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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

#241

Post by seadan83 »

astroid wrote: post #134
svnt wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't it be better if more local people were subscribed to StarLink to begin with? People like you literally cannot be happy about anything. Good grief. I mean, Comcast and Xfinity will probably not go down the next time this happens, right? At worse this is nice gesture that will result in a slight market correction and better outcomes for all next time.

Appalachia has some of the highest poverty rates in the country. They don't have money for food, let alone a $120/month service that they can get for cheaper via cellular data or conventional ISP

At worse this is a non-gesture. For the actual relief effort itself, those travelling to do rescue - starlink has its use cases (as would a satellite and sat phones, but starlink does somewhat shine for first responder use cases)

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

#242

Post by seadan83 »

silisili wrote: post #27
svnt wrote: post #13

How long does it take to rebuild fiber infrastructure? This is not a kindness, it is a promotion. Six months would be a kindness.

It's a start. This is a national emergency, there are still people unaccounted for and people who don't know if their family is alive or dead. This helps setting up internet at regional centers that weren't devastated, for contact and comms. Not for browsing Reddit, taking Zoom calls, and playing Roblox.

Respectfully, it might be a start that is now too late to be useful. Cell coverage is back in a lot of areas. Those in the cut off areas (via land transit) can't get the equipment anyways, and to boot any cost is a complete barrier.

As far as regional centers not devastated, those would be functioning cell towers? This disaster largely incurred four issues: (1) mud slides and flooding that killed people, (2) washed out roads, (3) power outage, (4) water outage

Cell towers are what you want to get back up and running. A cut off community needs food, water, or evacuation from the area.

The starlink I think has its use case for the first responders. At this point, I'm not sure how it is useful anymore.

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

#243

Post by h0l0cube »

jrflowers wrote: post #238
h0l0cube wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not unaware of his behavior since, but people are complicated, so is ‘growth’, and I try to resist the urge to see only one side of the equation.

This makes sense. “Growth” can be skewed if you only look at a person’s words and actions. The side of the equation that we imagine in our minds has be weighed equally lest we take a combination of a person’s own words about their values and thoroughly documented and uncontested accounts from others as being somehow reflective of a person’s character.

> “Growth” can be skewed if you only look at a person’s words and actions

I guess my point is that his words and actions haven't been one sided. e.g., He assists Ukraine, but he also supports Trump who has implied he will withdraw US support and force a 'peace', which likely will be at the expense of Ukrainian territory and embolden Russia to make future incursions in neighboring countries. He kickstarted the battery and electric mobility revolution, but he isn't really that concerned about the environment or conservation. I'm sure there's plenty more contradictions, but I'm not inclined to take this discussion further.

I'm not sure what to make of all of this, and I don't think there's anyone who credibly has enough insight into his mind to say. But certainly, the links you provided describe his words and actions, I don't dispute that, however cherry picked they may be.

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

#244

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

Retric wrote: post #157
CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that relevant? Adding satellites over the Pacific doesn't improve New York's service. The question is how dense of a population they can serve, not how many satellites Starlink could theoretically have.

The only way to add one satellite over NYC on average is to also add several satellites over the ocean and other low density parts of the earth. If you want low latency individual satellites must be in LEO which means they spend most of their time over water and low density bits of land. Which gets back to my original point where increasing the maximum density inherently reduces the average utilization of each satell…

Sure, but my point was that there's a maximum density you can get which won't be enough for NYC or even a much less dense city.

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

#245

Post by seadan83 »

seadan83 wrote: post #235
astroid wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? S…

Blame Congress. (1) they control budget and can add the additional funds. They also know that half a billion is being "diverted" from acute disaster relief. The budgeting is on them. (2) Congress needsto amend the asylum law to allow asylum claims at ports of entry or not at all. That congress has a law disallowing asylum claims at ports of entry is why people are crossing deserts and then surrendering to the first a…

Addendum: I am not sure to what extent congress controls line item budgets for FEMA. Though, it would be on them to fund something. Second, we should also consider the net taxes of all existing asylum seekers that ever entered the country and are still living, their offspring and any businesses they have set up.

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

#247

Post by inemesitaffia »

seadan83 wrote: post #225
olouv wrote: post #120

It appears that issues with payment setup were delaying relief efforts, as indicated by this tweet: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1841207137420132549 .

My folks in the area just got power and data a day ago. That seems like a gotchya, how can you do anything for setup without power nor internet access? This kinda feels like musk offering to help the Thai kids trapped in a cave. The "pedo" guy pointed out the offer of help was useless. If you have internet access to set up payment, then you have internet access... Am I missing something? That and a lot of folks in Ap…

When you turn on the device, when it's brand new you get an hour free Internet to set it up. Now you get 30 days.

You can get a full refund on the hardware if you use it for under 30 days

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

#248

Post by jmb99 »

h0l0cube wrote: post #175
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.

Depends on the price of batteries, which are rapidly declining. Within the next few years the numbers will change in favor of batteries. Though it also depends on the load and having enough space/sunlight for the solar array

I can buy a used diesel/propane/gas/pick your fuel generator today for a few hundred bucks that could power most of the essentials in my house. I bought a brand new one during an extended power outage due to storms last year for $500 CAD. That and 80L of gas (~$120 CAD) can run my sump pumps, fridge, freezer, the electronic side of my furnace, my homelab server rack (including 6 PoE access points), my workstation, and key lighting - for 5 days. If I cut that back to essentials, closer to 3 weeks. That’s roughly 200kWh for $120, plus $500 up front.

Currently, the absolute cheapest I can find lithium batteries (I am planning a solar+grid load-balancing setup) is about $160CAD/kwh. To prepare for the worst case (i.e. minimal solar generation during and following the storm - say, middle of winter/happens to be cloudy/panels are damaged/etc) I’d need to spend over $30,000 in batteries alone to have the same capacity as $120 of gas. Not to mention the sheer amount of space that would take. And the cost of solar panels (10kW actual generation capacity, minimum, to keep essentials running), at roughly $1/W in Canada, adds another $10,000 to that estimate. And that’s not including the cost of installation, which based on what I’ve heard, probably adds another $10-20k.

While there are some interesting advances being made, I do not believe that battery capacity costs will decrease by 3-4 orders of magnitude “within the next few years,” unless you anticipate gasoline/diesel/etc prices to go parabolic. It’s very obvious why people would much rather have a generator and some Jerry cans for a few hundred bucks than a solar + battery setup that costs more than their car.

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

#249

Post by rasz »

h0l0cube wrote: post #232
trevyn wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you can be anti-Russia and anti-Ukraine at the same time.

Also, crucially, Starlink has been proactive in trying to disconnect Russian operatives who have managed to attain a Starlink connection. All the same, Elon’s backing of Trump doesn’t bode well for a good outcome for Ukraine (nor other ex-USSR satellites that are feeling very nervous right now)

>proactive

"causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened". Instead Elmo denied the fact russians had working terminals in the first place, and was later forced by State Dep to enact some measures. Those measures are still ineffective as evidenced by recent Starlink controlled Iranian Shahed drone sighting.

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

#250

Post by h0l0cube »

rasz wrote: post #249
h0l0cube wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, crucially, Starlink has been proactive in trying to disconnect Russian operatives who have managed to attain a Starlink connection. All the same, Elon’s backing of Trump doesn’t bode well for a good outcome for Ukraine (nor other ex-USSR satellites that are feeling very nervous right now)

>proactive "causing something to happen rather than responding to it after it has happened". Instead Elmo denied the fact russians had working terminals in the first place, and was later forced by State Dep to enact some measures. Those measures are still ineffective as evidenced by recent Starlink controlled Iranian Shahed drone sighting.

I misspoke. They've been very quick to react to Ukranian intel. If they were staffed, perhaps they'd have the capability to be proactive, but I can't necessarily say they would be motivated to, esp. when the military is doing that for them. And the Ukr. military are perhaps more effective because they know where their communication centers are supposed to be under the fog of war. That said, I'm only going on what has been said in public
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