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Africans Are Turning to Starlink

economist.com

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Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#91

Post by snohobro »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #86
snohobro wrote: post #84

I worked on the Starlink program in the Redmond facility during the growth from a couple sats as proof of concept to thousands of sats regularly providing internet. I’ve since moved on to other ventures, but I’m still incredibly proud of what I did there. Mostly because it brought internet to those unserved and those who no one was ever going to serve, at least any time soon. I believe the internet and access to the…

> take full advantage of the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet Seems like a bit of a stretch in modern times. Do you have any idea what percentage of traffic is TikTok/YouTube/Facebook?

I mean yeah, it’s a ton and totally a topic worth discussing on its own. Those aren’t the only options though. There is still plenty of available data out there for people to access and do practical and educational things with outside of purely entertainment. That’s a choice anyone accessing the internet has to make, and I was able to help give them that choice. Better to have a choice to learn and grow vs scroll than have no choice at all I’d say.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#92

Post by dkbrk »

mikert89 wrote: post #66
SpaceNugget wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to clarify that no, Starlink _really_ does not "drastically reduce the risk" of remote outdoor activities. Looking it up, Starlink doesn't even provide it's gps location to connected devices. And regardless, actually rugged communication capable handheld gps units already exist and have for a while. And they don't require that you bring a whole satellite dish and some kind of battery pack with you on your wild…

this reads like angry old man shaking his fist, obviously theres truth in it, but its too one sided to be taken seriously a major part of outdoors risk is the uncertainty, which by definition, you cant look up ahead of time

Could you actually explain what you disagree with? In my opinion, everything in the comment you're replying to is obviously correct.

If you're going somewhere where there is a chance you might get lost, injured or trapped by weather, and need rescue, you should already be bringing something like a Garmin inReach. That's a highly ruggedized device with a battery that lasts for over a week without recharge, is small enough to keep in a pocket, provides two-way messaging and weather reports, can track your position at regular intervals so your family can see where you are, and can, without any setup and even when you're seriously injured, be used to directly send out an SOS with automatic reporting of your position and two-way voice communication.

As excellent as Starlink is, it is nowhere near a substitute for those capabilities. And the inReach has existed for longer than Starlink, ergo Starlink doesn't change the risk profile. The only real argument that Starlink changes the risk profile is if you're comparing Starlink vs nothing, or Starlink + PLB vs just PLB. And sure, in those cases Starlink is a significant improvement, but it's still inferior to something like an inReach.

The second part of the argument is that having better connectivity is no substitute for fundamentals, which is overwhelmingly, obviously correct. Yes, bring all the connectivity you want, the more the better if you're willing to carry it. But your plan shouldn't be built around the assumption that you can be rescued if things go wrong. If you get complacent due to having better connectivity it's entirely possible for it to worsen, rather than improve, your risk profile.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#93

Post by yieldcrv »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #90
yieldcrv wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sovereignty in Africa is a joke, the nation state concept shouldn’t have been applied there and the colonial work on imposing that is vestigial at best And that’s the 99th percentile answer on that side of the bell curve When people want to refer to a country on that continent, they do. There is little reason to refer to most countries on that continent because they are basically not separate administrative districts…

They are not a uniform monolithic people, regardless of outside interference.

understood, I think there are some unique challenges on that continent to make referring to it amorphously to be rational and not merely ignorant

And the ways its being addressed domestically involve cross border supernational unions and economic blocs hoping to get the basic infrastructure of a single market, single defense framework

essentially the ground work to becoming exactly what everyone keeps saying

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#94

Post by acchow »

fluoridation wrote: post #51
LorenDB wrote: post #4

I live in rural America. The story is quite similar here. My options were (a) cellular hotspot, which is slow and expensive, or (b) satellite internet, which is also slow and expensive. Despite government programs, there are no cable/fiber/DSL options in my area. Starlink fills the gap nicely; it's not blazingly fast, but pretty much meets FCC broadband definitions for $55/mo.

I don't understand. Starlink satellites are just routers to ground stations. Why are there no wired connections available? Do the connections not reach the famous last mile?

There are only 170 ground stations (about 100 in the US).

So for someone living in rural america, it's really "famous last 300 miles".

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#95

Post by fluoridation »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #59
consensus1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The last mile problem is legitimately so difficult in rural areas that it is more cost effective to launch a constellation of 10,000+ satellites than it is to run the wires.

If you happen to live within line of site of a cell tower buying a MIMO antenna and beaming internet off of a data plan is also somewhat viable, but Starlink is probably better on bandwidth and packet loss

I wonder about the economics, though. Intuitively it doesn't seem like it can be more efficient to launch constellations of satellites than run kilometers of cables, even if you have to run 20 km for each customer. That's, what, $10k a pop? So around two orders of magnitude cheaper than a satellite? Something isn't adding up for me.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#96

Post by fluoridation »

acchow wrote: post #94
fluoridation wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Starlink satellites are just routers to ground stations. Why are there no wired connections available? Do the connections not reach the famous last mile?

There are only 170 ground stations (about 100 in the US). So for someone living in rural america, it's really "famous last 300 miles".

That can't be right. The satellites can only cover a diameter of 15 miles. Anyone living any further from a ground station is still SOL.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#97

Post by Panzer04 »

fluoridation wrote: post #95
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you happen to live within line of site of a cell tower buying a MIMO antenna and beaming internet off of a data plan is also somewhat viable, but Starlink is probably better on bandwidth and packet loss

I wonder about the economics, though. Intuitively it doesn't seem like it can be more efficient to launch constellations of satellites than run kilometers of cables, even if you have to run 20 km for each customer. That's, what, $10k a pop? So around two orders of magnitude cheaper than a satellite? Something isn't adding up for me.

Starling is 10k satellites shared across the entire planet.

A satellite will serve thousands of customers, whereas a fixed line only serves one. I think 10k is also severely understating the cost per customer. There's like hundreds of metres between these houses at a minimum, and in some areas possibly Kilometers from house to house.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#98

Post by mikert89 »

dkbrk wrote: post #92
mikert89 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this reads like angry old man shaking his fist, obviously theres truth in it, but its too one sided to be taken seriously a major part of outdoors risk is the uncertainty, which by definition, you cant look up ahead of time

Could you actually explain what you disagree with? In my opinion, everything in the comment you're replying to is obviously correct. If you're going somewhere where there is a chance you might get lost, injured or trapped by weather, and need rescue, you should already be bringing something like a Garmin inReach. That's a highly ruggedized device with a battery that lasts for over a week without recharge, is small en…

There are infinite examples.

Right now I am in an overlanding vehicle, but I'm not an expert in offroading. I drove down a 5 mile trail that was very technical. The car can handle it, but it needs caution and the way back is much harder. I was extremely hesitant about going back up that way. If I get stuck, I am solo and I am hours from town via driving. So I just pulled out starlink, and with a combination of claude, off roading websites, and google maps, found an easier, roundabout, and more off the grid way back.

At every step I can use available information to put myself onto safer routes, I can research every decision before I make it. Where is the safest place to sleep, etc.

Pre internet people are out there just winging it in the back country

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#99

Post by Polizeiposaune »

dools wrote: post #31
mbreese wrote: post #13

Isn’t this a similar argument to how Africa adopted mobile phones significantly faster than other regions? When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations. Especially if there’s no infrastructure needed to install. As others mentioned, It’s a very similar situation for rural America. My dad lives in a rural setting, and for years could only get s…

> jump technology generations Satellite internet is not a “generation above” fibre internet

Once the birds are in orbit, satellite internet is vastly superior to fiber in speed of deployment.

Fiber requires custom engineering at the city block level and a single rotten utility pole can block deployment.

I say this as someone who waited for fiber and is happily using it now.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#100

Post by colechristensen »

theoreticalmal wrote: post #68
colechristensen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents in rural America had a local ISP that did long distance wireless (highly directional antenna mounted on the house pointed at the top of the grain elevator a few miles away) but it was an unreliable 20 Mbps because the ISP wasn't interested in upgrading their equipment.

This could have been a revolutionary way of accessing the internet before Starlink. Grain elevators are everywhere in the US Midwest. Can’t believe it wasn’t capitalized on

It is indeed all over the place, they just didn't want to upgrade equipment once it was there.
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