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

181–190 of 374 posts

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

#181

Post by h0l0cube »

ultra_nick wrote: post #168

It's nice that Musk and his companies always seem to be willing to provide free emergency services. Over various disasters they've provided free energy, internet, and cell service. I can't believe people complain about charity when so many other companies do nothing. Same with Mr.Beast's charity acts. There's something wrong with people who do nothing and hate on other people doing charity.

I think intention matters here. It’s great for those people who are helped by Mr. Beast, but it’s coming from a place of ego and profit, not charity. Happy for those helped, but it’s still a little unseemly.

However, I do think Musk genuinely likes to help people^ (e.g. Puerto Rico and Ukraine), but also I feel his response to the (valid) rejection of his help by the divers in Thailand was ungracious and maybe a little telling. Hopefully he’s grown since then

^ also it’s good PR

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

#182

Post by astroid »

vel0city wrote: post #176
astroid wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the people in Tennessee, North Carolina, Maui, East Palestine, and every other botched emergency the last 5+ years would have been pretty happy to quibble about a 'paltry' 640 Million. Also it's not as if this is the -only- money spent on these endeavors. This is one agency in one year, doing something which was unprecedented until they could manage it via Covid 'emergency' measures. You can stick your finger…

Thanks for proving my point. Even $1 would have been too much spending for any of your points. You'll probably also complain the government isn't helping communities affected by immigration crisises while also complaining about the help being disbursed.

So there isn't a magic number? Any criticism of spending at all is the same as criticizing a single dollar?

Got it. So we mustn't criticize policies and spending vel0city agrees with. I'll add that to the rulebook to make sure no one else wonders aloud if perhaps that money could be of use right now (or used better in general).

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

#183

Post by vel0city »

astroid wrote: post #182
vel0city wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for proving my point. Even $1 would have been too much spending for any of your points. You'll probably also complain the government isn't helping communities affected by immigration crisises while also complaining about the help being disbursed.

So there isn't a magic number? Any criticism of spending at all is the same as criticizing a single dollar? Got it. So we mustn't criticize policies and spending vel0city agrees with. I'll add that to the rulebook to make sure no one else wonders aloud if perhaps that money could be of use right now (or used better in general).

What number would you have been good with? $5?

That $20 could have been useful. Imagine how much more money the average taxpayer would have if the government didn't spend that 0.001% of it's budget.

You'd be complaining about any amount.

Or do you think they wouldn't have complained if it was only $600M?

Just be honest and state what you really feel: the government shouldn't spend any money assisting communities with migrants other than to get them out.

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

#184

Post by astroid »

vel0city wrote: post #183
astroid wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there isn't a magic number? Any criticism of spending at all is the same as criticizing a single dollar? Got it. So we mustn't criticize policies and spending vel0city agrees with. I'll add that to the rulebook to make sure no one else wonders aloud if perhaps that money could be of use right now (or used better in general).

What number would you have been good with? $5? That $20 could have been useful. Imagine how much more money the average taxpayer would have if the government didn't spend that 0.001% of it's budget. You'd be complaining about any amount. Or do you think they wouldn't have complained if it was only $600M? Just be honest and state what you really feel: the government shouldn't spend any money assisting communities with…

Hard to say, given I just found out about this situation. I think it's higher than $20 for sure, but probably less than half than a billion. I think a more in depth analysis of the circumstances that led to the need to spend that money in the first place would be in order.

Can you tell me why I am supposed to answer your questions, but you have successfully dodged all of mine while levying personal attacks however? Seems .... a tad imbalanced, dont you think?

Go ahead vel0city, tell us what number you think the threshold is for questioning governments spending of the money they took directly out of our paychecks? You have to have one in mind at this point. How could you not? How else could you backup your claim?

EDIT: Actually I should ask - are you an American citizen? Do you have a dog in this fight? Is this money even coming out of your check? If not, it would explain why you think these budgets are beyond reproach, given that it would mean it's not your friends, family, or neighbors being effectively sacrificed, nor is it your money being spent in that case.

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

#185

Post by s1artibartfast »

ta1243 wrote: post #177
parl_match wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spent 10 minutes running the numbers, you'd probably answer your question pretty handily.

If I fully decked my roof out I can generate a good 20kWp I'm assuming OP isn't actually serving out of home (starlink won't help with it's CG-Nat), so it's not like they're running 5kW of servers. 10kWh a day seems perfectly reasonable amount to keep going. Given just running a generator it going to eat 20 litres a day on lowest load, over 3 weeks that's 400 litres you'd need to store. With a battery setup even if y…

That's crazy. There are huge differences is costs and use cases.A generator is $500, and mine can run for 24hrs on 5 gallons of gas. A 5kw solar system is about $25k to 35k in my area before batteries.

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

#186

Post by s1artibartfast »

ta1243 wrote: post #179
Alupis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have real rural broadband today. You just need to be willing to pay for installation out of pocket. When an ISP runs fiber to a new building (be it in a business park or rural farm), the math is almost entirely based on recuperating their installation costs - which they often pay for entirely out of their pocket. Your entire first contract term is usually just paying back the installation costs alone... For s…

One wonders how we ran electricity out everywhere. Running a fibre is about the same cost as running a power cable.

Cheaper labor and fewer challenges.

There is a lot of infrastructure where the cost to replace is an order of magnitude higher than the inflation adjusted original cost.

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

#187

Post by ta1243 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #185
ta1243 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I fully decked my roof out I can generate a good 20kWp I'm assuming OP isn't actually serving out of home (starlink won't help with it's CG-Nat), so it's not like they're running 5kW of servers. 10kWh a day seems perfectly reasonable amount to keep going. Given just running a generator it going to eat 20 litres a day on lowest load, over 3 weeks that's 400 litres you'd need to store. With a battery setup even if y…

That's crazy. There are huge differences is costs and use cases.A generator is $500, and mine can run for 24hrs on 5 gallons of gas. A 5kw solar system is about $25k to 35k in my area before batteries.

Solar is far cheaper than that in my location - especially if you put the panels up yourself, and storing 100 gallons of gas (400 litres) to run for 3 weeks is far more expensive.

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

#188

Post by AlotOfReading »

gpm wrote: post #170
threeseed wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That number looks to be before multiplexing, so it's not that bad. If 10% of the people in the area are using the internet at the same time (as in are actively downloading at full speed, not just are scrolling through already downloaded content) it should go up to 72 mbps per person, and so on.

It's not actually those numbers. For one thing, bandwidth is split between upload and download. 700Gbps isn't the actual capacity either, just the theoretical bandwidth. It's less in practice, limited by things like gateway capacity etc. the bandwidth also isn't evenly allocated between terminals because starlink has service tiers like other ISPs. Terminals are also not people. They're usually shared by households that may encompass multiple users at a time.

There's very good reasons starlink has such low limits on terminals per cell.

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

#189

Post by qsdf38100 »

h0l0cube wrote: post #181
ultra_nick wrote: post #168

It's nice that Musk and his companies always seem to be willing to provide free emergency services. Over various disasters they've provided free energy, internet, and cell service. I can't believe people complain about charity when so many other companies do nothing. Same with Mr.Beast's charity acts. There's something wrong with people who do nothing and hate on other people doing charity.

I think intention matters here. It’s great for those people who are helped by Mr. Beast, but it’s coming from a place of ego and profit, not charity. Happy for those helped, but it’s still a little unseemly. However, I do think Musk genuinely likes to help people^ (e.g. Puerto Rico and Ukraine), but also I feel his response to the (valid) rejection of his help by the divers in Thailand was ungracious and maybe a litt…

[flagged]

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

#190

Post by s1artibartfast »

ta1243 wrote: post #187
s1artibartfast wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's crazy. There are huge differences is costs and use cases.A generator is $500, and mine can run for 24hrs on 5 gallons of gas. A 5kw solar system is about $25k to 35k in my area before batteries.

Solar is far cheaper than that in my location - especially if you put the panels up yourself, and storing 100 gallons of gas (400 litres) to run for 3 weeks is far more expensive.

Storing 400 litres of gas in my area would cost about $250 USD for 2 new 55 Gallon barrels, maybe more if you want a nice pump.

I had a 10,000 gal tank put in for agricultural diesel, and that cost about $5,000.

Post reply on HN