Africans Are Turning to Starlink • Hacker News Board

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#111

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:41 AM UTC

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…

I have a Starlink shout out! My brother in law worked on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska a couple of summers ago. They are at sea for weeks and keep fishing until the boat is full. He's done crabbing trips before and was basically out of communication for a month. On this trip, they had Starlink and were able to send us pictures and even FaceTime. Starlink delivered a huge quality of life improvement to guys who work a hard, dangerous job. They really appreciated it!

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#112

Post by yoz-y » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:43 AM UTC

mikert89 wrote: post #98

dkbrk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One would argue that pre-Internet people prepared more, started on easier trails or went out with experienced people first.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#113

Post by true_religion » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:44 AM UTC

fluoridation wrote: post #96

acchow wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's only 7 ground stations (or points of presence, I'm not sure what the difference is but they list them separately) or so in Africa, with Nigeria, Botswana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa being the ones that are known and confirmed.

Not many people live inside 15 miles of those stations, but Starlink is active in 23 countries.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#114

Post by bridgettegraham » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:45 AM UTC

Just for interest's sake and so this continues to be visible in the world: In South Africa we are not allowed to make use of Starlink. The reason: our government insists that the owners of Starlink give > 50% of ownership of the contract exclusively to black people (our discriminatory BBEEE that explicitly states, openly, in any advert in public, that a company is allowed to ONLY EMPLOY black people and not white people), which Elon Musk and his company refuses to do (good for them). That is the reason we can't have Starlink.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#115

Post by true_religion » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:48 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #32

whateverboat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thieves are not educated enough to understand the difference and will steal the fiber and try to sell it (with no success) and in the anger, destroy huge swathes of the remaining fibre.

No. By that logic, PVC pipes wouldn't be safe from thieves, because thieves wouldn't be able to understand the difference from copper pipes. Anyone who's ever touched a fiber cable before immediately understands the difference from a copper cable, and if thieves can't get paid, they're not going to waste their time stealing it.

People do steal PVC pipes, albeit more commonly in bulk:

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/BNI-disco...

In any case, the fiber situation in Ghana was dicy for a time because theives were cutting the fiber lines in hopes they were copper. Thieves are often in a hurry so they cut first, check, then move on.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#116

Post by bridgettegraham » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:49 AM UTC

IFC_LLC wrote: post #104

I've lived in SA for about a year. I would have paid a lot of money for something like Starlink a couple of years ago. Where you have internet it does not work while the local power is out. And it was not that stable and at times we were sitting 10 hours without power a day. And that's in Joburg. And 5g was hard to come by. So I can only imagine that locals are happy to see such a thing. Especially if you can run it…

In South Africa we are not allowed to make use of Starlink. The reason: our government insists that the owners of Starlink give > 50% of ownership of the contract exclusively to black people (our discriminatory BBEEE that explicitly states, openly, in any advert in public, that a company is allowed to ONLY EMPLOY black people and not white people), which Elon Musk and his company refuses to do (good for them). That is the reason we can't have Starlink.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#117

Post by jatora » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 1:52 AM UTC

bridgettegraham wrote: post #114

Just for interest's sake and so this continues to be visible in the world: In South Africa we are not allowed to make use of Starlink. The reason: our government insists that the owners of Starlink give > 50% of ownership of the contract exclusively to black people (our discriminatory BBEEE that explicitly states, openly, in any advert in public, that a company is allowed to ONLY EMPLOY black people and not white peo…

The racism of south africa astounds me.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#118

Post by fragmede » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:04 AM UTC

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.

Intuitively, what's the cost to get to orbit? SpaceX's Falcon reusable rocket lowered the cost to get to space by an order of magnitude or so, so you have to factor that in.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#119

Post by CursedSilicon » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:04 AM UTC

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?

Hi, I'm a Youtuber.

I talk about computer history. Is my knowledge not valid just because I'm "on youtube" ?

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#120

Post by underlipton » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 2:06 AM UTC

kibwen wrote: post #37

Zigurd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Africa is mostly on 4G networks, and while 3G isn't a majority of the connections, it's still the next biggest share of infrastructure, far ahead of 5G which is relatively scarce. This is in the context of a population that really depends on mobile wireless for market information if they are farmers, and for payments. Having a mobile phone can take priority over having a flush toilet. Starlink has both opportunities…

> Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it. This is the rub. The primary market here are people whose communities aren't wealthy enough to afford infrastructure that would provide superior service (5G being a step up from satellite, and wired being a step up from that). So Starlink depends on there existing a growing population of peo…

Individually. A village municipal link is probably within reach, though.

Village sees increased productivity, raises the wealth of the region, suddenly surrounding villages can afford it. Or, individuals get their own. I don't like giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, but the Chinese/Sears/etc. model of catering to people no one else would try to service can certainly be lucrative.