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

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

#121

Post by WalterBright »

bena wrote: post #81

This might be good for responders, but not so much the victims. But then responders will have their own networks so won't need this. When you've been hit like this, you aren't going to use your power for this. You have bigger issues. You have to dry out your house, demolition, etc. And that's when you get power. You might not get it for weeks. And honestly, once power reaches residences, power to other services has u…

> you aren't going to use your power for this

Sure you are. If you're, say, running off a gasoline generator, unplug A from it, plug Starlink in, make phone call, unplug Starlink, plug A back in.

BTW, nearly everyone in my neighborhood has a generator because the power company fails whenever there's a storm.

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

#122

Post by hshshshsvsv »

Spivak wrote: post #100
hammock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Despite the hate on the promo What does "hate on the promo" mean?

Offering a "30 day free trial" doesn't really feel like a gift as much as it's an ad for the service trying to onboard customers. It's not a bad thing per se, just kind of in poor taste.

They probably used the free trial system for a quick release instead of having to build some new system for this.

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

#123

Post by kortilla »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #53
matthewdgreen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 700Gbps max per cell

> having extremely low customer density

I think you need to define “extremely low” because 700gbps is plenty for several thousand people. And the question was specifically about everyone in rural areas switching.

If you go by rural being That sounds fine considering standard consumer usage patterns mean you’ll get 10x that as an individual even in peak times. That’s also assuming maximum density for what’s considered rural.

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

#124

Post by kube-system »

therein wrote: post #89
tjohns wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

What if you say it is to transmit high entropy random data generated at geographically remote locations, for peer to peer verification, for a well-announced long-running experiment to see if geolocation leads to biases in random number generation. Let's have Princeton PEAR sponsor it. Call it NCC20 for NotChaCha20.

You could say that. If you're in a position to use it as a defense to being investigated, then you're already being investigated. Hope it's true, because making false statements to federal investigators can be a crime.

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

#126

Post by astroid »

BadHumans wrote: post #67
iknowstuff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… who’s lying?

[flagged]

So it literally doesn't matter to you if he is lying or not, you simply want to make your opposition to him known in a thread that has basically nothing to do with him.

Way to contribute - you are going places. (nowhere I'd want to be though)

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

#127

Post by electriclove »

ivewonyoung wrote: post #79
levinb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I bought the last two units left at any HD for a few hundred miles; drove them up there Monday. Apparently my friend had to drive in and out of his (utterly destroyed) neighborhood in Swannanoa because it required the app and cell service to set up. And when they returned home it wouldn't work. Took multiple trips back and forth to get it usable in the area where it was actually needed. Then of course the Helene…

> publicly funded, government protected, How is it publicly funded and government protected? > privately held monopoly That's a weird complaint, would it be somehow better if it were a publicly held monopoly like Google, Amazon or Microsoft. And what can SpaceX do to ensure Starlink is not a monopoly? Stop providing service and shut it down? They have been even launching competitors satellites for them.

Some people suffer from Elon Derangement Syndrome and cannot think logically

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

#128

Post by astroid »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #125
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?

FEMA has no budget for it

What did they spend this years budget on specifically?

I think the majority of this country views them as the go to for "Emergency Management" at the federal level.

Are they using their money on other things that are not related?

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

#129

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

svnt wrote: post #88
usrusr wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be both at the same time, nothing wrong with that. Win-win is real, not everything is zero sum.

My comment has little to do with zero sum, but I’ll assume you’re trying to imply that people in rural NC are going to re-subscribe to their local ISP and keep the promotional ISP, you know, once everything is repaired. But let’s change the story a little: Local ISP has all their infrastructure destroyed, but Comcast’s network is still online. Comcast offers a one-month-free promotion but you have to purchase several…

Starlink is bearing a real cost to service these new users. Yes they could donate more, but that is literally true for every single person providing relief right now.

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

#130

Post by threeseed »

kortilla wrote: post #123
AlotOfReading wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> 700Gbps max per cell > having extremely low customer density I think you need to define “extremely low” because 700gbps is plenty for several thousand people. And the question was specifically about everyone in rural areas switching. If you go by rural being That sounds fine considering standard consumer usage patterns mean you’ll get 10x that as an individual even in peak times. That’s also assuming maximum densit…

> that lands at 7.2 mbps per person

Which is ridiculously poor.

This would simply create a digital divide further increasing inequality in rural areas.

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