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I grew up in a rural area. We had dial-up for years until we got point to point wireless, which capped out at 1.5 mbps. 3 of my team members live in a rural are

by lukevp 7y ago

I grew up in a rural area. We had dial-up for years until we got point to point wireless, which capped out at 1.5 mbps. 3 of my team members live in a rural area and have similar internet. They’re all waiting to throw money at spacex as soon as it goes live. There’s millions of people in the US like them that would sign up. My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting decent internet (we have symmetric gigabit fiber now). Also I don’t think you truly grasp the cost efficiencies spacex has and will achieve. Elon originally said that they could lower launch costs under $1m if the only cost was propellant and minor refurbs, compared to hundreds of millions. Even today their confirmed cost is 6x less than average [1]. This is not a 20% reduction or something. It is incredibly significant. one web was launching on other companies’ rockets, so that’s an additional disadvantage since spacex is only incurring the cost of the launch and no margin since there will be recovered from the internet service. [1]: https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-spacex-lowered-costs-and-reduced-barriers-to-space-112586 https://www.google.com/amp/s/theconversation.com/amp/how-spa...

FpUser 7y ago
"My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting decent internet (we have symmetric gigabit fiber now)." Exactly my situation. I have symmetric gigabit and due to a nature of my business requiring symmetric fat pipe I have to live in a city. The minute I could get that gigabit in a wilderness I am out.
- leesalminen 7y ago
  FWIW, I’m founder and CTO of a SaaS company and moved from an apartment in the city with symmetric gigabit out to the country with a 20/10 connection. It definitely was an impactful change for us at first. I had to change some work workflows to do heavy network stuff on a remote machine. It took some time to refine and make (nearly) as efficient as doing it locally. I also had to sandbox all the streaming gadgets in the house and limit their bandwidth allowance. But, the key for me was to move to an area with a reputable, locally owned WISP. It took a couple years but I found it. My WISP is run by an ex-IBMer down the road from me. The network is rock solid and goes down less than Comcast. I’m 10ms away from the nearest Google PoP. Everything on the network is solar-first. These WISPs are out there and they make the decision to move to the country at lot easier. Keep an eye out! I’m out in Colorado- Email me if you want to know where to look around here for good internet in a rural area.
  - FpUser 7y ago
    Among the other things we do - we produce long 4K videos with production quality that we have to transfer elsewhere using the Internet. Traffic wise it dwarfs our programming needs and everything else and not much I can do about it.
- battery_cowboy 7y ago
  Yep, if I can pay a few thousand less for my home each month in a rural area vs. a big city with good internet and still develop software from home on a good connection, I'll pay several hundred bucks, even a thousand bucks maybe, a month for space internet if I had to.

by lukevp 7y ago

FpUser 7y ago

"My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting decent internet (we have symmetric gigabit fiber now)." Exactly my situation. I have symmetric gigabit and due to a nature of my business requiring symmetric fat pipe I have to live in a city. The minute I could get that gigabit in a wilderness I am out.

leesalminen 7y ago
FWIW, I’m founder and CTO of a SaaS company and moved from an apartment in the city with symmetric gigabit out to the country with a 20/10 connection. It definitely was an impactful change for us at first. I had to change some work workflows to do heavy network stuff on a remote machine. It took some time to refine and make (nearly) as efficient as doing it locally. I also had to sandbox all the streaming gadgets in the house and limit their bandwidth allowance. But, the key for me was to move to an area with a reputable, locally owned WISP. It took a couple years but I found it. My WISP is run by an ex-IBMer down the road from me. The network is rock solid and goes down less than Comcast. I’m 10ms away from the nearest Google PoP. Everything on the network is solar-first. These WISPs are out there and they make the decision to move to the country at lot easier. Keep an eye out! I’m out in Colorado- Email me if you want to know where to look around here for good internet in a rural area.
- FpUser 7y ago
  Among the other things we do - we produce long 4K videos with production quality that we have to transfer elsewhere using the Internet. Traffic wise it dwarfs our programming needs and everything else and not much I can do about it.
battery_cowboy 7y ago
Yep, if I can pay a few thousand less for my home each month in a rural area vs. a big city with good internet and still develop software from home on a good connection, I'll pay several hundred bucks, even a thousand bucks maybe, a month for space internet if I had to.