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Africans Are Turning to Starlink

economist.com

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Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#81

Post by ladberg »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #78
TacticalCoder wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations. Same with electricity: there are many rural places in Africa where solar panels + batteries are a revolution. But then there's a reason why a country with more than 3x the number of people in the US was "missing" technologies: Africa is, overall, very poor (GDP per capita in Africa is something l…

Africa isn't a country? There are 54 countries in Africa, and it has almost twice the area of all of North America, not just the USA [1] 1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...

Where did the parent commenter imply Africa is a country?

EDIT: I can't read, sorry all!

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#82

Post by xienze »

dreambuffer wrote: post #76
consensus1 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In South Africa I would be very surprised if that ever happened. This is a country that went from exporting electricity to daily blackouts because of corruption.

It is easy to export electricity when you only need to serve 10% of the population.

Whose fault is it the electrical grid apparently, according to your thesis, hasn't been upgraded in the 30+ years since apartheid ended?

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#83

Post by dools »

willy_k wrote: post #77
dools wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations

> As others mentioned, It's a very similar situation for rural American That’s a seperate anecdote about his dad in America. If you’re going to nitpick irrelevant inconsistencies, at least be right.

[flagged]

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#84

Post by snohobro »

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 same knowledge and tools as everyone else is such an equalizer. My favorite was getting the monthly emails with stories from rural areas or countries with spotty to no internet and how many of those folks could now commune with the rest of the planet and take full advantage of the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#85

Post by sltkr »

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.

The question is if they can tell it's fiber _before_ cutting through it and damaging it. This seems way easier with PVC pipes than with fiber cables.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#86

Post by cactusplant7374 »

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?

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#87

Post by yieldcrv »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #78
TacticalCoder wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations. Same with electricity: there are many rural places in Africa where solar panels + batteries are a revolution. But then there's a reason why a country with more than 3x the number of people in the US was "missing" technologies: Africa is, overall, very poor (GDP per capita in Africa is something l…

Africa isn't a country? There are 54 countries in Africa, and it has almost twice the area of all of North America, not just the USA [1] 1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...

Sovereignty in Africa is a joke, the nation state concept shouldn’t have been applied there and the colonial work on imposing that is vestigial at best

And that’s the 99th percentile answer on that side of the bell curve

When people want to refer to a country on that continent, they do. There is little reason to refer to most countries on that continent because they are basically not separate administrative districts

Just fiefdoms that have nothing to do with the borders drawn and lots of area in between

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#88

Post by jayGlow »

ladberg wrote: post #81
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Africa isn't a country? There are 54 countries in Africa, and it has almost twice the area of all of North America, not just the USA [1] 1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...

Where did the parent commenter imply Africa is a country? EDIT: I can't read, sorry all!

right here "But then there's a reason why a country with more than 3x the number of people in the US".

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#89

Post by llbbdd »

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?

All places laden with useful information.

Re: Africans Are Turning to Starlink

#90

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

yieldcrv wrote: post #87
blacksmith_tb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Africa isn't a country? There are 54 countries in Africa, and it has almost twice the area of all of North America, not just the USA [1] 1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...

Sovereignty in Africa is a joke, the nation state concept shouldn’t have been applied there and the colonial work on imposing that is vestigial at best And that’s the 99th percentile answer on that side of the bell curve When people want to refer to a country on that continent, they do. There is little reason to refer to most countries on that continent because they are basically not separate administrative districts…

They are not a uniform monolithic people, regardless of outside interference.
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