4 ms·

If anybody on hacker news is in any way connected to this project or can get Elon Musk or somebody else at starlink's ear: PLEASE please see if there is any way

by blhack 6y ago

If anybody on hacker news is in any way connected to this project or can get Elon Musk or somebody else at starlink's ear: PLEASE please see if there is any way that they can get some starlink equipment out to the thousands of kids who are currently living on tribal land without internet. These kids are very literally being left behind due to the covid lockdowns. They can't do online school because they can't get internet access. It's unbelievably tragic and heartbreaking.

47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago
Disagree, their parents wanted that land for 'culture'. It's a good lesson for the kids to see how valuable that culture is.
- shaabanban 6y ago
  What a disgusting and patently racist thing to say.
  - 47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago
    Apparently it's racist to expect people to live with their decisions now. If their parents want to be their own separate thing they should have to live with the consequences of that decision and they should be the ones who have to explain why it was a good idea to their children.
- samcheng 6y ago
  Wow, that's pretty racist! IMO internet connectivity for education of underserved rural children is a great use case for Starlink. This population (particularly in the Four Corners region of the US) is VERY remote and expensive for existing internet service. I hope it gets there sometime soon.
  - 47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago
    It's only racist if you think it's unfair to make people live with the consequences of their choices. Let them explain to their kids why their forefathers thought the situation was a good idea instead of integration. You don't get to say you can make it on your own and then demand help.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't feed the trolls. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
aabhay 6y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if their 'incomplete' coverage were limited to areas within range of large metros. Even if the PR is around underserved areas, the money is in suburbs.
- kanox 6y ago
  Even in the current configuration without inter-satellite links coverage extends for almost 1000km from a gateway. I'm pretty sure they have enough gateways for the entire US landmass.
- blhack 6y ago
  I think that is fundamentally at odds with how the satellites have been deployed, isn't it? These aren't at high geosync orbits. The satellites aren't in a stationary location relative to a point on the earth, so I don't think you'd be able to limit the coverage to specific geographic locations.
- walrus01 6y ago
  I have a map (from all public FCC earth station filing data) of the almost two dozen starlink earth stations so far licensed in the 48 states. Many of them are in medium sized cities surrounded by rural areas, or already in fairly sparsely populated areas colocated with long haul fiber ILAs and well positioned to serve very rural areas. For instance there's one in Idaho that's adjacent to some intercity fiber (from where they're almost certainly buying a transport circuit to get to Seattle) which will have simultaneous visibility of satellites serving a vast area that has no WISPs and is presently dependent on consumer grade geostationary VSAT stuff. The problem right now is sufficient density of satellites for seamless handover coverage to a CPE (make-before-break). Which would be the same problem if you were trying to serve a suburb of Seattle or a very rural area in Montana. I rate it as highly unlikely that at the point in time when an ordinary consumer with a visa card can sign up for starlink service, they only offer it in major metro areas. The siting choices for the earth stations say otherwise. Technological and economic limitations in Starlink, at least with the first/second generation of stuff mean that it's not competition for the sort of wireline services you can get in the suburb of a major metro area. If I were in Kirkland, WA and could get 500 to 1000 Mbps Comcast service, or gigabit GPON from Centurylink(Lumen), I'd certainly sign up for that before Starlink. You'd be looking at something that may top out at max speeds of 150-200Mbps down and 40-80 Mbps upstream (Starlink) vs a copper coaxial or fiber last mile setup that can do 800 down, and 300-600 Mbps up.
walrus01 6y ago
There are a number of tribes using federal subsidies and their own local economic base to build terrestrial, microwave, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint WISP networks. For instance: https://www.ynnetworks.com/ https://www.ynnetworks.com/ https://www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/ https://www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/ One of my personal pet peeves with the FCC and the federal government's methods of subsidizing rural Internet, is that it's a horribly moribund process. The USF (universal service fund) was created a long time ago to put a tiny tax on every wireline dialtone phone service in the USA and apply it as a subsidy to last-mile copper phone operators mandated to serve very rural areas. Something like that could be applied to greatly increased rural broadband subsidies in general, which would benefit not just tribal areas but everywhere with a low density of people per square km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund
8bitsrule 6y ago
Excellent point, I second this nomination. The US has -hundreds- of rural tribes that (unless they've had the time and funds) -have- to be under-served. The solution your proposing could be -very- beneficial to both interests, now and after Covid (which is hurting rez's hard).

by blhack 6y ago

47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago

Disagree, their parents wanted that land for 'culture'. It's a good lesson for the kids to see how valuable that culture is.

shaabanban 6y ago
What a disgusting and patently racist thing to say.
- 47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago
  Apparently it's racist to expect people to live with their decisions now. If their parents want to be their own separate thing they should have to live with the consequences of that decision and they should be the ones who have to explain why it was a good idea to their children.
samcheng 6y ago
Wow, that's pretty racist! IMO internet connectivity for education of underserved rural children is a great use case for Starlink. This population (particularly in the Four Corners region of the US) is VERY remote and expensive for existing internet service. I hope it gets there sometime soon.
- 47rurudhdruhfhf 6y ago
  It's only racist if you think it's unfair to make people live with the consequences of their choices. Let them explain to their kids why their forefathers thought the situation was a good idea instead of integration. You don't get to say you can make it on your own and then demand help.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't feed the trolls. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

aabhay 6y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if their 'incomplete' coverage were limited to areas within range of large metros. Even if the PR is around underserved areas, the money is in suburbs.

kanox 6y ago
Even in the current configuration without inter-satellite links coverage extends for almost 1000km from a gateway. I'm pretty sure they have enough gateways for the entire US landmass.
blhack 6y ago
I think that is fundamentally at odds with how the satellites have been deployed, isn't it? These aren't at high geosync orbits. The satellites aren't in a stationary location relative to a point on the earth, so I don't think you'd be able to limit the coverage to specific geographic locations.
walrus01 6y ago
I have a map (from all public FCC earth station filing data) of the almost two dozen starlink earth stations so far licensed in the 48 states. Many of them are in medium sized cities surrounded by rural areas, or already in fairly sparsely populated areas colocated with long haul fiber ILAs and well positioned to serve very rural areas. For instance there's one in Idaho that's adjacent to some intercity fiber (from where they're almost certainly buying a transport circuit to get to Seattle) which will have simultaneous visibility of satellites serving a vast area that has no WISPs and is presently dependent on consumer grade geostationary VSAT stuff. The problem right now is sufficient density of satellites for seamless handover coverage to a CPE (make-before-break). Which would be the same problem if you were trying to serve a suburb of Seattle or a very rural area in Montana. I rate it as highly unlikely that at the point in time when an ordinary consumer with a visa card can sign up for starlink service, they only offer it in major metro areas. The siting choices for the earth stations say otherwise. Technological and economic limitations in Starlink, at least with the first/second generation of stuff mean that it's not competition for the sort of wireline services you can get in the suburb of a major metro area. If I were in Kirkland, WA and could get 500 to 1000 Mbps Comcast service, or gigabit GPON from Centurylink(Lumen), I'd certainly sign up for that before Starlink. You'd be looking at something that may top out at max speeds of 150-200Mbps down and 40-80 Mbps upstream (Starlink) vs a copper coaxial or fiber last mile setup that can do 800 down, and 300-600 Mbps up.

walrus01 6y ago

There are a number of tribes using federal subsidies and their own local economic base to build terrestrial, microwave, point-to-point and point-to-multipoint WISP networks. For instance: https://www.ynnetworks.com/ https://www.ynnetworks.com/ https://www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/ https://www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/ One of my personal pet peeves with the FCC and the federal government's methods of subsidizing rural Internet, is that it's a horribly moribund process. The USF (universal service fund) was created a long time ago to put a tiny tax on every wireline dialtone phone service in the USA and apply it as a subsidy to last-mile copper phone operators mandated to serve very rural areas. Something like that could be applied to greatly increased rural broadband subsidies in general, which would benefit not just tribal areas but everywhere with a low density of people per square km. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Service_Fund

8bitsrule 6y ago

Excellent point, I second this nomination. The US has -hundreds- of rural tribes that (unless they've had the time and funds) -have- to be under-served. The solution your proposing could be -very- beneficial to both interests, now and after Covid (which is hurting rez's hard).