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It sucks to lose something you always had and took for granted. I wonder what the reverse situation would look like - if everyone on the planet had easy access

by sxates 5y ago

It sucks to lose something you always had and took for granted. I wonder what the reverse situation would look like - if everyone on the planet had easy access to high speed satellite internet, and astronomers came along and insisted we had to pull the whole thing down so we could study stars. Would that be an equal or un-equal tragedy?

adrian_b 5y ago
The comparison is really meaningless, because for looking towards the surrounding space there is no other way, while for Internet access there are many alternatives both cheaper and faster than a network of satellites. Many years ago I have worked as a designer of equipment for long-distance wireless communication links for Internet access. I have no doubt that it would be possible to cover all the remote areas of USA with a network of towers with directional antennas for the links between themselves at a lower cost and with better performance than SpaceX's constellation of satellites. The reason why this has not been done is not technical. The fact that the communication services offered by SpaceX are more advantageous than the alternatives available in USA is a historical accident, not something caused by objective reality. The difference between the solution implemented by SpaceX and a ground-based solution is that to be able to provide their services SpaceX occupies resources that they do not own. The sky does not belong to SpaceX, I and billions of other humans who will never use the services of SpaceX have as much rights to the sky as the SpaceX customers, so SpaceX is stealing from us to serve their customers. This is the same like someone who chooses to smoke in a public place besides me. I do not care if he smokes at his home, that is his right, but if he smokes besides me and forces me to inhale his smoke, I consider that an aggression. In the same way, occupying the sky with satellites is a nuisance and an aggression towards all those who are not SpaceX customers and who have not agreed that SpaceX may use in this way something that belongs to all humans, not to an US company or to an US agency.
- mlindner 5y ago
  > because for looking towards the surrounding space there is no other way This doesn't prevent them from looking outwards towards the surrounding space. It just makes the data a bit more noisy once processing is completed. It doesn't completely obscure anything (unless that thing was incredibly faint and near the noise floor anyway). > while for Internet access there are many alternatives both cheaper and faster than a network of satellites. If there were "many alternatives both cheaper and faster", people would not be going literally crazy over waiting for the service to become available at their premises. You can see such people moping and complaining on threads everywhere while they wait for service to become available. For the market where Starlink is wanted there are often no options that are faster and in some cases not even any options that are cheaper. I've heard several anecdotes of people who were paying $200+ a month for around 1 mbps for internet service before they got Starlink.
- trothamel 5y ago
  What would you recommend Jacob Calderwood, of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, use? He wrote a letter to the FCC, asking the FCC to approve the modification to Starlink that would allow it use lower orbits. You can find his letter on the FCC licensing page, here: https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=3873574 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=... One thing he points out is that while he has broadband, something meeting the minimal definition costs $500 a month. A nice thing about Starlink is that it will be able to cover the US and the rest of the world, and provide an upper limit to the price of broadband. And it's timeframe is not that far off - they will have about 6,000 satellites deployed in 2024, and all 12,000 deployed by 2027.

by sxates 5y ago

adrian_b 5y ago

The comparison is really meaningless, because for looking towards the surrounding space there is no other way, while for Internet access there are many alternatives both cheaper and faster than a network of satellites. Many years ago I have worked as a designer of equipment for long-distance wireless communication links for Internet access. I have no doubt that it would be possible to cover all the remote areas of USA with a network of towers with directional antennas for the links between themselves at a lower cost and with better performance than SpaceX's constellation of satellites. The reason why this has not been done is not technical. The fact that the communication services offered by SpaceX are more advantageous than the alternatives available in USA is a historical accident, not something caused by objective reality. The difference between the solution implemented by SpaceX and a ground-based solution is that to be able to provide their services SpaceX occupies resources that they do not own. The sky does not belong to SpaceX, I and billions of other humans who will never use the services of SpaceX have as much rights to the sky as the SpaceX customers, so SpaceX is stealing from us to serve their customers. This is the same like someone who chooses to smoke in a public place besides me. I do not care if he smokes at his home, that is his right, but if he smokes besides me and forces me to inhale his smoke, I consider that an aggression. In the same way, occupying the sky with satellites is a nuisance and an aggression towards all those who are not SpaceX customers and who have not agreed that SpaceX may use in this way something that belongs to all humans, not to an US company or to an US agency.

mlindner 5y ago
> because for looking towards the surrounding space there is no other way This doesn't prevent them from looking outwards towards the surrounding space. It just makes the data a bit more noisy once processing is completed. It doesn't completely obscure anything (unless that thing was incredibly faint and near the noise floor anyway). > while for Internet access there are many alternatives both cheaper and faster than a network of satellites. If there were "many alternatives both cheaper and faster", people would not be going literally crazy over waiting for the service to become available at their premises. You can see such people moping and complaining on threads everywhere while they wait for service to become available. For the market where Starlink is wanted there are often no options that are faster and in some cases not even any options that are cheaper. I've heard several anecdotes of people who were paying $200+ a month for around 1 mbps for internet service before they got Starlink.
trothamel 5y ago
What would you recommend Jacob Calderwood, of Utqiaġvik, Alaska, use? He wrote a letter to the FCC, asking the FCC to approve the modification to Starlink that would allow it use lower orbits. You can find his letter on the FCC licensing page, here: https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=3873574 https://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=... One thing he points out is that while he has broadband, something meeting the minimal definition costs $500 a month. A nice thing about Starlink is that it will be able to cover the US and the rest of the world, and provide an upper limit to the price of broadband. And it's timeframe is not that far off - they will have about 6,000 satellites deployed in 2024, and all 12,000 deployed by 2027.