[HN Gopher] Saint Helena Island Communications
___________________________________________________________________
Saint Helena Island Communications
Author : kickofline
Score : 154 points
Date : 2023-09-25 15:55 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sainthelenaisland.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (sainthelenaisland.info)
| jedberg wrote:
| The most interesting part (to me) is buried in the middle:
|
| "Compared to the current satellite link the [undersea, Google
| owned fiber-optic] cable will bring almost incredible amounts of
| capacity. The Government of St Helena estimates that it will
| deliver several hundred gigabits per second - far more than the
| island's population of around 4,400 people could possibly use.
| The plan is therefore to turn the island into a communications
| hub, with satellites in space linking via groundstations on the
| island to the world via the cable. The Government of St Helena
| believes St Helena's position in the South Atlantic and its
| political and physical stability make it an ideal and almost
| unique location for this use."
| craig_s_bell wrote:
| If you want to learn more about life on St. Helena, I recommend a
| blog called What The Saints Did Next:
| https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/
|
| My favorite posts are the trip reports... They have hiked to
| every corner of the island. Great photos, and lots of history.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| The beauty contest winner doesn't have an impossibly thin body.
| Already looks like an interesting place...
| MichaelAza wrote:
| Under Telephone History it says:
|
| > The current PABX-based system went live over the weekend of
| 27-29th July 1990
|
| A PBX serving a whole country, even a small one, is wild. From
| what I could find [1] the system used was a UXD5 exchange [2]
| which is technically a PSTN exchange intended for rural areas and
| based off the Monarch 120 PBX [3].
|
| The architecture of the UXD5 is common to a lot of telephone
| exchanges of the time (possibly modern ones as well?) with actor
| based message passing, actors running on different levels (more
| real time vs less real time) and a combination of assembly and a
| high level language (in this case, Coral [4]). Fascinating stuff.
|
| [1]
| https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cable_wireless_has_contrac...
|
| [2]
| https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/uxd5-...
|
| [3]
| https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/monar...
|
| [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORAL
| ithkuil wrote:
| Population <5k people
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Looking forward to the new cloud region!
|
| > In July 2019 the Government of St Helena announced that it has
| issued a letter of intent to connect the island to Equiano. The
| 1,140Km branch to Saint Helena was completed in 2021 so this
| cable will provide the first fibre optic connectivity from St
| Helena to the outside world through both Europe and South Africa.
|
| Compared to the current satellite link the cable will bring
| almost incredible amounts of capacity. The Government of St
| Helena estimates that it will deliver several hundred gigabits
| per second - far more than the island's population of around
| 4,400 people{16} could possibly use. The plan is therefore to
| turn the island into a communications hub, with satellites in
| space linking via groundstations on the island to the world via
| the cable. The Government of St Helena believes St Helena's
| position in the South Atlantic and its political and physical
| stability make it an ideal and almost unique location for this
| use.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Does it have reliable supplies of plentiful and cheap
| electricity and water?
|
| Because without that, datacenters won't be showing up...
|
| And even if it did, big US companies don't really like to have
| data centers in places that are too remote, if only because
| staff have to visit from time to time and don't want to have to
| take an 8 hour seaplane ride to get there...
| njarboe wrote:
| Communication hub. Probably just a downlink for Starlink for
| most of the South Atlantic.
| secalex wrote:
| They aren't talking about general purposed datacenters, but
| satellite uplink stations. These new constellations of low-
| Earth orbit (LEO) internet satellites (like Starlink) can
| network with each other but eventually need to downlink into
| a big terrestrial dish where the traffic meets a fiber
| backbone. It's position in the southern hemisphere, middle of
| the Atlantic and political stability (still part of keeping
| the sun from setting on the British Empire) would make this
| an interesting place for downlink stations.
|
| Not a ton of jobs, but some CapEx for construction and
| probably a couple dozen people year-round.
| cbsks wrote:
| Yikes! Internet is expensive! And there is only a single provider
| legally allowed to operate.
|
| 18PS: 30GB. 5Mbps down, 1Mbps up
|
| 36PS: 60GB. 5Mbps down, 1Mbps up
|
| 67PS: unlimited. 10Mbps down, 1Mbps up
|
| 120PS: unlimited. 20Mbps down, 1Mbps up
|
| https://www.sure.co.sh/assets/Banner-Links/Residential-Broad...
| jakub_g wrote:
| Sounds like a better and cheaper deal than in Berlin!
|
| (Semi-joking. Never lived in Berlin, but the mind-blowingly bad
| infra for such a big EU IT hub is a recurring meme).
| mhh__ wrote:
| IT hub isn't exactly the vibe you get from walking around
| Berlin IMO.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Notably you're looking at the _enhanced_ packages, available
| starting next month. The current packages available are
| significantly worse!
| https://www.sure.co.sh/broadband/broadband-packages/
|
| The highest tier offers a whopping 31GB of data at 2mbps for
| the low low price of PS160
| coryrc wrote:
| Wait until you hear about what it costs in regular parts of the
| US...
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I pay roughly 50 pounds for 300 mbps down and 20 up. That
| seems pretty typical for parts of the US without gigabit
| availability, sans rural areas that depend on satellite
| connection. I think if you want to shit on a devloped country
| with slow and overpriced internet, Australia is still the
| gold standard (not that the US is perfect by any means)
| aquaticsunset wrote:
| Umm... significantly less than that? US telecom isn't a
| shining star of good value and fair pricing, but a median
| speed of 210 Mbps with a roughly $75/mo bill is a lot better
| than Saint Helena Island.
| coryrc wrote:
| You're paying about the same amount as a tiny island in the
| middle of nowhere. It should not even be close!
|
| Yes, yours is faster, for now.
| whalesalad wrote:
| relevant documentary video
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QejUTDCWw
| Aachen wrote:
| Content behind the random google video ID
|
| "The World's Most Useful Airport [Documentary]" --Wendover
| Productions, 2019-12-31
| mikeortman wrote:
| The fact there is an internet monopoly barring residents to use
| other internet providers is sad, especially given the impact on
| the GDP of the island if proper high speed internet and
| technological resources are available.
|
| I have a feeling the government is doing the cease and desist as
| a hand wavy thing to make the internet company happy, but will
| put little if any effort in actually enforcing it (if there is
| even something that could be done legally). From what I
| understand, the Saints are an incredibly kind and chill group of
| people, just living life without much worry. I can't imagine the
| government giving a shit
| gambiting wrote:
| >>The fact there is an internet monopoly barring residents to
| use other internet providers is sad
|
| I guess the deal was that if this company brings internet
| connectivity then they get exclusivity on the island for X
| number of years. I wish the article would get into more details
| about this deal.
|
| Edit: on second read, the article does actually. It mentions
| the exclusivity deal was meant to expire in 2022, but because
| of lack of suitable replacement or alternative solutions it was
| extended to 2023 and it was just extended again to 2024.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| u/skrause mentions in another subthread that the government
| has commissioned a fiber optic network going live at the end
| of the year.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37651113
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230925221524/http://www.indepe.
| .. (page 3)
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| > A search on Google(tm) for 'Saint Helena' will bring up many
| sites that are in California, which has a town called 'Saint
| Helena', or South Carolina, which has an area known as 'Saint
| Helena Island'. For this reason it is best when using Google(tm)
| to append to your search '-napa -carolina -california', which
| will remove many of these irrelevant results.
|
| Not any more! Since google "enhanced" their search to remove such
| operators. I just tried searching in this way for eg some
| restaurants and there was indeed a bunch of irrelevant results
| even with the exclusions. I wonder what they do now.
| beowulfey wrote:
| When did Google do this?
| tomcam wrote:
| At least five years ago. Drives me crazy.
| chongli wrote:
| It's their M.O. Relentlessly cut "power user" features.
| Relentlessly undermine the user's wishes and redirect the
| user to Google's preferred results.
|
| I don't know why we continue to put up with it. Boiling
| frogs I guess.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| I switched to Kagi and never looked back, it's like Google was
| before a decade of enshittification.
| mavhc wrote:
| Depends where you live, for me in UK it brings up a) a location
| in uk, then the rest are about the island.
|
| [Saint Helena Island] brings up only results about the island
| warkdarrior wrote:
| The operators work for me. I get different results with and
| without '-napa -carolina -california'.
| dekhn wrote:
| Truly weird: for me, -california won't suppress the top
| result (a map of St Helena California) but adding -carolina
| _and_ -california removes the map and puts the wikipedia page
| for St Helena (the saint person). In either case, using Tools
| - > Verbatim works better than "All Results"
| scottlawson wrote:
| I typed St Helena island which worked grest
| wantlotsofcurry wrote:
| I'm surprised they didn't use the .sh domain for the website.
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| There is something to be learned from the simplicity and
| quaintness of this site - the information density is much higher
| than 90% of modern web sites. In a single page, by simply
| scrolling I learned so much about the communication
| infrastructure of a British island outpost.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| There's nothing to be learned from the site's terrible
| organization, navigation, layout, or extreme density which
| makes it difficult to read. Density is not necessarily good;
| have you noticed that most hardcover and paperback books have
| pretty limited line length? Fairly generous inter-line spacing?
| Indented paragraphs?
|
| There's so much "cruft" scattered around, too - tiny text
| "explaining" things. You shouldn't have to explain how to use
| your site's UI to visitors. And that UI incorporates incredibly
| tiny buttons that are impossible to use on mobile.
|
| And then there's this absolute dumpster-fire:
| https://sainthelenaisland.info/communications.htm#q_navigati...
|
| The author stopped learning about web design in the late 90's
| and seemingly doesn't give a damn about making his site
| actually useful and easy to navigate. It also doesn't come
| remotely close to passing HTML validation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's a meme-like website that demos this very concept. Then
| there's a v2.0 or some ++ type versioning where they use very
| minimal CSS to actually improve the readability. I'm a fan of
| the use of the minimal CSS to add margins and widths as it
| improves readability for me.
|
| Searching for it with only the vagueness of what I can think of
| right now returns nothing useful, and that's with not using
| Google. Maybe my vague description will be enough with someone
| with better recall than I have.
| johndotsun wrote:
| The original (I think): https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
|
| First improvement: http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
|
| Later iterations: https://thebestmotherfucking.website/
|
| https://perfectmotherfuckingwebsite.com/
| dylan604 wrote:
| yup, this is it. thanks for being the collective memory
| ta1243 wrote:
| https://bestmotherfucking.website/ perhaps, which I have to
| admit improves on http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/
|
| Searching for "the best fucking website" is not fruitful
| though.
| denysvitali wrote:
| You missed https://thebestmotherfucking.website/ :D
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I (sorta) know the author of a self-published book, _Finding
| Napoleon_ which I think covers his time on St. Helena.
|
| It's funny that they don't much mention the main reason anyone's
| heard of it.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| You mean the epic steps?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I did a find on "Napoleon." what did I miss?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Why would the communications page of their site mention
| him? He's mentioned on other pages if you're curious enough
| to explore the site, though.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I guess I wasn't.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Oh, you meant that this site doesn't mention Napoleon.
|
| I don't see a reason for a how-to site on their site to
| mention whatever this island's claim to fame is? Sounds
| like someone putting a plaque at Milford Sound that says
| "You might have heard of New Zealand as the filming
| location of Lord of the Rings!"
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I've been to Milford Sound. Actually, there are tons of
| LOTR tours in NZ, and it's got a lot more reasons for
| being famous than just Peter Jackson movies.
|
| You AND the other guy _could_ have just said,
|
| "You missed the other pages on the site."
| mattlondon wrote:
| Anyone's heard of what? St Helena? I think it is pretty well
| known in its own right so I don't see reason for a site about
| telecoms on the island to reference someone who was on the
| island hundreds of years ago ?
| thefz wrote:
| > In July 2019 the Government of St Helena announced that it has
| issued a letter of intent to connect the island to Equiano. The
| 1,140Km branch to Saint Helena was completed in 2021 so this
| cable will provide the first fibre optic connectivity from St
| Helena to the outside world through both Europe and South Africa.
|
| > Compared to the current satellite link the cable will bring
| almost incredible amounts of capacity. The Government of St
| Helena estimates that it will deliver several hundred gigabits
| per second - far more than the island's population of around
| 4,400 people{16} could possibly use. The plan is therefore to
| turn the island into a communications hub
|
| > [...]
|
| > A route survey was conducted in August 2019 and at the end of
| the year the Government of St Helena announced that it had signed
| an agreement with Google(tm) to land the cable at St Helena,
| aiming to commence service in 2022.
|
| > On 6th February 2020 Sure announced that it had no plans to
| upgrade domestic and small-business Internet connections to
| Fibre-Optic when the Equiano Cable arrives in 2022, meaning
| ordinary users would not see the full benefits of the new system.
|
| Screw this ISP, man.
| skrause wrote:
| However it seems that they are now building an island wide
| fiber network owned by the government and not by an ISP, and
| will end the current monopoly as soon as this network is ready:
| https://openfalklands.com/st-helena-plans-for-an-island-wide...
| realo wrote:
| Apparently Sure is based in Bahrein ... quite a few kilometers
| from the island. So why would they care about anything other
| than money?
| maximilianburke wrote:
| Given their current slow satellite internet uplink I'm surprised
| they don't call it Saint Helena Island Telecom.
| kickofline wrote:
| > It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that
| members of the public may have acquired, imported and be
| currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of
| internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention
| of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing
| arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications
| Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone using such a terminal
| will be liable to be subject to a 'ceaseand desist' order issued
| on behalf of the Government. A cease and desist order is an
| instruction to stop using terminals, and continue to refrain from
| using terminals, whilst the exclusivity of the current
| telecommunications licencing arrangements remain in force. Any
| breach of such a cease and desist order may result in the
| confiscation of the equipment.
|
| Starlink seems to be illegal to protect the government's
| investment in a monopoly on the main satellite.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I wonder if other countries will (or have) ban Starlink for
| censorship reasons. Or frankly, lack of censorship control.
|
| So much of our governance, if not all, is based on geographic
| sovereignty, and satellites can supersede that.
|
| I hope we finally get more global governance to deal with more
| and more global issues.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| I remember reading that Starlink routes traffic via base
| stations in the subscriber's own country, in order not to
| anger regulators.
|
| If you think about it it makes sense; otherwise governments
| could just ban the sale of Starlink equipment for violating
| the law.
| pcl wrote:
| Telcos do pretty much the same -- US SIMs in China receive
| different Great Firewall treatment than Chinese SIMs, and
| I've seen some Chinese SIMs / phones on some cell networks
| in the US get routed back through the Great Firewall. Which
| is IMO pretty disgusting on the part of the US telcos, but
| sorta functionally the same as what you say Starlink does.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Actually with mobile roaming, I believe the
| implementation is that everything just gets tunneled back
| to your home carrier; so I think it is not so much the
| case that US carriers are deliberately discriminating
| Chinese traffic.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Can be seen as a positive or a negative:
|
| You can still access your home country's
| Netflix/streaming content. Log into websites that might
| geo-block (Homedepot.com blocks Europe...), log into work
| without security admins losing their mind about a
| "suspicious foreign access".
|
| Downside is that ads won't localize into a language you
| don't understand. I love it when that happens when
| travelling.
| capableweb wrote:
| Seems unlikely that Starlink would put a base station on
| Saint Helena just to be able to serve some percentage of
| ~4000 population. Most likely the base station is somewhere
| else.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I wouldn't expect Starlink to serve remote ocean areas
| until after they have their space lasers working well and
| can transport the traffic to a continent.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I've no idea of the numbers, but it's possible they'd one
| one somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic -- either St
| Helena or Ascension -- for traffic from aircraft and
| ships.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Frankly it would be easier to enforce at the payments
| layer. Governments have a lot greater control over their
| financial system than the movement of physical goods (see
| war on drugs where drugs move freely despite massive
| interdiction efforts but money is done through currency as
| integrated financial products are easily monitored and
| controlled)
| nycdatasci wrote:
| Relatedly, it's worth watching the entire Bill Gurley talk at
| the recent All-In Summit.
|
| Edit: Updating link to jump to the relevant section of the
| talk. https://youtu.be/F9cO3-MLHOM?t=397
| alejohausner wrote:
| Awesome! Thanks for the link. Ending regulatory capture is
| the main plank in RFK Jr's presidential campaign. He's
| mentioned the FDA, NIH, EPA, the CIA and the military
| industrial complex, but I haven't heard him talk about
| capture of the telecom regulators.
|
| Sorry for the political ad, but I'm frustrated by news
| articles that say "voters don't want Biden or Trump", but
| fail to mention RFK's campaign.
|
| (stepping off the soapbox)
|
| Oh, and did you hear that neither New Hampshire's nor Iowa's
| delegates to the Democratic national convention will be
| counted? Or rather, they'll automatically go to Biden. I kid
| you not.
|
| (I'll just show myself out)
| yieldcrv wrote:
| neither RFK or Vivek Ramaswamy have a chance
|
| if you would like candidates like that to have a chance,
| petition your state to allow non party members to vote in
| primary elections
|
| partisans of any party are a now minority in this country
| but the growing number of independents dont know it yet and
| have no representation, while their participation in the
| primaries would smooth out the candidate selection
|
| in the mean time, fawning over non consensus candidates are
| a waste of time
|
| it is accurate for there to be frustration over the two
| predictable candidates because rabid partisans are going to
| pretend that the rest of the population have a choice (as
| long as its the "choice" they like)
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| What's the connection?
| nycdatasci wrote:
| The chat covers some egregious examples of regulatory
| capture in the US. Part of the focus is the
| Telecommunications Act of 1996, which purported to increase
| competition but in fact accomplished the opposite. https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
| greg_gorrell wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! I haven't come across this podcast yet
| and it looks like some great content.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Does a monopoly make sense here? Pre starlink, there was
| probably a huge cost to bring internet to the island, and those
| doing so wanted to have some form of protection in order to
| confidently invest the capital to do so.
| lxgr wrote:
| Yeah, I could totally imagine some long-term bandwidth lease
| funding the launch of a geostationary satellite.
|
| But enforcing that monopoly against private users, i.e. not
| resellers/ISPs, seems somewhat extreme.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| Alternate take: "the current licensee will sue us if we allow
| Starlink".
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's sad how $$$ legacy satellite services worked almost
| everywhere (Inmarsat, iridium, globalstar, even ham/hf), but
| now that it's within reach of the poors, they get heavily
| regulated to oblivion.
| hinkley wrote:
| A number of years ago NYC decriminalized ownership of beehives,
| and a journalist interviewed a bunch of people who had them
| anyway. They all had schemes to hide their hives. One guy made
| it look like an AC condenser, and went so far as buying himself
| work clothes to make him look like a repairman.
|
| If you make it out of the right materials, it shouldn't be too
| hard to conceal a starlink antenna without destroying the gain.
| quercusa wrote:
| The Mystery of Red Brooklyn Honey:
|
| https://us.latinhoneyshop.com/blogs/news/the-mystery-of-
| red-...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| This is a good reason for the new King of the UK to override
| that territory's law
| teh_klev wrote:
| The new King has no powers to do anything like that. It'd be
| up to the British government to stick their noses in, if at
| all possible.
| wffurr wrote:
| Why bother with Starlink if the fiberoptic subsea cable is live
| now?
| ZeWaka wrote:
| It's not rolled out yet: http://sainthelenaisland.info/commun
| ications.htm#maestrotech...
| justrealist wrote:
| > Due to delays in finalising designs for the new network,
| it is now accepted that it will not be completed by January
| 2024
|
| If they haven't finalized the design, I'd say they've got a
| ways to go.
| wffurr wrote:
| Is that for the cable or FTTP deployment on the island
| itself? Seems like they could at least get much better
| mobile internet rates using the subsea cable instead of
| satellite for backhaul.
|
| I had a very difficult time trying to figure out if that
| subsea cable was online or not.
| lxgr wrote:
| Redundancy is also nice - given how remote Saint Helena is, I
| could imagine repairs taking quite some time.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Because the government seems highly regressive and is almost
| certainly controlling and monitoring the one cable they've
| allowed?
| fidotron wrote:
| You still have to run the cable the last mile, even on an
| island.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Not necessarily, we have wireless technologies. Stringing
| cables along poles could well be cheaper, though.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'm thinking with 4G, 5g, one day 6g and one day 7g,
| physical data infra's days are numbered or will become a
| premium product at the residential level.
|
| Except in Canada and elsewhere where the mobile and
| wireline providers are the same and deliberately keep
| mobile pricing high enough to disincentivize cord
| cutting.
| wffurr wrote:
| None of those create more radio spectrum. I don't see a
| real replacement for wireline fiber and ethernet ever.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Each "g" let us modulate more data in the same channel
| size. Spectrum re-use via smaller cells is virtually
| limitless.
|
| And we're re-allocating more spectrum for 2-way data
| regularly.
| yencabulator wrote:
| It's extra delicious when read in context of these quotes:
|
| > In the summer of 2016, the United Nations declared access to
| internet is a human right. While we are just beginning to
| realize the internet's potential for our island and with the
| prospects of a high speed cable arriving on our shores, perhaps
| now is the time to re-evaluate the importance of information
| technology for EVERYONE. Can we truly reach our fullest
| potential if access to the World Wide Web is available only to
| those who can afford it?
|
| > Inhabitants of the tiny tropical island of St Helena pay
| through the nose for an internet service that mainlanders would
| have considered painfully slow even during the pre-Netflix era.
|
| > St Helena's isolation and reliance on satellite technology,
| means that internet services are limited and expensive compared
| to many countries, and are a major barrier to development. The
| top residential package offered in St Helena provides 13.3
| megabytes of data at a speed of 1.5 megabits per second, and
| costs PS180.50 per month.
| russdill wrote:
| Direct link:
|
| https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/2023/news/use-of-unlicenced-t...
| legitster wrote:
| There was a line, I believe in the Machineries of Freedom, that
| says the goal of "effective" libertarian politics is not to
| change laws - it's to design disruptive technologies that _make
| existing laws irrelevant_.
|
| We saw one version of this with Uber and Airbnb, essentially
| blowing up taxi and rental regulations, respectively. This is
| happening with AI, where regulation is hopelessly lost in its
| current state. We have seen this (unsuccessfully so far) with
| finance and the blockchain. And arguably this is a legacy which
| traces its way through industrial revolution (which saw the
| breakup of monarchy's monopoly on labor and land) or even the
| stirrup or the sword.
|
| Breaking existing rules and being unregulatable is probably an
| intentional point of Starlink.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| "This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to
| coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and
| you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could
| stand upright in the winds that would blow then?" - _A Man
| For All Seasons_ (1966)
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Depends: are we cutting them all at once?
| btilly wrote:
| The context of the quote is a debate about whether to
| give the Devil the benefit of law. And yes, it was
| cutting them all at once to get at the Devil.
|
| You can watch the original at
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqReTJkjjg. (I picked
| the longer version at 3 minutes that includes the leadup
| to why the debate happened.)
| lxgr wrote:
| > Breaking existing rules and being unregulatable is probably
| an intentional point of Starlink.
|
| Looking at Starlink's coverage map (for stationary service at
| least), they seem to very much be playing by the rules (i.e.
| international laws and regulations regarding satellite
| communication services): https://www.starlink.com/map
|
| A "break rules and become unregulateable" approach would not
| have service boundaries corresponding to political borders.
| plaguuuuuu wrote:
| And we can see the effects of bypassing laws in stark relief
| - the erosion of decades-fought labor laws with the gig
| economy, the rent spikes from AirBnb forcing scores into
| homelessness.
|
| This is the problem with deregulating businesses (as opposed
| to deregulating people).
| rwmj wrote:
| Why does Saint Helena have import duty, or are they talking about
| packages not coming from the UK?
| jseutter wrote:
| Saint Helena has import tariffs like other colonies do. They
| used to have preferential rates for commonwealth countries but
| I'm not sure if that still exists. I guess my response would be
| they have import duties for the same reasons other colonies do.
| Why wouldn't they tax imports?
|
| edit: found an updated tariff document
| https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ST...
| . I don't see anything special for commonwealth countries so
| it's probably a thing of the past.
| scroot wrote:
| I took one of the last voyages of the RMS St Helena (the only way
| to get there prior to 2016) and stayed on the island for 10 days.
| AMA
| higeorge13 wrote:
| How did you spend your 10 days? Were the locals friendly to
| you?
| scroot wrote:
| I stayed in several guest houses during my time there. I also
| took some tours around the island. Wandering was probably the
| best part. The locals were _extremely_ friendly and helpful,
| not to mention a riot during late nights at the pub...
| tomarr wrote:
| Mostly cannibals, now missing his left leg
| bibstha wrote:
| What made you choose St Helena for your travel? Did you feel
| like you got to see most of the island in 10 days?
| antiviral wrote:
| For those of you interested in reading about work being done to
| start a new city (1) or new semi-autonomous country (2) where
| people can plan something new, St Helena Island sounds like a
| good candidate- remote but can still in the middle of several
| trade routes.
|
| (1) https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-tech-investors-
| new...
|
| (2) https://www.wired.com/story/itana-binance-charter-cities-
| ins...
| [deleted]
| wizerdrobe wrote:
| > Note that the postcode ('zip code') 'STHL 1ZZ' applies to the
| entire island, and also that the 'South Atlantic Ocean', while
| strictly unnecessary, does seem to help prevent letters being
| routed to California, South Carolina or Australia!
|
| Took me several paragraphs to realize this wasn't invoking my
| beloved Beaufort County
| [deleted]
| miohtama wrote:
| Seems that the post codes of British colonies follow a pattern.
|
| Gibraltar is GX11 1AA (the whole country).
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