[HN Gopher] Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provid...
___________________________________________________________________
Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provider in some
African countries
Author : impish9208
Score : 207 points
Date : 2025-01-10 17:24 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| spwa4 wrote:
| I wouldn't worry about it. Government officials will find a way
| to change this ...
|
| Even now there's countries with a tax on unlimited internet on
| cell phones.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Starlink is significantly more resistant to graft than
| terrestrial service.
|
| For the most part SpaceX is playing nice with regulators, but
| if Zimbabwe's government tried to extort Starlink users, SpaceX
| could just open up service and Zimbabwe could do absolutely
| nothing to stop them.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| Wouldn't that be considered a form of dumping if they offered
| it for free?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I didn't say free, they'd just allow signups and ignore
| local restrictions.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| How will they collect payment without an in-country
| business entity?
| immibis wrote:
| Dogecoin.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Same way Russians pay for Steam
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This happens all the time for many many businesses. Do
| you think all software vendors, small businesses that
| ship products have an in-country business entity? They
| just take online payments.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Sure they could. They could make it illegal to possess
| Starklink equipment within their borders, in the name of
| "national security" or whatnot.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Starlink can talk direct to cell phones.
| gruez wrote:
| Those work far worse (bandwidth) than the dedicated
| terminals.
| NoahKAndrews wrote:
| Only for extremely low-bandwidth service, good for
| texting and such.
| lukan wrote:
| That would be enough to get that information,
| totalitarian governments don't want you to get. So expect
| regulations regarding those smartphones soon.
|
| And be aware if you travel with a satellite capable
| device (india apparently also don't like them):
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-
| and-b...
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| There's no way to put the smartphone genie back in the
| bottle and there's no way to visually differentiate
| satelote capable phones. It's going to be easy to smuggle
| them across borders.
| fragmede wrote:
| India sees the ability for anyone to anonymously post
| things on the Internet as all kinds of stupid, and
| heavily regulates the access to the Internet so any in-
| country activity can be tracked back to an individual.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Also, only using allocated spectrum. Starlink Direct-to-
| Cell requires partnership with mobile providers that hold
| that spectrum, like T-Mobile. Terrestrial network using
| those frequencies would probably swamp the signal from
| space. Legally, Starlink can't use those frequencies
| without permission from each country.
| aaomidi wrote:
| This is the case in Iran despite there being an ever
| growing number of them there.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Problem in Africa is that the Chinese will sail in with
| their alternatives at the first sign of trouble. Right
| now, we can't have games like that in Africa. We're in an
| almost daily grind trying to counter Chinese influence as
| it is. The last thing we need is Elon sailing in
| torpedoing our efforts.
|
| We need to be cognizant of the fact that we're no longer
| the only game in town, and act accordingly when using
| power. Soft or hard.
| elcritch wrote:
| Well if the point is that Zimbabwe starts playing games
| and corruption starlink can ignore them. Sure the Chinese
| could play Zimbabwe's game, but then they'd likely be
| more expensive and worse quality by blocking things the
| government doesn't like. If people can still access
| starlink why would they use the state sanctioned but
| crappy provider?
| notahacker wrote:
| Because China isn't exactly famed for its corporations'
| market clearing prices being _expensive_ , and most
| people would rather buy legal satcomms equipment (and VPN
| in, if they _really_ need to access something the
| Zimbabwean government doesn 't want them to see or the
| Chinese government cares about Africans seeing) than jump
| through hoops to get the equipment and subscription
| payments to the American service, bandwidth which
| Starlink has minimal motivation to give away cheaply
| anyway.
| fl0id wrote:
| The Chinese don't have sth similar right now, right? Also
| at this point tbh would prefer Chinese whatever over
| us/starlink. At least it will be more rational.
| jplrssn wrote:
| Isn't Starlink subject to frequency spectrum licensing in
| each country it operates in?
| anticensor wrote:
| It's in the same band as regular satellite internet, so the
| licensing is already dealt with.
| duxup wrote:
| Has Starlink as an org shown any interest in resisting local
| pressure to that extent?
|
| I'm asking, I don't know, but even when technically feasible
| there are lots of concerns with defying local governments,
| good and bad.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Iran, Myanmar, Sudan (not even the US government or US
| Media wants them there), Cuba, Venezuela.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _Zimbabwe could do absolutely nothing to stop them_
|
| They could issue an order to local payment processors to
| block all payments to Starlink...like Brazil did. In this
| particular hypothetical, Zimbabwe would have more solid legal
| grounds for blocking payment than the Brazilian judge (TLDR:
| X didn't adhere to all of Brazil's regulations and refused to
| pay the resulting fines so a judge deemed Starlink a related
| company and blocked payments to Starlink until X complied.)
| cesarb wrote:
| > (TLDR: X didn't adhere to all of Brazil's regulations and
| refused to pay the resulting fines so a judge deemed
| Starlink a related company and blocked payments to Starlink
| until X complied.)
|
| IIRC, the judge didn't block payments to Starlink; instead,
| the judge told the banks to take the value of the fines
| from the Starlink bank accounts.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Per Reuters, the judge blocked the financial accounts of
| Starlink, meaning that Brazilian companies were barred
| from conducting financial transactions with it.
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/brazil-judge-blocks-
| starl...
| https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/8/29/brazil-judge-
| blo...
| bodhiandphysics wrote:
| It's a little more complicated than that. There are two
| international treaties at play here (that the US has
| ratified)... the Outer Space Treaty requires that countries
| regulate the actions in outer space of their citizens and
| companies, in compliance with the outer space treaty and
| other international treaties (cf. Article VI and Article
| III). The Convention of the International Telecommunications
| Union of 1997 (the last version the us has ratified)
| specifies that the US shall abide by the rules of the ITU,
| including in allocation of satellite spectrum (Article 6).
| The ITU allows countries to limit the use of spectrum in
| certain bands (including those used by starlink) within their
| borders.
|
| So Zimbabwe actually can ban starlink. And if it ignores
| Zimbabwe... well Zimbabwe will complain to the ITU, and the
| ITU to the US. The US would be under obligation to regulate
| Starlink... with the minor exception of its not clear that
| the US has any agency that can, at least under current law.
|
| Anyway, it would be a total mess if Elon did that (except in
| a country like Russia where the US wants him to do that)...
| and I have no idea what would happen.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| No one would allow a business perceived to be US Owned to
| play games like that in Africa right now anyway. With the
| Chinese sitting right there ready to swoop in and help the
| affected nations problem solve.
|
| We're not as dumb in the US as the rest of the world seems
| to think.
| bodhiandphysics wrote:
| The rest of the world only thinks the US is dumb because
| they rely upon us to make the kind of decisions that they
| don't want to have to make. It's easy to criticize
| without real skin in the game.
|
| I mean Trump is an idiot... but umm... Berlusconi?
| immibis wrote:
| Note that Starlink requires a ground station near the users.
| wmf wrote:
| Not since they turned on the lasers.
| ghaff wrote:
| How does that work when I get Starlink in the middle of the
| ocean as I have done?
| duxup wrote:
| I had a coworker who grew up in Africa and was involved with
| ISPs there. He had some pretty important jobs in a couple
| countries.
|
| His explanation why he came to the US to do what were lower
| level jobs was that in the places he worked it was all who you
| knew and if your given buddy who got you that job fell out of
| the good graces of those in power ... you were screwed forever.
|
| He had enough of that, good guy, very capable, worked his way
| up again in the US.
| throwafrica wrote:
| you better read history on colonization in Africa. letting
| foreign companies to have a grip on resources (data and
| propaganda channels in modern days) wont end well for host
| nations.
|
| If you guys are so pro business why blocking TikTok and other
| Chinese firms?
| aurizon wrote:
| Most African countries operate internet access via buddy/bribery
| cartels to tax the people highly and enrich the bribers. They
| hate Starlink's access to anyone who can import a starlink
| terminal and set it up and they seize them whenever they find
| them. If Starlink has a licensed path = they would want the lost
| bribes to be replaced by their fees. All in all = a huge drag on
| internet access in Africa. A few countries escape this - a
| precious few..
| Timber-6539 wrote:
| It's more nuanced than that. African governments, like any
| other government, want to regulate and control access to all
| communications and related infrastucture. Governments for
| example would like a killswitch they can force Musk to push if
| need be.
|
| Also ISPs are big businesses with telecom companies paying huge
| sums for licenses (3G,4G licensing etc). Starlink is seen as
| jumping to the front of the line with little to no similar
| license requirements (or bribes if you want to call them).
| aurizon wrote:
| Yes, it does upset their apple cart = what he intended IMHO.
| The sale of spectrum in the USA/Canada also lards up costs
| under the guise of 'free market competition' LOL = why
| internet is USA/Canada is so expensive there compared to many
| places in Europe/Asia
| cadamsau wrote:
| > Safaricom and other legacy providers have responded by lowering
| prices and increasing internet speeds.
|
| Super exciting to see competition working.
| modeless wrote:
| The competition will get even stronger when SpaceX's Starship
| launches the next generation of Starlink satellites. More
| satellites with more capacity per satellite and at lower
| altitudes could make Starlink a viable competitor even in some
| urban areas with crappy ISPs.
|
| Also I hope Amazon succeeds with their Kuiper constellation.
| Imagine _two_ competing global satellite ISPs!
| scotty79 wrote:
| You mean Starship 2, right? Because Starship top capacity
| demonstrated was 1 banana. That's why Elon already started
| hyping how awesome Starship 2 is gonna be. Because it becomes
| obvious for everybody that Starship will perform below even
| most modest past predictions.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Starship 1's LEO capacity has been stated to be 50 tons to
| LEO. Which is significantly below the goal of 100-150 tons,
| but absolutely massive compared to anything else. Starship
| 2 flies next week, so it's moot.
| zizee wrote:
| Your dislike of Musk is clouding your judgement.
|
| They're not using semantic versioning. SpaceX hasn't even
| finished a production ready starship, they are still very
| much in the R&D stage. Just because the latest iteration is
| know as V2, doesn't mean much.
|
| The fact they haven't achieved the extremely ambitious
| goals doesn't reflect poorly on the engineering going into
| Starship, or that "V1" has failed to hit the goals.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| Yeah, Twice the space junk!
| gruez wrote:
| such constellations are in LEO, which means their orbits
| decay in years, not centuries. The satellites associated
| with "space junk" are in higher orbits like geostationary.
| varjag wrote:
| Geostationary satellites are way too far and few in
| between to meaningfully present a problem. The majority
| of dangerous (in Kessler syndrome sense) junk is on
| higher LEO and eccentric orbits.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Correct. Most non-Starlink constellations LEO are going
| up around 800 - 1200 km altitudes. Those orbits have
| century to millenium level deorbit times and pose
| significant Kessler risk.
| ZFleck wrote:
| I actually struggle to think of something "less-junk" than
| potentially providing tens of millions with cheap(er)
| access to the Internet. Who otherwise would be exploited
| for it. Or plain just wouldn't have it. Seems like one of
| the best-possible uses for orbit IMO.
|
| Plus (and I'm no expert), I believe that since these
| satellites specifically require a rather low orbit, they're
| by-design quick to de-orbit in the case of disaster or
| destruction.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Less junk? Weather satellites, climate monitoring
| satellites.
|
| But also I don't think the internet has been a net-
| positive thing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Less junk? Weather satellites, climate monitoring
| satellites_
|
| These typically operate at higher orbits. From a strictly
| space junk perspective, that makes them _more_ of a
| debris risk than even multiple Starlink fleets in LEO.
| staunton wrote:
| > quick to de-orbit in the case of disaster or
| destruction.
|
| In case of destruction, the satellite breaks up into many
| individual pieces each having a potentially very
| different orbit. Many of those parts might then stay up
| longer than the satellite would have if it remained
| intact. The parts can also cause a chain reaction which
| eventually breaks everything in low earth orbit.
| mkaic wrote:
| Starlink satellites are placed in extremely low orbits
| _specifically_ to avoid their becoming dangerous space-
| junk -- their orbits are intended to decay after around 5
| years, at which point they burn up in the atmosphere and
| leave no debris behind in LEO. Future iterations of the
| satellites may have even shorter lifetimes as launch
| costs get cheaper.
| maxglute wrote:
| Starlink V1 was placed in low orbits because it was
| cheaper / constrained by F9 payloads (not only reason by
| imo primary).
|
| Starlink V2 is 1000-2000km orbits with expected
| deployment of 12000 sats.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Starlink V2 already started deployment back in 2023, and
| they actually requested lower orbits (~350km) in order to
| reduce latency.
|
| Moving to 2000km would be a massive downgrade in
| performance, I'm not able find any source for that,
| everything points to the next generation (V3) being
| deployed via Starship at that lower altitude of 350km.
| maxglute wrote:
| Apologies, I got 2000km confused with another
| megaconstellation, later rollouts / V2s+ are suppose to
| be up to 1200km, which was initially filed / granted with
| FCC. They did request/allow to move some of of larger v2s
| to lower orbits, but the full megaconstellation plan
| won't be constrained to <350km simply because there
| aren't enough orbit slots (as managed by UN/ITU) for the
| constellation size star link envisions. Below is recent
| image of current starlink distribution. Most are
| 400-500km and above, i.e. much longer decay times. My
| understanding is they're throwing v2 "minis" which still
| weight 3x more to lowerish orbits because that's most
| economical for F9 delivery, but once they have more
| payload via starship, full size v2+ is going
| 500km-1200km. 500km more altitude as like ~4 milliseconds
| of latency, which is not nothing, but still minor vs
| economic benefits of more coverage with less hardware.
| IMO current low LEO focus isn't ... starlink being
| responsible, it's result of cost optimization of
| coverage:payload for F9. Starship will come with
| different set of cost optimizations, likely for higher
| orbits using larger hardware, but less of it.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/VuweZZo
| Salgat wrote:
| During China's ASAT test, almost all of the debris
| remained in the same LEO orbit. The amount of energy
| needed to climb over 1000km to reach MEO or over 35000km
| to reach GEO is significant, and even then, to reach a
| stable orbit after the climb is very unlikely. Kessler
| Syndrome is always a consideration, but with Starlink
| it's still minimal, especially since Starlink's elevation
| is only 340km, while China's ASAT test targeted a
| satellite at 900km.
| maxglute wrote:
| Next gen starlink v2s are going to be 1000-2000km with
| starship. Low LEO v1s was more limitation of F9. Shooting
| high LEO ery expensive (PRC has HQ19s for 3000km), but
| realistically once US/PRC rolls out starship tier
| reusable payload vehicles at scale, we're goign to start
| seeing enough co-orbital asats being launched to
| guarantee kessler.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > In case of destruction, the satellite breaks up into
| many individual pieces each having a potentially very
| different orbit.
|
| Depends on what you mean with "potentially very different
| orbit". Each piece still has to be at least on some
| elliptic orbit that eventually again passes through the
| spot where where it broke up*. If it was on a low orbit
| to begin with, it'll still burn up soon-ish as it decays.
| You cannot increase the perigee of some formerly circular
| orbit with only a singular application of force, nor can
| you increase the perigee of an elliptic orbit higher than
| its old apogee through the same means.
|
| It'll take a lot to get pieces into orbits where they
| avoid decaying within a reasonable time span.
|
| *Disregarding external factors like the gravitational
| pull of a third object, and assuming no drag and perfect
| point masses.
| dotancohen wrote:
| It is perigee, not apogee, that matters for the lifetime
| of a satellite. In case of collision, it is near
| impossible for any object ejected to have a higher
| perigee than that of the original satellite. Some
| energetic particles might have higher apogees, sure, but
| that will not affect their time to deorbit.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| All those satellites are in low enough orbits to have
| lifespans measured in single-digit years. They will not
| stay in orbit as "junk".
| greenavocado wrote:
| Low earth orbit is the best orbit because space junk
| accumulation is impossible there
| notahacker wrote:
| Low earth orbit is a range from "pretty much everything
| down here will naturally deorbit in a few months" to
| "it'll take decades to naturally deorbit from up here and
| it'll have to not hit the majority of satellites ever
| launched on the way..."
| awongh wrote:
| I remember when the plans for starlink originally came out,
| the two main complaints about it were 1) clogging up the
| atmosphere with space junk, and 2) the satellites clogging
| up terrestrial bandwidth.
|
| I haven't heard anyone complain about either of these
| things lately, I'm not sure if it's because they were never
| legitimate complaints, or it's because once the system was
| launched it became clear that complaining about it was
| pointless....
| fl0id wrote:
| It's because it's not being covered anymore. Astronomers
| only complain more, but nobody cares.
| ww520 wrote:
| They are in the lower orbits. They will fall off the orbits
| in couple years and burn up.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Google Fiber had the same effect in Austin, it's so awesome.
|
| There are no data caps on any providers because Google Fiber
| doesn't have them. Everyone upgraded their service to try to
| match Google's speeds, so Gigabit is easy to get pretty much
| anywhere in the city. Google is offering up to 8gb now and ATT
| is trying to match those speeds.
|
| Company reps regularly knock on doors trying to get people to
| switch to their service offering deep discounts for 1 year+.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Can confirm. Where I live in Austin I have a choice of no
| less than 4 different ISPs, two cable and two fiber. Not even
| counting wireless options, which probably also exist.
| vyrotek wrote:
| I'm watching this happen right now in Mesa, AZ. We just got
| Google Fiber a few months ago. All of a sudden there are more
| choices and better prices.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Yes, it's a triumph of capitalism that we have to waste the
| energy and materials to build out the infrastructure N
| times before competition kicks in to give us prices that
| were apparently possible (but not offered) all along!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It's a failure of democracy. Voters are not smart enough
| to understand the utility of ubiquitous fiber to the home
| as a utility, so they do not vote for leaders who
| prioritize that.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Just a guess -- but I imagine that Starlink passing over a
| continent and _not_ having any customers below would be a waste
| of that orbit arc. I mean Starlink could just give away the
| bandwidth until it actually was running low on it.
| Ringz wrote:
| That's not how satellite orbit works. Imagine that the earth
| rotates below the sat orbit. And that the sat orbit doesn't
| go parallel to Latitude or Longitude.
| davio wrote:
| $633 (USD) per month in Zimbabwe is crazy. I could see Starlink
| becoming the internet backbone for micro-ISPs to slice.
| hooli_gan wrote:
| I wonder if they used the official exchange rate or the black
| market one
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| It's the price for 100 Mbps. You can pay for as low as 5.
| faraixyz wrote:
| That's if you pay in local currency. They have "promotional"
| packages in US dollars at $150 for a 100MBps line.
| faraixyz wrote:
| I used to be quoted that for 20MBps and even 8MBps! these days
| it's a bit better since you can get that for about $150 if
| you're lucky enough to be near a fibre line.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| > Kenyan telecoms have also raised concerns about Starlink taking
| market share away from local companies that employ thousands of
| people on the African continent.
|
| The point of infrastructure is to deliver services which enable
| productivity and quality of life for the broader population.
| Public services are not a jobs program. I will continue screaming
| this into the void until I turn transform into a pickle.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Africa is a graveyard of infrastructure.
| causi wrote:
| It's all so tiresome.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I've gotta agree on this. That's a bummer for the thousands of
| people working with hyper-expensive providers. It might not
| even be those providers' faults: it's probably not cheap being
| the first company to run infrastructure into less developed
| areas. And yet, should we hold down the millions of people who
| want affordable Internet access because of it? I don't think
| so.
|
| Edit: And for transparency, I'm about as far from a Musk fan as
| it's possible to be. I'm not saying this because it's him doing
| it. I'm glad _someone_ is, and if happens to be him, fine, so
| be it.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Public services are not a jobs program.
|
| Indeed but wealth extraction from already piss poor countries
| by artificially dumping prices that cannot be sustained by
| domestic industry has been a problem with Africa for decades,
| and that after centuries of colonialism on top of it.
|
| Africa used to have a vibrant textile and agricultural industry
| - Simbabwe for example was known until two, three decades ago
| as the "grain chamber of Africa" - but Western "donations" aka
| mitumba and "aid" programs completely wiped out the domestic
| industry, leaving many countries that were self-sufficient now
| utterly dependant on foreign supply.
| flerchin wrote:
| That's interesting. We are taught that Zimbabwe's farming
| collapse was due to government appropriation from folks with
| European heritage to folks with African heritage.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| Lmao its definitely not because they kicked out all the white
| farmers and indian small business owners right?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Here's some lecture for you:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe.
| sealeck wrote:
| > Indeed but wealth extraction from already piss poor
| countries by artificially dumping prices that cannot be
| sustained by domestic industry has been a problem with Africa
| for decades, and that after centuries of colonialism on top
| of it.
|
| You also need to work out what is happening with the money
| that is saved. Sure, people working for the local ISP are
| probably out of a job, but more people can access the
| internet at much more reasonable rates. This boosts the
| economy; probably more than the local ISP did!
| betaby wrote:
| > Public services are not a jobs program.
|
| It definitely feels like a one in Canada (or France).
| zerotolerance wrote:
| There is a lot of idealism wrapped up in this statement and
| just because we think something should be does not make it
| truth.
| ellisd wrote:
| This talk had some very interesting slides from the ITU on
| internet price due to data scarcity and lack of options.
|
| "38C3 - Net Neutrality: Why It Still Matters (More Than Ever!)"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_gqhpLSc_8
| antithesis-nl wrote:
| This is slightly misleading, as most Internet access in African
| countries is via mobile phones, not 'traditional' in-home
| connections.
|
| That being said, it would be interesting to see what happened if
| all of, say, Lagos (fastest-growing city+suburbs in the world)
| suddenly started using Starlink exclusively.
|
| "Good things" is not very high on my list...
| nn3 wrote:
| Lagos can't use starlink very much because starlink has limited
| capacity in any given area. The future sats might improve that
| a bit with more sats and more capacity per sat, and also there
| will be more non starlink constellations, but it's an inherent
| problem. If they targeted any densely populated area they would
| vastly over-provision the rest of the more sparsely populated
| world.
|
| So in general it's good news for the rural population (if they
| can afford it), but it doesn't really help too much for the
| cities.
| antithesis-nl wrote:
| > Lagos can't use starlink very much because starlink has
| limited capacity in any given area
|
| That's very much not what the Starlink-proponents are,
| loudly, proclaiming. Because, satellite-peer-to-peer stuff,
| Elon-magic in general, and whatever.
|
| Please note: I think that Starlink is mostly space pollution,
| and that offering meaningful Internet connectivity to Africa,
| or rural America, or anywhere mostly involves 'lots of
| fiber', some radio, and lots of cooperation.
|
| But: "just get your Starlink dish and be done" is definitely
| an Internet Truth, and it's Wrong, and I think it's worth
| Pointing Out.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| For a significant population it's right.
| wave-function wrote:
| What about rural population in poor countries? I live in
| Kazakhstan where we don't have a lot of money (or
| population), and many people live in very sparsely
| populated areas. Internet connectivity in cities is fine (I
| pay like 10 USD for symmetric 60 megabyte/s fiber), but
| villages are few and far between, and it's simply not
| economical to cover them with fiber: you'll need thousands
| of kilometers of it to cover maybe a few thousand people.
| Maybe it will be practical when/if the country has 20-30
| times the population.
|
| The government has already provided many rural schools with
| Starlink terminals, and many locations which only recently
| didn't have internet connectivity now do have it.
| Apparently they don't see something you do.
| zizee wrote:
| I have yet to see a starlink proponent suggest starlinl is
| a good solve for densely populated areas. Are there some
| misguided/uneducated people saying dumb stuff on the
| internet? I am sure they are out there, but you can find
| someone saying almost anything you can imagine on the
| internet.
| breadwinner wrote:
| There is a national security risk angle to this. Elon has been
| talking to Putin and Putin has been making requests on behalf of
| Xi Jinping such as not turning on Starlink over Taiwan [1]. Musk
| has also been turning off Starlink when he decides there is a
| risk of nuclear war [2].
|
| An American corporation undermining American foreign policy is a
| security risk. No citizen, especially a crazy one like Elon,
| should have this much power.
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-
| conversat...
|
| [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > turning off Starlink
|
| He didn't turn it off, he refused to turn it on over Crimea
| when Ukraine requested he do so. Turning it on without the
| permission of the State Department would have been illegal.
| swarnie wrote:
| An American company providing American services via American
| government funding with a founder who can't leave the next
| American presidents beach house if he tried undermines American
| foreign policy.
|
| If i wanted to control a country and couldn't get my hands on
| their banking system i guess their communication systems would
| do...
|
| I just dont see it somehow.
| immibis wrote:
| Countries are choosing to align themselves with China and
| Russia rather than the US, so this shouldn't be a problem for
| those countries.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Korea, Japan, Phillipines, Taiwan, Australia, India might
| have different thoughts
| ImJamal wrote:
| Elon literally didn't turn it on because of the US government
| rules. How is a person / company doing what the government
| wants undermining government policy?
| josefritzishere wrote:
| How can you state something is cheaper when it doesnt have fixed
| rates? That claim can only be true at a relatively narrow, fixed
| point in time.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| It is also the case in the Falkland Islands, where the horrendous
| de-facto ISP charges PS110 a month for 100 GB [0] of data usage
| at a top download speed of 5 (five, literal five [V in roman])
| MBPS, while Starlink offers unlimited usage for PS60 per month at
| an average download speed of 130 MBPS.
|
| We are still facing challenges due to an exclusive license
| government have with this company, known for their predatory
| conduct [1]... People here are having to use Chilean addresses to
| register the kits and pay for a mobile package.
|
| [0] https://www.sure.co.fk/broadband/broadband-packages/
|
| [1] https://guernseypress.com/news/2024/10/02/sure-ordered-to-
| pa...
| lxgr wrote:
| Is Starlink also officially prohibited like in Saint Helena
| [1]? Seems to be a very similar situation (down to the same ISP
| Sure!).
|
| That said, there I do somewhat see the benefits of giving a
| fibreoptics provider exclusivity for a while in such a small
| market.
|
| [1] https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/2023/news/reminder-on-the-
| use..., previous discussion see also:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945
| Havoc wrote:
| For what it's worth Sure in Jersey (channel islands) was
| fantastic. 80ish bucks for symetrical unlimited gigabit
| yardstick wrote:
| Jersey is in a vastly different geographic situation. It's
| super close to UK & Europe, so cost of trade is massively
| more economical than these other places in the middle of
| nowhere. Economies of scale work for small countries in
| populous first world regions.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| De facto it is... but importing the kit is not illegal.
| Government expects to charge a license of PS5000 for each
| person wanting to use Starlink in an official (legal) way,
| and being able to justify the use of it as well...
| Fortunately, after a public petition, legislators are now
| willing to have a look into the obscene license fee... Time
| will tell.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Government expects to charge a license of PS5000 for each
| person wanting to use Starlink
|
| Wait, what? What service is the government supposedly
| providing?
|
| The only remotely believable excuse for that IMO would be
| "we're using it exclusively to fund a fiberoptics cable for
| redundancy", but even that I would have a very hard time
| believing.
| snodnipper wrote:
| Difficult situation. 5 MBPS was certainly better than nothing
| in the past...and yet the Sure business (now) appears largely
| obsolete with Starlink, Kuiper etc.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| THis is something I worry about in rural NM. 3 local tribes
| just got a bit more than $20M for broadband infrastructure,
| and you have to ask ... as much as I hate Elon both before
| and after he went batshit insane, why not just use starlink?
| I mean, what justification can there be for putting in new
| wired infrastructure at this point?
| wmf wrote:
| Over a lifetime time scale, fiber will be the same price or
| cheaper than Starlink but 10x faster. Most people won't
| notice the performance difference and fiber takes years to
| install while Starlink is minutes.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Besides he other argument, from what I've heard starlink
| seems extremely very unreliable compared to fiber
| layer8 wrote:
| > 5 Mbps
|
| Less than a year ago, relatives of mine in rural France still
| only had around 1.5 Mbps via ADSL. Video chat was borderline
| impossible. YouTube wasn't possible in real time (i.e.
| buffering took significantly longer than the runtime).
| rozap wrote:
| This is how it is in semi rural Olympia, WA. I'm about 20
| minutes from the state capitol, but the only options are
| 1.5mbps ADSL, or starlink. 4g/5g arrived last year, which is
| a great backup when starlink is down (frequent).
| panopticon wrote:
| My situation is slightly different but also in semi-rural
| WA. I'm on Verizon Home 5g and it's way faster and more
| stable than Starlink.
|
| I'm always surprised when I talk to people that use
| Starlink who haven't considered cellular.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Its kind of wild that you are having issues with Starlink.
| Is it local geography or trees that are an issue?
|
| I'm a little farther north on Vancouver Island and I see
| basically perfect connectivity with my latest generation
| dish. If I go look at the stats in the app it shows small
| losses of connectivity, but I've never noticed on a video
| call or anything.
| notatoad wrote:
| probably just oversold.
| 0x1ch wrote:
| I'd have to agree with the other comment on being
| oversold. I haven't heard the speeds being worse than
| your normal 4g hotspot in the woods though.
|
| I did a short stint of RV life on verzion throughout
| Western Washington and received sub 800Kbps on my 4G
| hotspot most of the time. This was out towards Concrete,
| WA however, not the state capitol, Olympia.
| anonnon wrote:
| Do you actually live in the Falklands? That's pretty neat.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| I do indeed =)
| teruakohatu wrote:
| This is the sad situation in many Pacific nations. ISPs charge
| a fortune (an absolute not relative fortune) for internet
| services to very low income populations. Starlink is of course
| banned.
|
| Meanwhile not far away in New Zealand, with a much wealthier
| population Starlink is prolific in rural areas. I am sure it's
| also super popular in rural Australia.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How do you ban something that is in the sky?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| You ban the importation of satellite dishes, and you don't
| let Starlink build ground stations. You can still get
| around this, just like people still import drugs, but you
| can make it harder.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Try broadcasting on a licensed frequency without a license
| and find out... If the terminals were completely passive,
| finding smuggled terminals would be much harder.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| "In the sky" does not mean "free from regulation."
|
| End users of terminal equipment are still subject to the
| regulations of the state in which they are located.
|
| The ITU Radio Regulations (via national legislation) create
| obligations on satellite operators to ensure that they do
| not cause harmful interference to other states' services or
| to violate those states' sovereignty.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| > I am sure it's also super popular in rural Australia.
|
| It is indeed.
|
| https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-
| display/n...
|
| It is also popular in urban areas. Starlink's availability
| map shows "sold out" in Brisbane (population 2.5 million) and
| Perth (2.1 million) because it's much faster than the
| mediocre VDSL2 services otherwise on offer to most of the
| population in those cities.
| guybedo wrote:
| As a resident of a small pacific country where ISP charges
| >$100/month for relatively low quality of service, i sure can
| understand the problem and how interesting Starlink looks like.
|
| But one thing to keep in mind, is that usually ISPs in small
| countries can't compete on price because they don't have enough
| scale and enough customers, in the end they just can't compete
| with a juggernaut like Starlink.
|
| Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and pay
| less for better quality of service, these local ISPs are
| important actors of the local economy. If these companies
| shutdown because of international competition, it's money going
| to the US, and the local economy taking a hit ...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _these local ISPs are important actors of the local
| economy. If these companies shutdown because of international
| competition, it 's money going to the US, and the local
| economy taking a hit_
|
| This is a pretty terrible justification for maintaining
| obsolete infrastructure.
| Daishiman wrote:
| It's obsolete until Elon goes into a fit an decides for
| whatever reason he doesn't like you.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| If the cost of Starlink is half of the local ISP, you now
| have 50% of that revenue stream going back into the local
| economy instead of a single company. And the benefit far
| outweights the cost - 100Mbps+ for thousands of people can be
| transformative (hoping they all not just start using tiktok),
| vs a dozen ISP employees. Might not be as bad of a deal as it
| seems.
| bolognafairy wrote:
| Yeah, until another person like you makes the same argument
| about whatever non-local thing the residents spend all that
| saved money on.
| gopalv wrote:
| > Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and
| pay less for better quality of service
|
| The radio spectrum is far more limited, so the more people
| use it, the slower it should get.
|
| > If these companies shutdown because of international
| competition, it's money going to the US
|
| The ideal "free market" result of this is that the ISP lowers
| prices in response or improves the service, in a rational
| competitive market.
|
| The question is about customer density - the ISPs + fiber
| works great with density in miles while Starlink works better
| with lower density.
|
| So hopefully the cities get better wired and villages get
| better wireless at the same time.
| bmicraft wrote:
| The "traditional" free market approach is that starlink
| gets a monopoly there, while new providers go out of
| business before they reach the scale to compete. Meanwhile
| the talent pool with the knowledge to even install local
| infrastructure in the first place is shrinking.
| prmph wrote:
| But if more companies can start up locally and succeed in the
| digital economy because of better and cheaper internet, is it
| not a net benefit to the country?
| labster wrote:
| Just run an undersea cable to Argentina, easy peasy. Argentina
| should be more than willing to help out their fellow citizens
| in the Malvinas, right?
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| Nice one. I think recently, we stand a better chance to get
| fiber from Antarctica:
| https://www.goremagallanes.cl/wordpress/anuncian-proyecto-
| qu...
| bhouston wrote:
| This may be an incorrect generalization, but I thought I read
| that in much of Africa, people do not really use fixed ISPs. They
| just use the cell phone infrastructure for their internet needs
| via their phones. I understand this is because cell phone
| infrastructure is a lot cheaper to roll out and also that there
| was less desktop computers, etc to plug into ethernet cables.
|
| So this article seems to be comparing against something that
| isn't very popular in the first place - fixed ISPs.
| ekwogefee wrote:
| It's cheaper, at least where I live in Central Africa.
|
| You can pay as your budget allows -- per day, per hour, night
| bundles, or even smaller data packages like 150MB.
|
| Public Wi-Fi isn't common in places like malls, gyms, schools,
| offices, or hospitals here. However, mobile data ensures you
| stay connected on your cellphone.
|
| I've switched between three ISPs in the past three months, all
| of which have been disappointing, mainly due to poor customer
| service. With cellular data, I can easily top up using mobile
| money whenever my data runs out.
|
| I also use my phone's hotspot to connect my PCs at home or on
| the go.
| ge96 wrote:
| 150MB? damn, that's like a SPA
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| There are lots of lazy software 'engineers' in wealthy
| western nations who just assume everyone, everywhere has
| unlimited 5G or gigabit fibre, and that the size of their
| 150MB React monstrosity or the 300 API calls it makes when
| you click a button don't matter.
| ge96 wrote:
| It's an exaggeration 10x but yeah MBs is not unheard of
|
| edit: it's funny there was this cool sports car demo with
| scrolling animations and if you looked at the code, it
| loaded like a 1000 images to do the animation
| swatcoder wrote:
| I think if you open the Network Inspector more often,
| you'll find that you weren't actually exaggerating at
| all.
|
| Resource utilization has basically zero headspace for
| many developers now, and even less among non-technical
| stakeholders (who fundamentally rely on engineers to
| bring it to their attention).
|
| Things are _really_ bad these days.
| scoobytusk wrote:
| problem is musk has shown that he can shut a country down on a
| whim. we've seen him doing with starlink with ukraine, and
| twitter with... anyone that opposes him.
|
| for all the great things starlink does and is, it should not be
| at the whims of a egomaniacal drug addict.
| crowcroft wrote:
| Unbelievable value for money. Will it be possible for Starlink to
| ever be better than proper fibre though?
|
| It's probably already at a point where from a cost vs. benefit
| perspective I don't know if we should be laying a lot more cable,
| but I wonder if it will ever make the existing cables obsolete.
| daveoc64 wrote:
| No. Starlink won't be able to offer enough capacity to
| completely eliminate fibre, even in rural areas.
| crowcroft wrote:
| I can see that being true in high density areas, but I've got
| to think even now it's good enough that you really should
| question if rural areas should bother with fibre?
| lurking_swe wrote:
| it will never be better than fiber for the simple fact that's
| it's less reliable. The "uptime" of a fiber connection to the
| home will most likely be higher than a fiber-like connection
| from a satellite. And you'll have better "ping".
|
| Fiber doesn't care about cloudy days, typical storms, etc.
|
| Starlink is of course superior when there's a massive natural
| disaster, or major power loss to your region. Or if you're in a
| rural area with zero other good options.
| udosan wrote:
| I've had Starlink for over 2 years, not had a single
| perceptible minute of outage including in thunderstorms.
| Might have been slower than usual but not enough to notice. I
| switched because fibre in our rural area was way less
| reliable.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| that's shocking to me actually. Was the ISP just bad? Wow.
|
| I guess that challenges my perspective. The ping point
| still stands. May or not be noticeable depending on how you
| use the internet.
| crowcroft wrote:
| If web servers were deployed to space, and everyone was
| connecting through satellites would there be any upside for
| ping?
|
| Sure New York to Ohio is always going to be fastest over
| fibre, but what about New Zealand to London? Not sure how
| much that matters though and the speed of light is a pretty
| hard limit to what's possible.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than
| proper fibre though?
|
| i doubt it, the speed of light is only so fast. Latency up to
| LEO, down to earth, back to LEO, down to you will always be
| more than to your local telco CO and back.
| crowcroft wrote:
| Yea, this makes sense, but what if web servers are deployed
| to space?
|
| I don't imagine it will ever be 'better'. Like wifi though,
| at some point it will probably be good enough that for 90+%
| of use cases the tradeoff of cables isn't worth it.
|
| Like I know ethernet is better, but very rarely does that
| little bit better latency or connection stability practically
| matter.
| wincy wrote:
| Maybe SpaceX should partner with Activision-Blizzard to run
| Diablo 4 servers in space so Elon can get better latency
| for His Pit 140+ runs when flying in his private jet.
| prmph wrote:
| Would give a whole new meaning to _cloud_ computing. We can
| only hope.
| zizee wrote:
| Fibre will always be better for densely populated areas. But
| for less dense satellite is making a lot of sense.
|
| However, for nation states there is a lot of value in having
| redundancy and sovereignty over your telecommunications
| infrastructure. Having a foreign country's company being sole
| provider could put you in a tough position (for the good/bad of
| your population).
| somethoughts wrote:
| Without seeing the underlying costs its hard to really know if
| this is like early Uber/Lyft where investors are trying
| subsidizing growth of a service in order to grow marketshare.
|
| Long term - once the local ISPs are out of business, then prices
| can go up and either cover costs or excess profits can go to the
| investors.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-10 23:01 UTC)