cost-wise.

To be honest, I still have to research that.

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

#212

Post by oogali »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #204
davidy123 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

One of the awful things I found here in (quasi-rural, near Hamilton) Ontario is this phenomenon: 1. No broadband from any of Rogers, Bell, Cogeco, etc. for multiple decades, and no real local offerings; despite being only a few km from a major centre 2. Nothing seems to be happening, so some local companies start offering point-to-point wireless services which fill a hole. They start putting up antenaes and stringing…

That's somewhat similar to what happened in the US during the initial timeframe of DSL.

Regional Bell says your DSL is $60-120/month.

Your local ISP buys a circuit to a DSL aggregator (Covad, Northpoint, Rhythms, etc) and starts offering DSL for $50/month (their cost was $25-30/month).

After increase in customers, regional Bell says "we're offering $29.95/month for 6 months to new customers". ISPs nationwide start losing thousands of customers.

One by one, DSL aggregators start to go out of business which means ISP have no DSL connectivity and can't sell DSL anymore.

DSL is dead from anyone but regional Bell.

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

#213

Post by doogieboo »

roer wrote: post #166
shaklee3 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This doesn't add up for me. They are launching more powerful satellites with a higher cadence than before. The network is in every measure improving its capacity, and it doesn't seem like money is the issue. Do you have a source for them burning money at a pace that requires starship in the near future? Looking in from the outside, their amount of falcon launches don't reflect that.

The new satellites are bigger and weigh more so they are launching fewer on each rocket now. They need starship for better launch capacity for the new satellites.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/02/26/spacex-unveils-first-b...

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

#214

Post by chatmasta »

ejb999 wrote: post #188
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.

should read 'a lot of work' and 'a lot of money'. In my own little town, when we (residents) voted to pay for a municipal internet, the residents had to pay to replace close to 50% of the utility owned poles in order to gain access to those poles to run fiber. and due to the way the laws are written, we had to pay to have an engineer prescribe what work needed to be done to each pole - up to and including replacing i…

Generally speaking, what is the cost differential between hanging wires and digging wires? I would imagine that in rural areas, underground wires require less maintainence since you don't need to monitor them for fallen trees, brush overgrowth, etc. But at the same time I would guess the installation costs are higher? Maybe? Surely avoiding utility poles saves money.

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

#215

Post by chrisjc »

20after4 wrote: post #87
cma wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I live in a place in the US where a couple of the public utility companies are rolling out highspeed internet through their utility lines. Not exactly sure if it just means they're laying-down/hanging-up fiber as they go through the process of servicing existing lines, or if there's a way they actually transmit through the lines themselves, or combination of both.

Whatever these two companies are doing it, i haven't bothered looking into it since we already have 4-5 options and we're already happy; TDS (fiber), Comcast (fiber), T-mobile 5G, Wow (?), can't remember the last.

Who would have thought they could all flourish even when you give customers options? /s

https://www.kub.org/fiber-shopping/

https://www.lcub.com/broadband-home-landing-page/

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

#216

Post by otikik »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #204
davidy123 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

One of the awful things I found here in (quasi-rural, near Hamilton) Ontario is this phenomenon: 1. No broadband from any of Rogers, Bell, Cogeco, etc. for multiple decades, and no real local offerings; despite being only a few km from a major centre 2. Nothing seems to be happening, so some local companies start offering point-to-point wireless services which fill a hole. They start putting up antenaes and stringing…

Maybe there's a business there.

"Fake" a local internet company in order to provoke Telcos into rolling out fibre.

It seems to work well enough for fake "grassroots" movements.

You would need something like a political party to hire them.

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

#217

Post by hcks »

teekert wrote: post #118
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…

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.

Ah yeah, the famous Netherlands outback’s. Nearly 20km away from the nearest city.

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

#218

Post by throwaway4aday »

oogali wrote: post #212
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the awful things I found here in (quasi-rural, near Hamilton) Ontario is this phenomenon: 1. No broadband from any of Rogers, Bell, Cogeco, etc. for multiple decades, and no real local offerings; despite being only a few km from a major centre 2. Nothing seems to be happening, so some local companies start offering point-to-point wireless services which fill a hole. They start putting up antenaes and stringing…

That's somewhat similar to what happened in the US during the initial timeframe of DSL. Regional Bell says your DSL is $60-120/month. Your local ISP buys a circuit to a DSL aggregator (Covad, Northpoint, Rhythms, etc) and starts offering DSL for $50/month (their cost was $25-30/month). After increase in customers, regional Bell says "we're offering $29.95/month for 6 months to new customers". ISPs nationwide start lo…

Them's anti-competitive practices for ya'

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

#219

Post by contravariant »

hcks wrote: post #217
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.

Ah yeah, the famous Netherlands outback’s. Nearly 20km away from the nearest city.

If you're 20km away from the nearest city you're not in the Netherlands.

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

#220

Post by muglug »

chrisco255 wrote: post #72
muglug wrote: post #20

I think it probably should be more expensive to live off the beaten path. The per-capita CO2 consumption of people who rely on cars for everything is far higher than for people who can walk places or take public transport, and those environmental costs aren't passed on effectively to consumers.

I think it would be fantastic if delusional urban people would grow their own food and supply their own cities with non rural distribution chains. Hey, it's local first after all. No potatoes from Idaho. No more avocados from Mexico, no coffee beans from South America to supply your morning latte habit. Thanks to the inevitable drop in population upon enacting such a shortsighted policy, it would also fix any admitte…

Pricing in CO2 costs would not mean the end of avocados and coffee beans — it would just make them more expensive.

You can grow can grow potatoes just about anywhere, so the total distance travelled for that staple absolutely could be reduced in a more carbon-conscious world.

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