981–990 of 1001 posts
Fiber is just getting cheaper and cheaper, more resilient, and is faster too. Plus it has no value like copper so thieves dont steal it. I don’t think it’s wise to pollute all of low earth orbit with Musk’s satellites, that area belongs to all of us collectively.
I think the main goal is direct to phones rather than being an alternative to fiber. But it's also a very good option for people living in rural areas with poor service (shoddy DSL).
Loving this, not loving the negativeness in this thread. I wonder what the negativists will say about Reflect Orbital, which uses their Eärendil space mirror to light the world. * https://www.reflectorbital.com/
I wonder if it would be possible for Starlink to use less reflective materials for their satellites so that the sky is less polluted for the astronomers.
What I don't understand is where are the Starlink competitors. Supposedly the UK government owns a stake of 10% in OneWeb and yet they are planning to use Starlink for trains. Is it really just too hard to put enough satellites in orbit to be competitive with Starlink?
Launch costs
Terminal costs
Satellite costs
As for the UK, it's the devolved governments that are going with Starlink IIRC
Loving this, not loving the negativeness in this thread. I wonder what the negativists will say about Reflect Orbital, which uses their Eärendil space mirror to light the world. * https://www.reflectorbital.com/
Why do you see things as negativeism vs positivism? Do you not live in a world where good and evil are syncretic? That mindset is bizarre, to me. My personal experience with Starlink is that it's an expensive LTE alternative. It's not a broadband replacement, the entire thing is pretty clearly a coverup for dual-use technology in low earth orbit: Starshield was adapted from the global communications network Starlink…
Regarding Starlink, I like it because it gives people free internet in flights. It gives a friend the possibility to stay in a rural home while being able to work. It gives tens of thousands access to information when there are catastrophes like the Venezuela earthquake.
It makes people being able to live a happy(er) life.
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I live in what is probably the first place to get these things in the world, but it feels like fiber is being built at an extremely rapid pace. Just in the past couple of years it seems like Google and AT&T fiber went from being a relatively confined thing to being available everywhere in the city, and everywhere outside, and at my friend's ranch 100 miles in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere.
Given that fiber's been around for literal decades, though, and the Internet hasn't recently gotten more popular or anything, why would this suddenly have changed? I could believe what people are saying re. Starlink providing competition and finally incentivizing fiber buildouts
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No, this is not really moving forward, it's just a traffic jam and pollution in an otherwise pristine space - for money. It's just the money. If we were actually going to Mars, then yes, but somehow he made himself the 'First Trillionaire' - without even so much as getting out of Earth's orbit. This is NFT progress, in that, there is some plausible economic value in NFTs, but in reality, it's just a hustle.
> It's just the money. Money is a materialization of human desire.
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I doubt the transmission path is longer, fiber optic cables aren't laid in perfectly straight lines between all points.
I mean with satellite it's longer. You have to go up and down, and starlink sats prefer sending data streams back to the ground as soon as they can (because the laser interconnect capacity is limited). And variable, no less due to the high differential speed of the satellites. And the signal conditioning is much more involved than on the ground.