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

Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

starlink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 374 posts

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#51

Post by Andys »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #24
jagtstronaut wrote: post #17

Despite the hate on the promo the tech they offer is still pretty cool. Only way I knew my in-laws were safe near Asheville was because one of their neighbors had starlink and a generator. Took a week for them to get power and cell phone service back and there is no way to get to them without a helicopter so if it wasn't for the product we would have just learned that they were alright.

To ask a tech question: how much capacity does Starlink have? If every single person in US rural areas switches to Starlink, can the system handle it? What's the bandwidth/customers/capacity limit for the service? (I'm obviously not talking about emergencies, where degraded bandwidth is acceptable.)

I don't know the specs, but since they control both ends of the link, (ie. the client-side router) they've done a remarkable job of smoothing out load imbalances to make it highly usable even under problematic conditions.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#52

Post by silisili »

duxup wrote: post #42
silisili wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I didn't mean for free from Starlink, I meant free via donation. I follow a half dozen accounts in the area, and they're all donating a lot. Here is one, for example. Ignore the politics and just scroll through the Starlink posts - https://x.com/robbystarbuck Here's another that claims Starlink drove the units straight out. Unclear if they were free or not. https://x.com/TheShawnHendrix/status/1841823155…

Nothing personal but that's "a lot" of vague, qualified, and loaded phrases like "mostly free" "more than the US govt" and such ... but the source is just some guy's twitter page?

Understood. I'm trying to be careful with absolutes here. I can't attest that not a single person in the area placed a full price order.

As for the number, it's happening fast and I only happened to follow a few, so don't even want to provide a guess. More than 100 units just in what I've come across in the last week. Pinning down an exact number is likely impossible.

FEMA claims to have set up 40 units.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#53

Post by AlotOfReading »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #24
jagtstronaut wrote: post #17

Despite the hate on the promo the tech they offer is still pretty cool. Only way I knew my in-laws were safe near Asheville was because one of their neighbors had starlink and a generator. Took a week for them to get power and cell phone service back and there is no way to get to them without a helicopter so if it wasn't for the product we would have just learned that they were alright.

To ask a tech question: how much capacity does Starlink have? If every single person in US rural areas switches to Starlink, can the system handle it? What's the bandwidth/customers/capacity limit for the service? (I'm obviously not talking about emergencies, where degraded bandwidth is acceptable.)

The bandwidth is limited on a per-cell basis, somewhere around 700Gbps max per cell. Actual capacity at any time is somewhat less. If everyone is actively using theirs, you might get single digit Mbps or less at cell capacity limits, even if there aren't bottlenecks elsewhere.

It's fine, but it's highly dependent on having extremely low customer density. The system doesn't work well if everyone is using it all the time.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#54

Post by diggan »

firesteelrain wrote: post #30

We have a free solution already but not as well known - Ham Radio. You can even send email over WinLink.

Or just WiFi via long-range & directed antennas. Would require line-of-sight though. As far as I know that would be possibly without license and you can even use encryption! I've gotten it to work over a ~2.5km distance and that was some years ago, probably things are even better now.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#55

Post by kotaKat »

silisili wrote: post #18
duxup wrote: post #12

You gotta have the hardware right? Isn't this then just ... kinda a normal "free 30 days" offer? This seems not far from handing out free AOL disks, except you also need some added hardware?

They're mostly getting the hardware for free. A lot of people in TN and elsewhere are delivering and installing Starlink units for free to the disaster areas(more than the US govt), and begging Elon for free service. Seems like he or someone at Starlink was listening.

We've got people as far up as the top of NY sending truckloads of supplies down to the disaster areas and Starlink dishes are easy to throw on from local Best Buys/Home Depots/etc that have them.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#56

Post by frugalmail »

halyconWays wrote: post #48
foobarqux wrote: post #9

Why doesn't the government have a few planes or blimps fly overhead with base stations from the major mobile carriers?

That sounds expensive and like it'd help Americans

You're probably right, they would gate it on having an ITIN or something.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#57

Post by willcipriano »

neveroddoreven wrote: post #49
wtallis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?

How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy random noise?

Ham radio people are Lawful Good types. Your Chaotic Good idea isn't well recieved by them. No way there is any ability to enforce that law in a disaster zone, they have enough trouble with looting and the like.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#58

Post by alibarber »

neveroddoreven wrote: post #49
wtallis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?

How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy random noise?

No because that’s also not really something that’s permitted.

It’s true that there’s no [practical] enforcement of it, in much the same way there’s no enforcement of the OTH Radars from various militaries that take out large chunks of the HF amateur bands every now and then.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#59

Post by chgs »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #21
svnt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird what happens when you privatize so much and then find out too late it isn’t profitable for companies to have fleets of emergency internet blimps primed and ready to go 24/7.

The only mobile provider in Costa Rica was government owned, hugely profitable, subsidized internet and landlines, and was mandated to provide internet to every single citizen. In urban areas, they had to make sure every single house had mobile coverage. And courts made them comply. Then came the US around year 2002 and forced the country to a free market, and paradise was lost. Everything is US level now (more expen…

There’s a reason the US has the largest economy in the world.

It’s modern colonialism.

Re: Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane Helene victims

#60

Post by tjohns »

neveroddoreven wrote: post #49
wtallis wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?

How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy random noise?

The meaning of any messages sent over amateur radio needs to be clear to an outside observer. The specific rule is 47 CFR 97.113(a)(4): "No amateur station shall transmit: [...] messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein."

So no, high-entropy random noise of substantial length wouldn't be allowed because the meaning of the message would be unclear and unknowable.

You also can't broadcast one-way messages per 97.113(b), and you're probably not having a two-way conversation with somebody via high-entrypy random noise. So there's also that.

Post reply on HN