[HN Gopher] Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days f...
___________________________________________________________________
Starlink offering free internet access for 30 days for Hurricane
Helene victims
Author : ohjeez
Score : 208 points
Date : 2024-10-03 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.starlink.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.starlink.com)
| rpmisms wrote:
| Still tricky to set up. Tried to get a Gen 2 working for an
| affected family yesterday, no beans.
| asynchronous wrote:
| Surprised by this, I think it has the easiest setup experience
| I've had in years for ISP tech. What conditions were you
| operating in?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Rainy, outdoors, no internet. You know. Disaster area.
| bri3d wrote:
| For the base subscription types, your account needs to be
| "activated" with the dish associated, and the address on your
| account has to match the rough location of the Starlink. This
| gives you a giant chicken-and-egg problem where you need the
| Internet to set the account location and perform account
| activation, but you don't have the Internet because you have
| a Starlink that's not set up yet.
|
| It's odd that Starlink don't offer a "walled garden"
| experience allowing you to perform activation using just the
| Starlink itself, like almost all DOCSIS providers send down
| to unprovisioned modems. I can't tell if it's an intentional
| protection/KYC kind of thing or just an unimplemented
| feature.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Strange, everything I've heard about the setup says that
| they do provide a captive portal for doing the initial
| setup stuff that needs a network connection.
| gonesilent wrote:
| You can access the starlink.com site from none registered
| and unsubscribed units. But you need to use the Starlink
| provided DHCP/DNS servers to do it. Most people use other
| DNS settings on devices so the walled garden part might not
| work depending on user device config.
| levinb wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I bought the last two units left at any HD for a few hundred
| miles; drove them up there Monday.
|
| Apparently my friend had to drive in and out of his (utterly
| destroyed) neighborhood in Swannanoa because it required the
| app and cell service to set up. And when they returned home it
| wouldn't work. Took multiple trips back and forth to get it
| usable in the area where it was actually needed.
|
| Then of course the Helene intro deal requires an extensive form
| to fill out, so he just paid for it.
|
| And, incrementally, we all give our money to another publicly
| funded, government protected, privately held monopoly. And
| yet... it's charity.
|
| Anyway, the entire neighborhood is using it to coordinate
| resources to dig out their holler. So hey, she'll do for now.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| > publicly funded, government protected,
|
| How is it publicly funded and government protected?
|
| > privately held monopoly
|
| That's a weird complaint, would it be somehow better if it
| were a publicly held monopoly like Google, Amazon or
| Microsoft.
|
| And what can SpaceX do to ensure Starlink is not a monopoly?
| Stop providing service and shut it down?
|
| They have been even launching competitors satellites for
| them.
| electriclove wrote:
| Some people suffer from Elon Derangement Syndrome and
| cannot think logically
| wnevets wrote:
| Is this separate from what federal government is paying for? [1]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-spoke-musk-
| ab...
| realce wrote:
| Yes it is separate. This program is about base stations that
| are publicly accessible wifi, which Verizon is also doing in
| the area. This is just a "first month free" promotion.
| realce wrote:
| Isn't it also a $300 equipment payment and shipping time to get
| the equipment is 2 weeks?
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| I've seen multiple reports that the equipment was in stock and
| for sale in Home Depot stores in the surrounding area.
| hathawsh wrote:
| I hope we can focus on the human kindness that Starlink is
| showing and ignore the political overtones. Both Trump and the
| current administration are creating the impression that it was
| their idea. Maybe Elon or Starlink thought of it first? It
| doesn't really matter. Let's all just do what we can to help the
| hurricane victims.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Yes let's make sure we avoid the bad vibes that might emerge by
| understanding who's doing useful things and who's not.
|
| Let liars lie, what's the worst that could happen?
| iknowstuff wrote:
| ... who's lying?
| BadHumans wrote:
| I don't have any background on this story other than what
| has been provided but assuming Trump is ever truthful is
| naive at this point. If he told me the sky was blue, I'd go
| out and check.
| astroid wrote:
| So it literally doesn't matter to you if he is lying or
| not, you simply want to make your opposition to him known
| in a thread that has basically nothing to do with him.
|
| Way to contribute - you are going places. (nowhere I'd
| want to be though)
| duxup wrote:
| Most of the comments so far about the nuts and bolts usage. The
| downside of talking about not expressing "political overtones"
| is that you did bring it up, and I honestly don't even know
| exactly what those "political overtones" would be anyhow as it
| relates to this story specifically anyhow.
| hathawsh wrote:
| The political spin is in the article.
|
| Edit: I was referring to this article:
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-spoke-musk-
| ab...
|
| I originally thought the HN post linked to that article, but
| I see now it was only in a comment. Sorry!
| duxup wrote:
| The star link page?
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Impossible to know for sure, but, https://x.com/TheShawnHendrix
| (who has a very interesting story) is one of the people driving
| starlinks (and other things) to the affected areas and was
| tagging elon incessantly asking him to do this and was asking
| his followers to do the same.
|
| I would hazard to guess that's how Elon found out.
| foobarqux wrote:
| Why doesn't the government have a few planes or blimps fly
| overhead with base stations from the major mobile carriers?
| option wrote:
| because the government somehow lost its ability to execute any
| meaningful project especially under time constraints
| svnt wrote:
| It is weird what happens when you privatize so much and then
| find out too late it isn't profitable for companies to have
| fleets of emergency internet blimps primed and ready to go
| 24/7.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| The only mobile provider in Costa Rica was government
| owned, hugely profitable, subsidized internet and
| landlines, and was mandated to provide internet to every
| single citizen. In urban areas, they had to make sure every
| single house had mobile coverage. And courts made them
| comply.
|
| Then came the US around year 2002 and forced the country to
| a free market, and paradise was lost. Everything is US
| level now (more expensive, better service is even more
| expensive, nothing is guaranteed, you get bombarded by
| advertisements, and other spam types) and the company can
| no longer provide universal coverage and is now operating
| at a loss.
| chgs wrote:
| There's a reason the US has the largest economy in the
| world.
|
| It's modern colonialism.
| FredPret wrote:
| Oh yeah.
|
| All of the 25 000 000 000 000 dollars the US generates a
| year is vacuumed right out of the palm trees of the third
| world.
| pkaye wrote:
| Did Costa Rica get an IMF loan around that time?
| internetblimp wrote:
| https://www.domusweb.it/en/sustainable-
| cities/gallery/2023/1...
|
| funny cause sergey is building exactly that - private
| companies for the win :)
| svnt wrote:
| So someone who doesn't need to make money is building
| blimps to revolutionize air transport and you are
| proposing that company is going to then halt business
| during storms and travel to and float over hurricane
| recovery areas?
| internetblimp wrote:
| yep exactly. he has stated (as the article does) that
| delivering humanitarian aid to disaster areas is one of
| the main goals
| svnt wrote:
| I can see either a philanthropic/vanity project or
| (maybe? very optimistically?) a profitable business, but
| not both.
|
| Areas in need of humanitarian aid provided by airships is
| a too-small niche to (re-)develop entirely new flight
| technology.
|
| Geeks like blimps, and they need a story, that is all
| that is.
| internetblimp wrote:
| also read their 1 sentence mission statement
| ltaresearch.com
| Spooky23 wrote:
| More like because people ignorant of issues find it easier to
| chirp about why everyone is stupid.
|
| The government has agreements in place with all of the
| carriers to reestablish cellular communications. The first
| phases are around emergency communications for first
| responders and recovery. The next priority is restoring power
| to light up recoverable infrastructure.
|
| There a plan, and the people coordinating this stuff are good
| at what they are doing. That doesn't mean your uncle will be
| back watching Netflix - the priority is restoring basic
| services so that you get closer to normal quickly.
| mezeek wrote:
| unless, you know, it's about blowing stuff up
| duxup wrote:
| >a few planes or blimps
|
| If we use the map from the starlink page I feel like it would
| be a lot more than "a few" and I'm not really sure you'd get
| the places that "need" it desperately.
|
| https://api.starlink.com/public-files/HurricaneHeleneCoverag...
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Resurrect Google project Loon
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratovision
| rdl wrote:
| Definitely a lot of value in a drone/balloon/etc. fleet to 1)
| restore communications using satellite + mesh 2) overhead
| imagery for direct support of rescue/recovery/rebuilding 3)
| supporting rescue (and later recovery) operations by finding
| phones and sending messages in broadcast, etc. Augments what
| can be done from satellites or manned aircraft already.
| halyconWays wrote:
| That sounds expensive and like it'd help Americans
| frugalmail wrote:
| You're probably right, they would gate it on having an ITIN
| or something.
| renewiltord wrote:
| If the government started this project tomorrow I would stall
| it in the courts until they could prove that they did the
| necessary environmental reviews. Besides, privacy is a big
| concern and we can't have the government use the opportunity to
| become Big Brother as the sole Internet provider for so many
| people.
|
| We must protect freedom. Sometimes that costs the lives of
| children and sometimes that of adults. But freedom is
| important.
| nynx wrote:
| Environmental review for blimps?
| lupusreal wrote:
| What if it crashed on a squirrel?
| vel0city wrote:
| What goes up must come down no?
| pkaeding wrote:
| Of course! The shadow from the blimp might impact the
| habitat of an endangered newt living in the now-wetland.
|
| I mean, it might not, but you won't know until the
| environmental impact assessment is complete.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| The govt is sending satellites:
|
| > an additional 140 satellites are being shipped to assist with
| communications infrastructure restoration.
|
| From:
|
| Biden-Harris Administration Continues Whole-Of-Government
| Response to Hurricane Helene https://www.fema.gov/press-
| release/20240930/biden-harris-adm...
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| FEMA has no budget for it
| astroid wrote:
| What did they spend this years budget on specifically?
|
| I think the majority of this country views them as the go to
| for "Emergency Management" at the federal level.
|
| Are they using their money on other things that are not
| related?
| threeseed wrote:
| The recent spending bill did not include additional funding
| for the Disaster Relief Fund.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/johnson-house-passes-spending-
| bill-...
| astroid wrote:
| I appreciate the insight, this prompted me to poke around
| the FEMA site and see how transparent they are - to my
| shock, they actually did a good job of presenting the
| cost breakdowns and where the money goes.
|
| This kind of surprised me though:
| https://www.fema.gov/grants/preparedness/shelter-
| services-pr...
|
| I knew that the government was paying big money to buy up
| hotels and other migrant shelters, but had no idea $640
| Million was spent out of FEMA's budget on this year
| alone.
|
| This will surely turn into a powerful right wing talking
| point if the word gets out to that side of the media..
| (assuming it hasn't already)
|
| I'm not going to lie though, given the current situation
| and in hindsight how poorly Maui and East Palestine, OH
| were handled I think it's probably reasonable to ask
| whether this is what we want/expect from our Emergency
| Management services.
|
| It seems at first glance like they are creating the
| emergency via deliberately imported avoidable costs, then
| short changing the tax payers when they are most likely
| to need their help in a genuine life or death situation.
|
| It feels like this money should be coming out of the ICE
| budget or some other agency, but I'm just a proletariat.
|
| The relevant bit: "For Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the U.S.
| Department of Homeland Security will provide $640.9
| million of available funds to enable non-federal entities
| to off-set allowable costs incurred for services
| associated with noncitizen migrant arrivals in their
| communities.
|
| The funding will be distributed through two
| opportunities, $300 million through SSP - Allocated
| (SSP-A) and $340.9 million through SSP - Competitive
| (SSP-C)."
|
| I haven't even gotten to the other areas where they
| almost certainly had a similar level of waste, but I
| suspect over half a billion could be mighty useful right
| now.
|
| EDIT: Looks like once you know the magic number the news
| talking about it is easy to find, and it's not just right
| wing media highlighting this issue:
| https://www.newsweek.com/fema-migrant-funding-hurricane-
| disa...
|
| If this doesn't stir the pot, I don't know what will. No
| matter what happens, people are going to be irrationally
| (or I guess maybe rationally to an extent) angry.
| vel0city wrote:
| Quibbling over $640M over something that will be dozens
| of billions of dollars. Katrina's costs to FEMA was
| >$100B. Good chance this will be even more.
|
| The people complaining about the $640 million would still
| be complaining if it was $200M. Or $1M. Or one dollar.
|
| > It feels like this money should be coming out of the
| ICE budget or some other agency
|
| FEMA is the agency that's built-up processes and
| procedures for helping people get housing and other aid,
| because that is one of its main focuses. That's not what
| ICE does, they enforce immigration and customs. We're
| complaining about waste in government but you're wanting
| lots of agencies specializing in the same thing.
| astroid wrote:
| I think the people in Tennessee, North Carolina, Maui,
| East Palestine, and every other botched emergency the
| last 5+ years would have been pretty happy to quibble
| about a 'paltry' 640 Million.
|
| Also it's not as if this is the -only- money spent on
| these endeavors. This is one agency in one year, doing
| something which was unprecedented until they could manage
| it via Covid 'emergency' measures.
|
| You can stick your fingers in your ears if you want, but
| people are going to be pissed and have every right to be
| -- just like you have the right to handwave it away if
| you so choose.
|
| I just said ICE off the cuff, but it could just as easily
| have been Border Patrol or some other agency. At the end
| of the day, I doubt if you asked many people "Do you want
| your countries emergency management fund setup so they
| blow their budget flying in people from other countries
| and putting them in hotels that you can no longer
| utilize, more cash benefits than disaster victims that
| grew up paying taxes here - or would you prefer that
| money be spent on national emergencies?"
|
| I think you would have a hard time finding people who say
| "oh please, spend that on hotels and shelters and migrant
| flights! Their wants come before my family and friends
| needs."
|
| And before you give me some spiel about how that's a
| 'false dichotomy', I'll remind you that FEMA is currently
| saying they can't afford another storm and are being
| raked through the coals in how badly they are handling
| the current one. So it is not a hypothetical situation -
| they _literally_ said that American citizens are going to
| have to donate their personal already-been-taxed money to
| make it through this.
|
| That's 640 million that could have not been taken on TOP
| of the taxes from Americans, because of course people are
| going to pony up to save their communities.
|
| On top of taking at least 1/4-1/3 of every paycheck, they
| are TELLING us that we have to fund our own rescue.
|
| Honest question - what number IS worth quibbling about in
| your mind? What dollar value legitimizes scrutinizing
| government spending? I didn't know there was a threshold
| we had to meet for the concerns to be valid. By that
| logic if an agencies budget grows large enough, there is
| simply no valid criticism that can be leveled, and the
| budget must always go up just like the stocks!
|
| I haven't even heard of a single account of someone
| successfully getting the $750 'immediate need' funded,
| but I have seen dozens of videos of people crying or
| angry that they got denied immediately without any
| reason. Admittedly that's selection bias, but I actively
| looked for people who did.
|
| I also have yet to see a single person who things this is
| being handled well... and I see a lot of active duty
| service/reserve members very angry they can't help their
| friends and family while they are standby to go die for
| another middle east war we have no business in.
|
| Things I learned from this thread: 1) Elon Musk bad,
| despite using what resources he has to help -- any help
| is an automatic bait and switch to monopolize the
| internet (lol) 2) Government spending criticism
| irrelevant, you have to meet a hazy threshold for the
| concern to be worth 'quibbling about' 3) HN Users are
| largely in a very bubbled social circle (online and off),
| and are going to be shocked when reality penetrates that
| bubble.
| vel0city wrote:
| Thanks for proving my point. Even $1 would have been too
| much spending for any of your points.
|
| You'll probably also complain the government isn't
| helping communities affected by immigration crisises
| while also complaining about the help being disbursed.
| astroid wrote:
| So there isn't a magic number? Any criticism of spending
| at all is the same as criticizing a single dollar?
|
| Got it. So we mustn't criticize policies and spending
| vel0city agrees with. I'll add that to the rulebook to
| make sure no one else wonders aloud if perhaps that money
| could be of use right now (or used better in general).
| vel0city wrote:
| What number would you have been good with? $5?
|
| That $20 could have been useful. Imagine how much more
| money the average taxpayer would have if the government
| didn't spend that 0.001% of it's budget.
|
| You'd be complaining about any amount.
|
| Or do you think they wouldn't have complained if it was
| only $699M?
|
| Just be honest and state what you really feel: the
| government shouldn't spend any money assisting
| communities with migrants other than to get them out.
| astroid wrote:
| 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? Seems .... a tad
| imbalanced, dont you think?
|
| Go ahead vel0city, tell us what number you think the
| threshold is for questioning governments spending of the
| money they took directly out of our paychecks? You have
| to have one in mind at this point. How could you not? How
| else could you backup your claim?
|
| EDIT: Actually I should ask - are you an American
| citizen? Do you have a dog in this fight? Is this money
| even coming out of your check? If not, it would explain
| why you think these budgets are beyond reproach, given
| that it would mean it's not your friends, family, or
| neighbors being effectively sacrificed, nor is it your
| money being spent in that case.
| pjkundert wrote:
| Supporting millions of economic migrants, apparently.
| duxup wrote:
| You gotta have the hardware right?
|
| Isn't this then just ... kinda a normal "free 30 days" offer?
|
| This seems not far from handing out free AOL disks, except you
| also need some added hardware?
| silisili wrote:
| They're mostly getting the hardware for free. A lot of people
| in TN and elsewhere are delivering and installing Starlink
| units for free to the disaster areas(more than the US govt),
| and begging Elon for free service. Seems like he or someone at
| Starlink was listening.
| realce wrote:
| > They're mostly getting the hardware for free.
|
| No.
|
| Ordering this costs $320 and takes 1-2 weeks. They even
| charge for shipping and handling.
|
| By the time you get this, internet and cell service will most
| likely be re-established. I live 20 miles outside of
| Asheville, this is basically profiteering off a disaster imo.
|
| Much easier for the richest man on Earth to simply install a
| hundred base stations himself. Instead, people who just had
| their lives washed away need to pay his company 300 bucks.
| silisili wrote:
| To be clear, I didn't mean for free from Starlink, I meant
| free via donation.
|
| I follow a half dozen accounts in the area, and they're all
| donating a lot.
|
| Here is one, for example. Ignore the politics and just
| scroll through the Starlink posts -
|
| https://x.com/robbystarbuck
|
| Here's another that claims Starlink drove the units
| straight out. Unclear if they were free or not.
|
| https://x.com/TheShawnHendrix/status/1841823155511320684
| duxup wrote:
| Nothing personal but that's "a lot" of vague, qualified,
| and loaded phrases like "mostly free" "more than the US
| govt" and such ... but the source is just some guy's
| twitter page?
| silisili wrote:
| Understood. I'm trying to be careful with absolutes here.
| I can't attest that not a single person in the area
| placed a full price order.
|
| As for the number, it's happening fast and I only
| happened to follow a few, so don't even want to provide a
| guess. More than 100 units just in what I've come across
| in the last week. Pinning down an exact number is likely
| impossible.
|
| FEMA claims to have set up 40 units.
| UberFly wrote:
| You are coming across as someone with an axe to grind.
| There are plenty of private people and organizations
| getting supplies to the areas in need. Starlink hardware
| is definitely included as it's the best way to get remote
| communication up and going at the moment.
| duxup wrote:
| I like accuracy, numbers, details. I see statements that
| seem to say something specific but with a lot of
| qualifiers and vagueness and I start to wonder.
|
| I was satisfied with the other person's response.
| threeseed wrote:
| No one is disputing that there are some people getting
| supplies.
|
| But it's simply a lie to imply that everyone is.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _But it 's simply a lie to imply that everyone is
| [getting supplies.]_
|
| It's a lie to say anybody implied that.
| threeseed wrote:
| I am seeing nothing but misinformation and flat out lies.
|
| And in terms of actual evidence only seeing a handful of
| Starlinks.
|
| Either way it is completely wrong to say that they're
| mostly getting the hardware for free.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| You don't need to wait weeks. My local home depot has 9 in
| stock with dozens more nearby.
| kotaKat wrote:
| We've got people as far up as the top of NY sending
| truckloads of supplies down to the disaster areas and
| Starlink dishes are easy to throw on from local Best
| Buys/Home Depots/etc that have them.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| SpaceX has been sending hardware as well.
| hammock wrote:
| The action was taken in response to replies like this:
| https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1841207137420132549
|
| Wherein good samaritans are bringing hardware into the affected
| areas and having trouble/ delays using gift cards to get the
| accounts online and in service
| duxup wrote:
| Initial problem was payment processing with gift cards?
|
| Not too surprising, seen that, must be a fraud thing.
| svnt wrote:
| How long does it take to rebuild fiber infrastructure? This is
| not a kindness, it is a promotion. Six months would be a
| kindness.
| zdragnar wrote:
| It's for disaster relief efforts, not to provide the monopolies
| who will be rebuilding the infrastructure a free pass.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a free pass_
|
| It's pronounced a run for their money, _i.e._ competition.
| svnt wrote:
| I'm not sure how disaster recovery will be over in a month,
| or how monopolies will become major Starlink users
| undetected.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The monopolies are Comcast, charter, quest etc who usually
| have exclusionary rights to serve high speed Internet over
| cable/fiber.
|
| Free starlink is meant to be a temporary patch to aid
| evacuation and lifesaving efforts until the communities can
| be reconnected physically.
|
| If anything, the monopolists should be paying for their
| customers to get free starlink until their own networks are
| back up.
| silisili wrote:
| 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.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Really considering how little power a mini draws (30 watts)
| it really doesn't matter how devastated a location is. You
| can effectively indefinitely power it with a fairly modest
| battery+solar setup.
|
| I've been solar powering my mini since I got it with some old
| hardware I had laying around, just to see if I could.
| usrusr wrote:
| It can be both at the same time, nothing wrong with that. Win-
| win is real, not everything is zero sum.
| svnt wrote:
| 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 hundred dollars in equipment, so you
| are strongly incentivized to continue with Comcast
| afterwards.
|
| In what way is this win-win?
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Starlink is bearing a real cost to service these new users.
| Yes they could donate more, but that is literally true for
| every single person providing relief right now.
| astroid wrote:
| 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.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It might be extended, it might be extended for select terminals
| (people who are allowing general public access?), maybe only in
| areas which are still down in 30 days (once we actually know
| that).
|
| 30 days is just an obvious number to start with and give enough
| time to make a reasonable assessment for better next steps.
| jagtstronaut wrote:
| Despite the hate on the promo the tech they offer is still pretty
| cool. Only way I knew my in-laws were safe near Asheville was
| because one of their neighbors had starlink and a generator. Took
| a week for them to get power and cell phone service back and
| there is no way to get to them without a helicopter so if it
| wasn't for the product we would have just learned that they were
| alright.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| To ask a tech question: how much capacity does Starlink have?
| If every single person in US rural areas switches to Starlink,
| can the system handle it? What's the
| bandwidth/customers/capacity limit for the service? (I'm
| obviously not talking about emergencies, where degraded
| bandwidth is acceptable.)
| jagtstronaut wrote:
| At least last time I looked into starlink it most definitely
| cannot. Definitely more ideal for very rural or very poor
| areas where you are gonna be one of a few dishes. That may
| have changed now though.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I don't know if that kind of information is public. Starlink
| is continually adding new satellites, and each one adds
| bandwidth capability. Likewise with end user ground station
| hardware updates and spectrum purchases (at least the former
| is happening on a regular basis), capacity likewise goes up.
|
| I don't believe there is a theoretical or practical upper
| limit which would exclude very wide adoption of Starlink and
| similar competitors.
|
| Put in another way, I think it is possible that in a decade
| or two the only cell phone/data service that doesn't come
| from orbit will be a few terrestrial towers in dense downtown
| urban areas and around things like sports venues.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| 5G is going exactly the opposite way to provide higher
| bandwidth, more cells with each less users.
|
| With satellite internet you're sharing the medium with
| everyone, and that doesn't scale well. Beamforming probably
| helps a lot, but I don't how accurate it can be on that
| distance.
| Retric wrote:
| You can have essentially unlimited satellites the issue
| is the percentage of time each one spends over high
| density areas.
|
| Design for NYC density and 99% of satellites would be
| redundant at any given moment. The solution for
| increasing density is dropping costs so it's viable for
| satellites to be idle 95% of the time. At least as a
| first approximation, there's some tricks with how you
| setup orbits after the basic network is done.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| You're still sharing the medium (the sky), so at some
| point interference is going to be an issue. A quick
| search tells me the beams a satellite uses is measured in
| km, so you can only have one satellite serving several
| square km (you could have more channels of course).
| Retric wrote:
| Let's be pessimistic and say it's ~25km^2 with current
| designs. Surface area of the earth is 510,064,472 km2 so
| you estimate limits things to ~20 million satellites X
| however they can slice up the available spectrum. IE
| essentially unlimited satellites.
|
| As of September 2024 they have 6,371 operational
| satellites and ~ 4 million customers globally.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| 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.
| Retric wrote:
| 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 satellite.
| Andys wrote:
| I don't know the specs, but since they control both ends of
| the link, (ie. the client-side router) they've done a
| remarkable job of smoothing out load imbalances to make it
| highly usable even under problematic conditions.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The bandwidth is limited on a per-cell basis, somewhere
| around 700Gbps max per cell. Actual capacity at any time is
| somewhat less. If everyone is actively using theirs, you
| might get single digit Mbps or less at cell capacity limits,
| even if there aren't bottlenecks elsewhere.
|
| It's _fine_ , but it's highly dependent on having extremely
| low customer density. The system doesn't work well if
| everyone is using it all the time.
| huijzer wrote:
| Oversubscription is also an issue on wired networks. It
| might be a problem but usually you shouldn't notice; on
| wired at least.
|
| What is your extremely low customer density source? In
| theory they could reduce beam size and throw more
| satellites in space. How much they can handle is up for
| speculation, but your "extremely low" claim could use a
| source.
| threeseed wrote:
| > Oversubscription is also an issue on wired networks
|
| Wired networks can include fibre optic to the house like
| we have in Australia where the speeds can reach a
| consistent 1Gbps even in highly dense areas at peak
| times. And internal testing is happening on 10Gbps.
|
| If US cares about supporting the internet of tomorrow
| satellite services like Starlink will never be capable
| enough.
| kortilla wrote:
| 1gbps to the house doesn't mean you're not
| oversubscribed. An ISP that has a 10,000 homes on 1gbps
| connections absolutely does not pay for 10 tbps of
| transit capacity or even internal capacity to carry all
| that to its peering points.
|
| Cheaper fiber to homes definitely made last mile scale
| better bandwidth-wise, but it didn't change the
| fundamental nature of needing to heavily oversubscribe to
| make it affordable.
| threeseed wrote:
| Many major services e.g. Youtube, Netflix, Cloudflare
| have servers colocated with ISPs.
|
| So they don't need to have equivalent transit capacity.
|
| Which is not a capability Starlink can provide.
| vel0city wrote:
| It's not just a question of transit capacity. Most
| residential PONs are still oversubscribed, like the fiber
| cable running down the street can't handle all clients
| maxing out their throughput all the time. With PONs
| you'll have multiple clients all sharing the same
| physical port, in the same way in coax DOCSIS networks.
| One single cable goes through multiple passive splitters
| to branch out to a lot of final clients. They almost
| always wouldn't be able to support all clients maxing out
| all their bandwidth even if that traffic never left the
| local office, because once again its still dozens of
| clients on a single actual physical port.
|
| Fiber to your home doesn't mean you've got dedicated
| bandwidth to your ISP. You're still usually on a shared
| medium. You're likely to get all your speed most of the
| time though because most residential customers aren't
| constantly using anywhere near a gigabit of throughput
| constantly.
|
| That said though, a regular ISP can just run another line
| out. Starlink can't just will additional useful frequency
| ranges out of nothing. There's only so much spectrum to
| be used in the giant shared medium of the sky. Beams are
| only going to be so tight at those distances (outside of
| using lasers), only so many useful orbits, etc.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| 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 gives us an effective
| max density around the same as Mongolia, the least
| densely populated country on earth.
|
| It's just the nature of the technology.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Yep, in a few years these dishes will be $600 paperweights.
| We need real rural broadband.
| Alupis wrote:
| You can have real rural broadband today. You just need to
| be willing to pay for installation out of pocket.
|
| When an ISP runs fiber to a new building (be it in a
| business park or rural farm), the math is almost entirely
| based on recuperating their installation costs - which
| they often pay for entirely out of their pocket. Your
| entire first contract term is usually just paying back
| the installation costs alone...
|
| For some perspective, at a previous building we tried to
| bring fiber across the street into our office. The
| installation costs were too expensive to make the math
| work - so the ISP offered to split the installation costs
| 50/50 instead. Our half was over $94,000. This involved
| directional boring and the works, to go ~200ft to the
| right-of-way vault and into our MPOE.
|
| One can only imagine the expense of running fiber (or any
| type of cable) out to the boonies. It's totally feasible
| - but the costs make it not palatable in reality.
| ta1243 wrote:
| One wonders how we ran electricity out everywhere.
|
| Running a fibre is about the same cost as running a power
| cable.
| kortilla wrote:
| > 700Gbps max per cell
|
| > having extremely low customer density
|
| I think you need to define "extremely low" because 700gbps
| is plenty for several thousand people. And the question was
| specifically about everyone in rural areas switching.
|
| If you go by rural being <1000 people per square mile and a
| cell covering roughly 97 square miles (assuming the larger
| 15 mile hex diameter), that lands at 7.2 mbps per person if
| there are 1000 people in every square mile all trying to
| use it at the same time.
|
| That sounds fine considering standard consumer usage
| patterns mean you'll get 10x that as an individual even in
| peak times. That's also assuming maximum density for what's
| considered rural.
| threeseed wrote:
| > that lands at 7.2 mbps per person
|
| Which is ridiculously poor.
|
| This would simply create a digital divide further
| increasing inequality in rural areas.
| why_at wrote:
| >This would simply create a digital divide further
| increasing inequality in rural areas.
|
| Not sure what you mean? The more remote you get the
| better your bandwidth gets because you are sharing it
| with fewer people. This is the opposite of most ISPs
| which tend to ignore rural areas.
| threeseed wrote:
| Its about giving slow satellite to rural areas as opposed
| to fibre.
| ta1243 wrote:
| And how much contention is on that fibre?
|
| At a typical residential contention of 50:1 that's
| 350mbit
|
| At a really good residential rate of 10:1 that's still
| 70mbit
| gpm wrote:
| That number looks to be before multiplexing, so it's not
| that bad. If 10% of the people in the area are using the
| internet _at the same time_ (as in are actively
| downloading at full speed, not just are scrolling through
| already downloaded content) it should go up to 72 mbps
| per person, and so on.
| rtkwe wrote:
| No they're already added a one time "congestion charge" of
| $100 dollars to some (unspecified afaik) areas to try to
| lower the demand. Or cynically maybe it's a profit taking
| maneuver get more money out of areas where it's most popular.
| I tend towards the former personally.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It depends how you define rural of course.
|
| Starlink could pretty easily serve everyone whose only
| current option is 4G/5G/DSL/Satellite.
|
| Basically everywhere where there is no Fiber or Cable. That's
| still a decent chunk of the population.
| nativeit wrote:
| Curious...it's not been a week yet? It certainly feels longer.
| Glad to know they're alright. My family is in Swannanoa, and
| still without power and water.
| deelowe wrote:
| It has not. I have family impacted who still does not have
| power. One week will be tomorrow.
| jagtstronaut wrote:
| Edited to a week. I was actually shocked how quickly my in-
| laws got power back with how widespread the destruction was
| and how many of the roads are out. They have well water so as
| soon as power was back on they obviously have water.
| lkbm wrote:
| In Asheville / if you're close to the river, it's still
| recommended to boil your water. (I'm in Marshall ~700ft
| higher than downtown, so I'm assuming it's fine where I am,
| but guidance has been non-specific.)
| hammock wrote:
| >Despite the hate on the promo
|
| What does "hate on the promo" mean?
| Spivak wrote:
| Offering a "30 day free trial" doesn't really feel like a
| gift as much as it's an ad for the service trying to onboard
| customers. It's not a bad thing per se, just kind of in poor
| taste.
| hshshshsvsv wrote:
| They probably used the free trial system for a quick
| release instead of having to build some new system for
| this.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| There were just a few hours between Elon accepting to do it
| on X, and the update being deployed, I think they can be
| forgiven for not having it super polished. However, they've
| also explained that it's 30 days for now, as the end of
| that approaches, they'll re-evaluate to see if an extension
| is warranted. I recall them also mentioning refunds or
| maybe account credits for affected people if they've
| happened to pay already.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Likelihood of word "hate" appearing in musk-related topics is
| beyond sus
| RowanH wrote:
| In New Zealand we're very much natural disaster prone. I run a
| SaaS working out of home - we wired the house for generator
| backup and have a starlink unit that sits in a box exactly for
| this reason, even if the proverbial hits the fan for a week I
| can still keep on top of the business.
|
| Every couple of months the geny gets sparked up and everything
| tested. For a very small investment it's very comforting to
| know we've always got power/internet, regardless of what
| happens.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| Wondering if solar/batteries would do the same thing as a
| generator but cleaner and also useful in general ?
|
| Because I've thought about solving a similar scenario but
| just assumed solar/batteries would be the play here.
| parl_match wrote:
| If you spent 10 minutes running the numbers, you'd probably
| answer your question pretty handily.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| 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
| ta1243 wrote:
| If I fully decked my roof out I can generate a good 20kWp
|
| I'm assuming OP isn't actually serving out of home
| (starlink won't help with it's CG-Nat), so it's not like
| they're running 5kW of servers. 10kWh a day seems
| perfectly reasonable amount to keep going.
|
| Given just running a generator it going to eat 20 litres
| a day on lowest load, over 3 weeks that's 400 litres
| you'd need to store.
|
| With a battery setup even if you had to charge from a
| generator you'd be able to run it more efficiently for a
| shorter period.
|
| So having spend 10 minutes I reckon the answer is "yes,
| OP should certainly get a solar/battery system set up"
| firesteelrain wrote:
| We have a free solution already but not as well known - Ham
| Radio. You can even send email over WinLink.
| wtallis wrote:
| Has using encryption on amateur radio been legalized?
| asciimike wrote:
| No, it's still illegal
| halyconWays wrote:
| No, it's forbidden by FCC 97
| neveroddoreven wrote:
| How is this even enforced? Don't you have plausible
| deniability by claiming you just wanted to send high entropy
| random noise?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Ham radio people are Lawful Good types. Your Chaotic Good
| idea isn't well recieved by them. No way there is any
| ability to enforce that law in a disaster zone, they have
| enough trouble with looting and the like.
| sneak wrote:
| There is also a surprising number of stereotypical
| american self-identified "constitutionalist" types on
| there, which results in funny conversations when I speak
| to them (without a license, natch) about the 10th
| amendment and the FCC/access to spectrum.
| vel0city wrote:
| Electromagnetic waves transit state lines pretty much
| constantly. Hardware which creates/receives radio waves
| pretty much constantly transits state lines as well, I
| don't know too many radio manufacturers which restrict
| sale to only the state they operate in. You should
| probably read the constitution first about things which
| are interstate and who has permissions to regulate it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
| mindcrime wrote:
| I think what you say is largely true, but here is an
| existence proof that at least one person is both a Ham
| Radio Operator AND Chaotic Good.
| vel0city wrote:
| People abusing the airwaves with noise aren't chaotic
| good.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| You're correct that most people who get ham licenses are
| good people, but, the venn diagram of licensed ham
| operators and people who bought a baofeng off amazon does
| not have a lot of intersection.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > the venn diagram of licensed ham operators and people
| who bought a baofeng off amazon does not have a lot of
| intersection.
|
| There's quite the few young hams going for cheap-ass
| equipment from Amazon. Not everyone can afford an ICOM
| station from the get-go, you start with small cheap stuff
| and work your way up.
| alibarber wrote:
| No because that's also not really something that's
| permitted.
|
| It's true that there's no [practical] enforcement of it, in
| much the same way there's no enforcement of the OTH Radars
| from various militaries that take out large chunks of the
| HF amateur bands every now and then.
| tjohns wrote:
| The meaning of any messages sent over amateur radio needs
| to be clear to an outside observer. The specific rule is 47
| CFR 97.113(a)(4): "No amateur station shall transmit: [...]
| messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their
| meaning, except as otherwise provided herein."
|
| So no, high-entropy random noise of substantial length
| wouldn't be allowed because the meaning of the message
| would be unclear and unknowable.
|
| You also can't broadcast one-way messages per 97.113(b),
| and you're probably not having a two-way conversation with
| somebody via high-entrypy random noise. So there's also
| that.
| therein wrote:
| What if you say it is to transmit high entropy random
| data generated at geographically remote locations, for
| peer to peer verification, for a well-announced long-
| running experiment to see if geolocation leads to biases
| in random number generation.
|
| Let's have Princeton PEAR sponsor it. Call it NCC20 for
| NotChaCha20.
| kube-system wrote:
| You could say that. If you're in a position to use it as
| a defense to being investigated, then you're already
| being investigated. Hope it's true, because making false
| statements to federal investigators can be a crime.
| ryanianian wrote:
| It is largely unenforced by the FCC directly, but ham
| operators can (and do) use directional antennas to find you
| in many cases. Once reported the FCC does take violations
| seriously.
| tjohns wrote:
| Nope. And it probably won't ever be.
|
| The bandwidth allocated to amateur radio is incredibly
| valuable. (All of the spectrum allocated to ham radio would
| probably be worth literally _billions_ if the FCC were
| allowed to auction it off to the private sector.)
|
| The only thing preventing folks from attempting to use up all
| that spectrum for commercial purposes is the lack of
| encryption, which allows the ham radio community to self-
| police. If the traffic is encrypted, you no longer have any
| way to distinguish legitimate amateur traffic from commercial
| interests.
|
| The flip side of this is that the government really doesn't
| want amateur radio being used to set up otherwise legal
| transmitters that could potentially be numbers stations for
| foreign spies. So they consider this one a national security
| issue and kinda do pay attention to it.
|
| If you want to encrypt, use WiFi mesh networks if you're okay
| with the range limitations. If you really need ultra-long-
| range communication, your options are either (a) no
| encryption so the government+community knows what you're
| doing, or (b) you pay for a private service, who then
| inherits the legal obligation to monitor what you're doing
| with it.
| delichon wrote:
| I'm grateful that I don't need a license to operate a Starlink
| dish here in Starlink's home country, yet.
| sneak wrote:
| A license is definitely required to operate Starlink, just
| not by you.
|
| They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness to
| get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them toe
| the geopolitical line. (They are also a huge customer of a
| military-only service called Starshield, also run by
| SpaceX/Starlink, which either runs separately on the same
| Starlink satellites, or is dedicated Starshield satellites
| with very similar technology.) This is the same USG that
| issues the launch licenses for the entire rest of the
| business via the FAA, so, like Apple/China, they have little
| option if they don't want to be dead in the water.
|
| If the USG wants your dish off, it will be off. No license
| revocation is required, just a phone call.
| ivewonyoung wrote:
| > They tried not servicing Crimea due to an unwillingness
| to get involved in the war, and the DoD quickly made them
| toe the geopolitical line
|
| I am confused, it's illegal for Starlink to prove access to
| Russia and Russian occupied areas like Crimea because of US
| sanctions. So essentially the opposite of what you're
| claiming.
| delichon wrote:
| Apparently in the US you require the "requisite character
| qualifications to be and remain a Commission (Amateur
| Radio) licensee."
|
| https://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-upholds-decision-to-revoke-
| ama...
|
| Starlink's character qualification is whether you pay their
| bill.
| tjohns wrote:
| Starlink itself is the FCC license holder, not you as a
| private user.
|
| This means that Starlink is the one that needs to stay in
| the good graces of the government, and inherits the
| obligation to monitor the activities of their users.
|
| I guarantee you if you're using Starlink to commit
| crimes, they're going to drop you as a customer.
| axus wrote:
| They haven't dropped me yet!
| diggan wrote:
| Or just WiFi via long-range & directed antennas. Would require
| line-of-sight though. As far as I know that would be possibly
| without license and you can even use encryption! I've gotten it
| to work over a ~2.5km distance and that was some years ago,
| probably things are even better now.
| patwolf wrote:
| Someone in my family did some work helping set up a ham radio
| for a hospital. I don't know the details, but it sounded like
| it was part of a grant to help with emergency preparedness. The
| problem is finding people that can operate them. This was 10
| years ago, and even then he was one of very few people in the
| area younger than 70 with a license.
| marlone93 wrote:
| Why is this advertising-like stuff worth of hackernews?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| It's newsworthy as it shows just how quickly Elon can 'gift his
| tech' compared to say Apple or Amazon. Elon also did this for
| superchargers a few years ago.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17990007
| marlone93 wrote:
| Oh I see. Like when he gifted Ukraine starlink, except later
| turning off internet access to prevent strikes on the bsf.
| Except later whining about costs and asking pentagon to pay
| for it.
|
| Anyway I still ask: where's the "hackernews" in this "news" ?
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Are you talking about when he chose not to violate US
| sanctions when the Ukrainian government asked him to turn
| Starlink on for Crimea?
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| ton of astroturfing going on in this comment section lol, these
| threads always get buried when it's advertising for anyone
| other than Starlink/SpaceX
| bena wrote:
| This might be good for responders, but not so much the victims.
| But then responders will have their own networks so won't need
| this.
|
| When you've been hit like this, you aren't going to use your
| power for this. You have bigger issues. You have to dry out your
| house, demolition, etc. And that's _when_ you get power. You
| might not get it for weeks. And honestly, once power reaches
| residences, power to other services has usually been restored
| already.
|
| Either this is well-meaning but ill-executed. Or meant to be seen
| as well-meaning, but with the realization that is almost purely
| gestural.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| If you check out the people doing this, they are bringing other
| things and not just starlinks, generators, fuel, dehumidifiers,
| etc
|
| One of the most interesting ones is Shawn Hendrix on X:
| https://x.com/TheShawnHendrix
|
| While I'm sure having internet isn't their focus, a starlink
| draws a trivial amount of power especially relative to a
| dehumidifier/fans/etc and you can only work for so many hours a
| day. Being able to sit around at the end of the day and watch
| some youtube and being able to communicate with friends and
| family would be the difference between an awful situation and
| completely untenable one, personally.
| dadadad100 wrote:
| Cell service is down. Wi-Fi calling/ text/ email may be the
| only thing working in many cases
| EricE wrote:
| You do realize people have generators/solar, right? That there
| are dozens of videos on Youtube of people setting them up and
| neighbors coming over to share bandwidth so they can
| communicate with family?
|
| Purely gestural? Can you be any more thoughtless?
| WalterBright wrote:
| > you aren't going to use your power for this
|
| Sure you are. If you're, say, running off a gasoline generator,
| unplug A from it, plug Starlink in, make phone call, unplug
| Starlink, plug A back in.
|
| BTW, nearly everyone in my neighborhood has a generator because
| the power company fails whenever there's a storm.
| tomohawk wrote:
| There would likely be 20K starlink terminals available in the are
| had the FCC not revoked their participation. Would probably be
| handy about now.
|
| https://twitter.com/ajtourville/status/1840577643839955098
| threeseed wrote:
| FCC did so because SpaceX was unable to provide detailed
| information about how they would able to ramp up capacity to
| support all of the extra users.
|
| And at the time the decision was made its internet speeds were
| declining.
| pjkundert wrote:
| Incorrect.
|
| They were denied because they had not _yet_ provided coverage
| in the area (years before they were required to, under the
| contract).
|
| As FCC's Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote:
|
| "Instead of applying the traditional FCC standard to the
| record evidence, which would have compelled the agency to
| confirm Starlink's $885 million award, the FCC denied it on
| the grounds that Starlink is not providing high-speed
| Internet service to all of those locations today."
|
| "What? FCC law does not require Starlink to provide high-
| speed Internet service to even a single location today. As
| noted above, the first FCC milestone does not kick in until
| the end of 2025. Indeed, the FCC did not require--and has
| never required--any other award winner to show that it met
| its service obligation years ahead of time."
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Criminal.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You have it exactly backwards.
|
| These extra terminals are available _because_ the FCC revoked
| their participation. If they had not, right now those terminals
| would be in the Midwest or other areas far from Helene.
| xyst wrote:
| After 30 days, start coughing up $120/month [1]
|
| [1] https://www.starlink.com/service-plans
| olouv wrote:
| It appears that issues with payment setup were delaying relief
| efforts, as indicated by this tweet:
| https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1841207137420132549.
| ultra_nick wrote:
| It's nice that Musk and his companies always seem to be willing
| to provide free emergency services. Over various disasters
| they've provided free energy, internet, and cell service.
|
| I can't believe people complain about charity when so many other
| companies do nothing. Same with Mr.Beast's charity acts. There's
| something wrong with people who do nothing and hate on other
| people doing charity.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > I can't believe people complain about charity when so many
| other companies do nothing.
|
| It is possible that people are interpreting this 30 day
| promotional period as "Starlink offers hurricane survivors
| $120/mo internet access starting November 2nd", which would not
| be factually inaccurate assuming today as the start date of the
| promotion. $120/mo is roughly double the average broadband cost
| in e.g. the Asheville area.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| I think intention matters here. It's great for those people who
| are helped by Mr. Beast, but it's coming from a place of ego
| and profit, not charity. Happy for those helped, but it's still
| a little unseemly.
|
| However, I do think Musk genuinely likes to help people^ (e.g.
| Puerto Rico and Ukraine), but also I feel his response to the
| (valid) rejection of his help by the divers in Thailand was
| ungracious and maybe a little telling. Hopefully he's grown
| since then
|
| ^ also it's good PR
| elintknower wrote:
| 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.
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