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

Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 72 posts

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#11

Post by TrueGeek »

rkangel wrote: post #8
sigio wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, starlink was $50/month for the residential plan here in the Netherlands... that's quite a large difference.

I'm guessing that's because there's some actual competition for home internet in the Netherlands. Unlike the US where many customers are served by (at best) one provider, who therefore has no incentive to provide good service or be good value. If Starlink achieves reasonable service, for many customers in the US it can get away with charging a lot.

I moved to the Netherlands last week. I was paying $120 a month for 100 mbps with Spectrum. New customers paid less and got more. I complained and explained that was hardly fair since I had been a customer for 15 years at the same address. They said I was welcome to cancel my service for 3 months and re-activate.

I now pay €67.50 for 4gbps up / 4gpbs down. I'm actually getting those speeds and the day I arrived service was already turned on. I just had to ride my bike down to the post office and retrieve my modem.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#12

Post by jorvi »

elmerfud wrote: post #7
sigio wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, starlink was $50/month for the residential plan here in the Netherlands... that's quite a large difference.

$120 here in the USA. Which is high for the kind of service it is but if that's your only option then it's within a reasonable range. It's not unusual for us customers to pay a higher premium for the same service that is sold at a lesser costs around the world. This is for a great many things. This can be due to companies actively using their us customers to subsidize their market share and other places but I don't i…

It’s just what the market will bear, nothing more nothing less.

Often, identical medicine is sold in the US for 5-20x the price that it is sold for in even North-West EU.

If US customers as a whole really couldn’t pay this, the price would drop.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#13

Post by wslh »

sorry_i_lisp wrote: post #9
rkangel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read the article. This is covered in detail.

That's a real 2022 response. Nowadays "Please let a LLM summarize the article for you, instead of wasting human time!" is the proper etiquette. ;-)

Thank you. I was thinking of feedback from people experienced in some complexities of backpacking / camping. In the past, I helped people traveling to Tibet and close to El Chalten [1] with GPS, batteries, solar cells, and weather schedule and redundancy, since if you don't organize yourself precisely like a "military campaign" something could fail that could be prevented with an engineering process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Chalt%C3%A9n

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#15

Post by elmerfud »

jorvi wrote: post #12
elmerfud wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$120 here in the USA. Which is high for the kind of service it is but if that's your only option then it's within a reasonable range. It's not unusual for us customers to pay a higher premium for the same service that is sold at a lesser costs around the world. This is for a great many things. This can be due to companies actively using their us customers to subsidize their market share and other places but I don't i…

It’s just what the market will bear, nothing more nothing less. Often, identical medicine is sold in the US for 5-20x the price that it is sold for in even North-West EU. If US customers as a whole really couldn’t pay this, the price would drop.

That's not quite true with medicine. If US customers couldn't pay this, as in the insurance companies and or Medicare, then cost might come down but also research and development would effectively halt or other countries would stop getting lower priced drugs. United States pharmaceutical industries subsidize the world healthcare market for drugs.

And you're up there's two things at play the government is subsidizing the cost of drugs but also demanding a lower price. If you're up was the only market or the primary market at the prices they're demanding there would be no more research and development for a great many of the drugs that we have.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#16

Post by elmerfud »

jcims wrote: post #10
elmerfud wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$120 here in the USA. Which is high for the kind of service it is but if that's your only option then it's within a reasonable range. It's not unusual for us customers to pay a higher premium for the same service that is sold at a lesser costs around the world. This is for a great many things. This can be due to companies actively using their us customers to subsidize their market share and other places but I don't i…

>Which is high for the kind of service it is but if that's your only option then it's within a reasonable range. Relative to what? It's not marketed at population centers. My 10Mbps DSL was 90/mo, bonded I could get 25M down 1.5 up for $140/mo.

It's high in a sense of typical broadband for the speed and latency. In the specific sense of limited option areas or satellite only areas it is a reasonable price for that level of service.

I live in the country a good 6 miles from any City and that City is maybe 8000 people. My service is $99 a month for 1 gig fiber. The only other options I would have is some satellite-based internet or a cell based internet.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#17

Post by iamphilrae »

wslh wrote: post #5

How that works battery / consumption wise?

As the article says...

> That means you can power the Mini dish for two to three hours from something like an Anker Prime 27,650mAh (99.54Wh) power bank, or a little over an hour with smaller 10,000mAh (40Wh) portable batteries you probably already have laying about. It requires a USB-C PD power source with a minimum rating of 100W (20V/5A).

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#18

Post by rapsey »

cjk2 wrote: post #14

Regular backpacker here. I don't want or need this. Literally we all use eSIMs and just have downtime occasionally, which is partially the point of it.

This is a very short sided view. Something like this could save a bunch of lives of hikers because it means you are always connected when you need to be in case you get injured or lost.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#19

Post by cjk2 »

rapsey wrote: post #18
cjk2 wrote: post #14

Regular backpacker here. I don't want or need this. Literally we all use eSIMs and just have downtime occasionally, which is partially the point of it.

This is a very short sided view. Something like this could save a bunch of lives of hikers because it means you are always connected when you need to be in case you get injured or lost.

That's an unrealistic view. It's unlikely. Firstly because we already have well defined systems for that which are tested in the field and are specifically designed for it and emergency routing (InReach for example). Secondly a lot of places people tend to go backpacking have limited search and rescue capabilities so you're not guaranteed a rescue anyway. Thirdly a lot of places it'll get stolen before it gets used.

It's a toy and another damn thing to carry around and a load of marketing around it to sell it as a suitable replacement for proper kit.

Re: Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers

#20

Post by lizknope »

rapsey wrote: post #18
cjk2 wrote: post #14

Regular backpacker here. I don't want or need this. Literally we all use eSIMs and just have downtime occasionally, which is partially the point of it.

This is a very short sided view. Something like this could save a bunch of lives of hikers because it means you are always connected when you need to be in case you get injured or lost.

Satellite phones have existed for decades. They are expensive and data speeds are slow but if you are talking about for emergency use then a satellite phone is smaller, cheaper, and more practical than Starlink.

If you need high speed data in the middle on nowhere then Starlink is great

Post reply on HN