231–240 of 348 posts
$65 billion going into rural broadband over the next 5 years. Not finalized, but my read is the feds want fiber. They are wrangling over maps right now. https://www.commerce.gov/news/fact-sheets/2021/11/fact-sheet...
I'll bet 70+% of the money that ends up allocated will find its way into established isp pockets with absolutely nothing to show for it in return.
It went up only 10$ 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…
They should have simply released a "premium speed" upgrade for $50, which boosts your speeds and reliability for a while. In congested areas, with heavy use, it might last only a few days. In rural areas it might last months.
Then have a checkbox to auto-renew the premium speed when it runs out.
And say on the purchase page "Given your location and recent usage, we expect the premium speed boost will last about X hours/days/months".
It went up only 10$ 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…
Which seems like crazy pricing... They should have simply released a "premium speed" upgrade for $50, which boosts your speeds and reliability for a while. In congested areas, with heavy use, it might last only a few days. In rural areas it might last months. Then have a checkbox to auto-renew the premium speed when it runs out. And say on the purchase page "Given your location and recent usage, we expect the premium…
And as the network gets more congested, then speeds drop, and more and more people are pushed to buying the double speed upgrade, and eventually the triple speed upgrade, etc.
This approach is effectively a real time market for bandwidth in disguise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
The local power co-op is considering the idea of considering burying the powerlines, so I'm keeping a close eye on that. I wish I could get them interested in the idea of adding fiber internet to their services, but I'm told they can't do it anywhere they have above-ground power because of an agreement stating that CenturyLink gets to be the only ISP on the poles.
I preordered Starlink in March of 2021, as soon as my first rural isp reneged on 50 megabits and sold me 5. 2 years later in western Virginia I still have no eta for my order and cannot contact anyone about it. I have 12 megabits from that same local ISP and it’s enough to do my job so I cancelled Starlink. I can’t imagine what customer service will be like if I am on preorder for two years and they refuse to give an…
They don't want to deploy early, because then they wouldn't be eligible for the funding which is supposed to help them deploy.
Notice that just over the canada and mexico borders have good service available today - suggesting bandwidth isn't the constraint.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.…
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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.
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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...
Doesn't that sound more like they are planning for that higher launch capacity? They're removing a constraint in the future so they're scaling up the satellites now, it means less of the new ones go up in the mean time but it also means a much faster increase in network capacity once Starship is available.
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.…