[HN Gopher] Demand for Starlink in Zimbabwe is overwhelming capa...
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Demand for Starlink in Zimbabwe is overwhelming capacity
Author : impish9208
Score : 68 points
Date : 2024-12-13 13:59 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| misiti3780 wrote:
| is there any reason to think this will be a trend all over the
| world where people have shitty internet?
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| Sure it will be, as long as the price is right. If you live in
| the sticks, not serviced by fibre/cable then 200meg for PS75p/m
| isn't the end of the world (if you can afford it).
|
| But if you can be serviced with fibre/cable then it's just not
| worth it (imo).
|
| For example where I live, I could get 500/75 meg fttp
| connection for less than half the per month cost of starlink,
| not have to fork over PS300 for hardware upfront, nor pay for
| shipping or Starlinks congestion charge, and I'm not even in an
| area that offers an altnet (which would either be cheaper still
| and/or offer a symmetrical service).
|
| But if I was stuck on a shitty copper line with very low
| speeds, didn't want to move, and mobile internet wasn't an
| option. I would consider using it. But all depends on if you
| can afford it to determine if it's a good value or not.
| lxgr wrote:
| Hopefully! If nothing else, it's great to have an upper cap on
| what local ISPs can maximally charge and minimally provide in
| terms of bandwidth.
|
| But something tells me that it won't universally receive a
| license. At least some government-owned or incumbent ISPs will
| probably succeed in lobbying the government to protect their
| investments in some way, for better or worse.
|
| For example, Saint Helena (which is extremely remote and until
| recently had only geostationary-based slow internet connections
| with low data caps) doesn't allow Starlink, apparently because
| the government has invested a lot in a new fiber project and
| wants to recoup that cost at least partially from ISP
| subscriptions rather than people switching to Starlink.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > is there any reason to think this will be a trend all over
| the world where people have shitty internet?
|
| I think it really depends on _why_ the region has bad internet.
|
| If it's because the government officials wants kickbacks from
| ISPs, they're probably not going to give SpaceX a license to
| circumvent that arrangement.
|
| If it's because the infrastructure is bad, and there's no money
| to improve it at the moment, I'd probably be more hopeful.
| gcormier wrote:
| Canada checking in. Data caps have only recently increased. Note,
| I did not say things got cheaper. My understanding is the
| Canadian government asked for a lower $ per GB. This means by
| throwing data at customers that isn't needed, they're actually
| charging "less".
|
| I think Starlink is a huge game changer for rural Canadian areas
| served only by copper, and to be honest, I'm not sure if Bell
| cares when the large cities are where most of the population is
| and that's where they can make their money.
| freedomben wrote:
| Indeed. Rural areas have always been neglected due to The
| economic realities. It's just very expensive to build and
| maintain infrastructure out here to less dense populations, and
| realistically The big earners who could afford to pay high
| rates are all in the city. There are sometimes requirements
| forcing providers to deliver some service, but they will always
| do the bare minimum because there is just much more money to be
| made in the denser areas. Starlink is the first time where the
| script is being flipped somewhat. Starlink works better with
| less density. It is also delivering reliable and excellent
| service. I have been using starlink since it was very first
| available, and it has really been life-changing.
| M_bara wrote:
| Same thing in Kenya. A 150km radius around Nairobi is maxed out.
| I have a fishy kit that can't join due to capacity issues. In
| fact, the advent of Starlink - which had acquired 0.5% of the
| entire market - has rattled the existing players so much that, 1.
| They've doubled available bandwidth for residential plans without
| increasing cost. Safaricom went way overboard and 5x-ed plans. So
| if you were on 40mbit for $40 USD, you'd get 200mbit for the same
| cost. 2. They are all writing letters to the fcc equivalent
| crying about GSM spectrum interference (duh...) and predatory
| pricing [1]. I'm all for more competition! I'm only considering
| moving to Starlink due to frequent fibre cuts.
|
| 1.
| https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/technology/...
| ImJamal wrote:
| What is a "fishy kit"? When I tried looking it up the results
| were for aquariums.
| lxgr wrote:
| Probably "dishy": Their terminal is internally called "Dishy
| McFlatface".
| M_bara wrote:
| Yep, blame my phone's auto correct...
| ImJamal wrote:
| No worries. I just thought you were trying to connect
| starlink to a fish tank and wanted to know more.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| "Kit" is synonymous with "gear", so I took that to mean "I
| have some unreliable equipment..."
| lxgr wrote:
| How would Starlink (the Ka band service) interfere with GSM
| frequencies?
|
| Or is that about the new "direct to cell" product? Is that even
| being launched near Kenya (presumably it'd not emit anything
| over areas it does not have a license in)?
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| Obviously it doesn't, but government officials everywhere are
| technically inept by default. It's a FUD.
| M_bara wrote:
| Precisely,Safaricom also alleged that they would allow for
| illegal connections... perhaps they meant connections that
| we can't easily wiretap on behalf of the government.
| Interestingly, during the protests a few months ago, the
| government severely throttled all external connections by
| putting a few interfaces down at the fibre sea landing
| points. Only Starlink users were getting good connectivity.
| A lot of folks migrated at that point.
| rcxdude wrote:
| Interesting, because in principle they don't need to bother so
| much. Starlink doesn't actually have the capacity to provide
| that kind of connection to everyone in a densely populated
| area, there are underlying limits to how much bandwidth they
| can provide to a given area, so it's not given at all that they
| will be able to grow drastically beyond that 0.5% or so (I
| wouldn't be surprised if they can get a bit more capacity, but
| it's just not likely to be able to meet even a large fraction
| of the demand).
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Can you help me understand the fundamental limitations?
|
| I remember people saying that about cell phone networks but
| clever engineering has meant more and more capacity (and
| bandwidth) in spite of the laws of nature.
| nordsieck wrote:
| The issue is, there just aren't that many satellites in
| orbit. 7000 (for SpaceX, less for other networks) for the
| globe means that only a few connections over a particular
| geographical area end up causing serious congestion.
|
| SpaceX is pushing hard to address this - they'll probably
| end up launching ~135 times this year, and are aiming for
| more than 180 times next year[2], most of which will be
| Starlink. But no matter how many satellites are in orbit,
| there just won't be the bandwidth to service dense urban
| areas.
|
| The reason that cell phones work is because there are _so
| many cell towers_. And, those towers have a density that
| correlates with demand.
|
| The problem with LEO satellites is, they have to evenly
| cover the Earth[1]. Which means that a level of service
| sufficient for a dense urban area would mean that rest of
| the world would be ridiculously over provisioned.
|
| ---
|
| 1. It's more complicated than that. Specifically, providers
| can use inclination to limit orbits to mid latitudes. But
| that only helps so much.
|
| 2. These numbers may not mean much to you, but they are
| _absurd_ compared to pre-SpaceX years. SpaceX is doing more
| launches in a year than most rockets do in their entire
| lifetimes. A normal year for a SpaceX competitor like ULA
| is 4-10 launches, although those companies are also aiming
| to ramp up as Starlink competitors like Kuiper demand more
| launch volume.
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| In any given place there are 3-4 Starlink satellites
| visible at a time. The bandwidth on each is somewhere in
| the 20 Gbps range.
|
| So if you have 200 people using one satellite that's no
| problem. 800 people using that whole cluster of visible
| satellites is also no problem. With 8000 simultaneous users
| you're all down to 10 Mbps which is starting to get a bit
| limiting.
|
| Each satellite covers an area about 15 miles across. About
| 100 square miles.
|
| So... that works out to... something like 100 simultaneous
| users per square mile max.
|
| That's all back of the napkin math obviously... 1000 users
| packed into a small city surrounded by corn fields would be
| fine. 1000 users around every subway stop in NYC wouldn't
| work even if the density is the same.
| threeseed wrote:
| > which is starting to get a bit limiting
|
| Extremely limiting given that streaming services are
| increasingly moving towards timed releases of
| shows/movies e.g. Silo is released on a Friday.
|
| So a popular show could wipe out all capacity with enough
| people continuously caching a 4k stream.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's not given at all that they will be able to grow
| drastically beyond that 0.5% or so_
|
| In a country with 33% internet penetration [1], that's 1.5%
| of the market. And the top 1.5% of the market can easily be
| more than 10% of the profits in the market.
|
| [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/zimbabwe/individuals-using-
| the-...
| faraixyz wrote:
| I'm glad they're here to shake things up, our local ISPs are
| insane. You should see some of the quotes I've gotten for
| internet[1] at work and that's in a rather dense place out of the
| city center! The worse wat $650/month for 8Mbps! The $100 plan I
| get at work is probably overkill but the internet is no longer a
| bottleneck to our work like it once was with 20 devices using a
| 5MBps ADSL line. Before it was legal people smuggled kits in and
| used the roaming plans from a neighboring country. The $350
| sounds like a lot, but that's what the fibre providers charge to
| terminate at your house, more if they need to lay more cable.
| You'll find plenty in the ghetto areas.
|
| At home I've got fibre which is about as good as Starlink offers
| for $100. It used to be 20Mbps and it went up to 75Mbps max late
| last year when it looked like starlink would enter and they're
| gonna do 300MBps soon. It seems local ISPs are trying to do
| better offering more bandwidth though it's still expensive and
| heavily abuses "up to" marketing. Like, there's no reason that
| ISP can't offer 20MBps for $30.
|
| It's not the easiest country to do business, there are a lot of
| exchange rate shenanigans and ISPs seem addicted to rent seeking.
| Heck, getting Starlink approved seemed to be a huge mission that
| surprised the execs working on it.
|
| Funny bit is that I messed up ordering the kit at work so it's in
| my name meaning I can technically buy the kit off of them and
| they can get on a business plan without a waiting list or using
| the overpriced "authorized providers".
|
| [1]: https://im.farai.xyz/the-classics/blog/zim-internet-sucks/
| lurking_swe wrote:
| this blew my mind: "The worse wat $650/month for 8Mbps"
|
| insane.
| fwip wrote:
| Are those prices in USD, or a local currency? (Apologies for
| not knowing which local currency to ask about; it seems that
| Zimbabwe changed currency recently and no longer uses the
| Zimbabwean Dollar?)
| oblio wrote:
| I'm guessing the local currency as Zimbabwe's GDP per capita
| is $2,005, so salaries have to be lower. I doubt anyone could
| afford to pay 30% of their yearly income on an internet
| connection :-)
| loeg wrote:
| So like, 67% of Zimbabweans don't have internet (2022).
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No, it is definitely USD. $650 ZWD would be like $2USD. I
| doubt OP is complaining about that.
| ethagknight wrote:
| Is there any benefit, from Starlink's perspective for them to
| sell 'reseller kits' for a single ground based antenna to serve a
| neighborhood? Or are Starlink's radios so efficient that it
| doesn't really matter?
|
| Also, I wonder why Starlink wouldn't have more demand-based
| pricing based on consumption? With a very finite service window
| at least for the next 10 years, seems like each allotment of time
| talking to a satellite is worth a highly variable amount
| depending on its location.
| bamboozled wrote:
| We really, really need a competitor before we end up with the
| "one world internet" type situation, at least in the developing
| world.
| threeseed wrote:
| The competitor is domestic fibre and every country is rolling
| it out, albeit slowly.
|
| Starlink will increasingly just be a product for rural and
| niche use cases.
| vermilingua wrote:
| "Increasingly" doing a lot of heavy lifting there, fiber
| rollouts are slow and complex and still lend to the kind of
| semi-natural monopoly that's caused massive ISP price gouging
| in western urban areas. I agree that fibre ultimately
| dominates the last-mile market, but Starlink et al. are still
| needed to keep last-mile providers to account.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| And the niche will get smaller. I live in a rural area, and
| while we had to wait a few years, they finally pulled fiber
| to the houses around here.
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