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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

#261

Post by inemesitaffia »

seadan83 wrote: post #241
astroid wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

It might not have meaning for you, but someone on the ground had a real need and asked for it.

These people can't get Internet via WiFi or cellular and you know it.

This is concern trolling at best

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

#262

Post by inemesitaffia »

seadan83 wrote: post #242
silisili wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Cell coverage isn't fully back, in some cases it's backhauled over SATCOM, and people are carrying help with Mules and helicopters so the road story is nonsense.

Starlink was available ages ago. This offering was requested by people on the ground.

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

#263

Post by qsdf38100 »

subsection1h wrote: post #234
qsdf38100 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Astroturfing is going strong in here. You made the above statement in response to one user, and then a different user replied who has a 9-month-old account and 1/3 of his comments include "Tesla": https://hn.algolia.com/?type=comment&query=author:ripjaygn+T... You called it. The astroturfing is off the charts! And the user who replied to your comment pulled the "As a black man" routine just like the user you replie…

Yes, it’s sad, but I guess it’s expected. Elon bought Twitter to have a propaganda platform, use it for himself, and sell disinformation-as-a-service. Why wouldn’t he pay for astroturfing on popular websites as well? A website like HN where you can find a lot of tech people and investors. It’s easy, it’s cheap, it’s mean. I see no reason he wouldn’t.

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

#264

Post by jmgao »

hattmall wrote: post #224
jmgao wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently paying for 2Gbps symmetric fiber via 10Gbps XGS-PON that's multiplexed to 32 users, which is a mere 39 Mbps per user. In practice, this is absolutely fine and I have never run into any bandwidth limitations, because utilization rates for regular consumers rounds to basically nothing.

Is that calculation correct? Wouldn't 10gbps be more like 300 for 32 users?

Oops, no, it isn't, it's 39 MB/s, not Mb/s.

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

#265

Post by verzali »

trevyn wrote: post #222
AlotOfReading wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really need a source? It's obvious from the numbers. Starlink limits to low hundreds (~300) of terminals per cell. We'll round that to 1k to be generous for future improvements. Let's say each terminal serves 4 customers. Cell size is in the neighborhood of 150 sq. mi. That's a customer density of 27 customers per sq. mi, or 9% of the density threshold for "rural areas" in the US. Using more reasonable numbers…

> Starlink limits to low hundreds (~300) of terminals per cell. That’s… very incorrect.

Do you have a correct number by chance?

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

#266

Post by verzali »

elintknower wrote: post #174

Actually insane that the FCC opted to cancel the rural broadband contract with SpaceX for Starlink, to placate ancient telecoms who wanted to spend 4x more doing it with fiber... Not an elon fan, but the current admin / gov in charge is run by halfwits.

Has the cancellation actually affected Starlink in any way? Have they put up satellites more slowly or charged customers more?

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

#267

Post by ivewonyoung »

h0l0cube wrote: post #233
ripjaygn wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a lifelong liberal and won't vote Democrat after seeing how SpaceX and Tesla are being treated by the liberal media, including the publishing of outright fake news by so called reputable outlets. I don't support Trump or Putin or dictators in general. If I vote Republican at some point it'd be an anti-Democrat vote.

Democrats aren’t the liberal media, and the current Democratic controlled government also happen to be subsidizing both SpaceX and Tesla

Biden held an EV summit in 2021 and didn't invite Tesla.

At the summit he called GM's CEO Mary Barra the pioneer of EVs when GM produced only 28 EVs that quarter and Tesla like 200K.

They also tried to make the EV subsidies not apply to Tesla.

On Reddit any positive news about SpaceX like the first private spacewalk is actively downvoted by democrats and liberals. And any negative news is hugely amplified whether true or not. Mods of large subreddits hand out permanent bans and remove posts if you comment against the narrative even when sourcing official SpaceX responses.

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

#268

Post by happyraul »

jmb99 wrote: post #248
h0l0cube wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

The solar and batteries have much lower emissions, and can be used as all times (not just during power outages) to lower the cost of electricity. Anyway it doesn't have to be generator or solar + batteries... Why not both? Have the solar, reduce emissions and utility bills. Have the generator as a backup if power is out and batteries are empty.

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

#269

Post by bena »

seadan83 wrote: post #236
bena wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 30 days after the storm, the last thing we m thinking about is internet. It’s about cleaning up and assessing damage. These people will need communication, but this is like too little. They will be dealing with this for years.

This, the important communication is door to door. Letting distant relatives know you're okay is lower on the priority list. To boot, conventional satellite works fine for that purpose as well. Two issues though: stores need internet to allow credit cards. The cash only economy in place is painful. Second, lot of folks in Appalachia are poor. I'm told via family in the area that some people wanted to stock up before…

When we lost our house in a hurricane, the best part of the day was seeing Red Cross coming with hot food.
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