141–150 of 209 posts
According to their coverage map ( https://www.starlink.com/map ) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.
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> Nobody is going to disclose & use anti-satellite technology over internet censorship. This constellation is plausibly if not probably duel-use technology. You can bet that China is planning ways to disable it if war breaks out.
If war breaks out is the key. They'd rather keep their ability to destroy it under wraps until it becomes a matter of national security. Disclosing it or using it prematurely over a benign issue such as internet censorship would be stupid.
But more to your point I agree; they won't try to destroy the constellation itself over something as petty as a few people using Starlink to circumvent their 'Great Firewall'. People sufficiently motivated to get around the firewall already can, without the need for Starlink. The CCP doesn't seem to care about it; the firewall doesn't need to be perfectly airtight to control the population, it only needs to be 'good enough'. And they wouldn't want to expose any new anti-satellite weapons they have, particularly soft-kill weapons that might be addressed after discovery with a software patch.
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Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, which is not very far away. In order to be sure of having service available in a month or two, they have surely already built a ground station or two, printed some instruction booklets in Nigerian, hired some Nigerian sales reps, etc.
Yeah, I saw that when you hover, it shows you an estimate of when it'll be available. But saying that it's available in X weeks/months/years in Africa directly conflicts with the tweet saying "Starlink is now on all seven continents" when it's not available in Africa or Asia right now.
They have coverage over all seven continents because of that and I have very little doubt that it's been tested in those continents as well. "Availability" here seems to be a proxy for "is technically solved" vs. "is commercially available".
If you're asking "what's the difference?" Think about the war in Ukraine. Starlink wasn't (and isn't?) commercially available there but was able to be deployed in an emergency.
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FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!
Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)
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FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!
Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)
According to their coverage map ( https://www.starlink.com/map ) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.
Non-commercial users such as the US military are using it on bases, ships, and aircraft worldwide. Antarctica is notably a continent without US military bases, so the "on all seven continents" claim was not complete until these scientists got a hold of a dish.
According to their coverage map ( https://www.starlink.com/map ) there is no coverage in Africa nor Asia, unless I'm missing something obvious. Or if there are new continents I'm not aware of.
Man, I love when sci-fi becomes reality. It's the cool things that get me excited for some parts of the future, and this is exactly that.
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According to its Wikipedia entry, McMurdo Station had a 20Mbit/s satellite link so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station#Communications
I had a buddy [1] that worked in the kitchen at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for a few seasons in 2012-2014. From what he told me: The internet works at certain times of the day at different bandwidths depending on the satellite. I think at that time there was 3 in orbit, and one of them was a retired Navy sat that had like dial-up speed. Also everything that goes to the station stays there so the vinyl collecti…
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That makes perfect sense. If the service is not available, it's not available. The reason why doesn't make a difference "how available" it is. Either it is, or it isn't. Seems a bit like false marketing to say "Starlink is now on all seven continents" when it's more like "Starlink has satellites over seven continents but you can only actually use it on five of them"
Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, which is not very far away. In order to be sure of having service available in a month or two, they have surely already built a ground station or two, printed some instruction booklets in Nigerian, hired some Nigerian sales reps, etc.