Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Saint Helena Island Communications

sainthelenaisland.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 149 posts

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#21

Post by jseutter »

rwmj wrote: post #3

Why does Saint Helena have import duty, or are they talking about packages not coming from the UK?

Saint Helena has import tariffs like other colonies do. They used to have preferential rates for commonwealth countries but I'm not sure if that still exists. I guess my response would be they have import duties for the same reasons other colonies do. Why wouldn't they tax imports?

edit: found an updated tariff document https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ST... . I don't see anything special for commonwealth countries so it's probably a thing of the past.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#22

Post by MichaelAza »

Under Telephone History it says:

> The current PABX-based system went live over the weekend of 27-29th July 1990

A PBX serving a whole country, even a small one, is wild. From what I could find [1] the system used was a UXD5 exchange [2] which is technically a PSTN exchange intended for rural areas and based off the Monarch 120 PBX [3].

The architecture of the UXD5 is common to a lot of telephone exchanges of the time (possibly modern ones as well?) with actor based message passing, actors running on different levels (more real time vs less real time) and a combination of assembly and a high level language (in this case, Coral [4]). Fascinating stuff.

[1] https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cable_wireless_has_contrac...

[2] https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/uxd5-...

[3] https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/monar...

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORAL

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#23

Post by dylan604 »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

There is something to be learned from the simplicity and quaintness of this site - the information density is much higher than 90% of modern web sites. In a single page, by simply scrolling I learned so much about the communication infrastructure of a British island outpost.

There's a meme-like website that demos this very concept. Then there's a v2.0 or some ++ type versioning where they use very minimal CSS to actually improve the readability. I'm a fan of the use of the minimal CSS to add margins and widths as it improves readability for me.

Searching for it with only the vagueness of what I can think of right now returns nothing useful, and that's with not using Google. Maybe my vague description will be enough with someone with better recall than I have.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#24

Post by yieldcrv »

kickofline wrote: post #6

> It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that members of the public may have acquired, imported and be currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone usin…

This is a good reason for the new King of the UK to override that territory’s law

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#25

Post by johndotsun »

dylan604 wrote: post #23
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

There is something to be learned from the simplicity and quaintness of this site - the information density is much higher than 90% of modern web sites. In a single page, by simply scrolling I learned so much about the communication infrastructure of a British island outpost.

There's a meme-like website that demos this very concept. Then there's a v2.0 or some ++ type versioning where they use very minimal CSS to actually improve the readability. I'm a fan of the use of the minimal CSS to add margins and widths as it improves readability for me. Searching for it with only the vagueness of what I can think of right now returns nothing useful, and that's with not using Google. Maybe my vagu…

The original (I think): https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

First improvement: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/

Later iterations: https://thebestmotherfucking.website/

https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com/

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#26

Post by greg_gorrell »

nycdatasci wrote: post #7
kickofline wrote: post #6

> It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that members of the public may have acquired, imported and be currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone usin…

Relatedly, it's worth watching the entire Bill Gurley talk at the recent All-In Summit. Edit: Updating link to jump to the relevant section of the talk. https://youtu.be/F9cO3-MLHOM?t=397

Thanks for sharing! I haven't come across this podcast yet and it looks like some great content.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#27

Post by Tijdreiziger »

jimkleiber wrote: post #13
kickofline wrote: post #6

> It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that members of the public may have acquired, imported and be currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone usin…

I wonder if other countries will (or have) ban Starlink for censorship reasons. Or frankly, lack of censorship control. So much of our governance, if not all, is based on geographic sovereignty, and satellites can supersede that. I hope we finally get more global governance to deal with more and more global issues.

I remember reading that Starlink routes traffic via base stations in the subscriber’s own country, in order not to anger regulators.

If you think about it it makes sense; otherwise governments could just ban the sale of Starlink equipment for violating the law.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#28

Post by ta1243 »

dylan604 wrote: post #23
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #11

There is something to be learned from the simplicity and quaintness of this site - the information density is much higher than 90% of modern web sites. In a single page, by simply scrolling I learned so much about the communication infrastructure of a British island outpost.

There's a meme-like website that demos this very concept. Then there's a v2.0 or some ++ type versioning where they use very minimal CSS to actually improve the readability. I'm a fan of the use of the minimal CSS to add margins and widths as it improves readability for me. Searching for it with only the vagueness of what I can think of right now returns nothing useful, and that's with not using Google. Maybe my vagu…

https://bestmotherfucking.website/ perhaps, which I have to admit improves on http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/

Searching for "the best fucking website" is not fruitful though.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#29

Post by Tijdreiziger »

fidotron wrote: post #19
wffurr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother with Starlink if the fiberoptic subsea cable is live now?

You still have to run the cable the last mile, even on an island.

Not necessarily, we have wireless technologies. Stringing cables along poles could well be cheaper, though.

Re: Saint Helena Island Communications

#30

Post by GolfPopper »

legitster wrote: post #20
kickofline wrote: post #6

> It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that members of the public may have acquired, imported and be currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone usin…

There was a line, I believe in the Machineries of Freedom, that says the goal of "effective" libertarian politics is not to change laws - it's to design disruptive technologies that make existing laws irrelevant . We saw one version of this with Uber and Airbnb, essentially blowing up taxi and rental regulations, respectively. This is happening with AI, where regulation is hopelessly lost in its current state. We hav…

"This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?" -A Man For All Seasons (1966)
Post reply on HN