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> Only the most rural of areas would use Starlink. I mean yes? Rural and underserved areas always been the target market of Starlink in the first place. Starli

> Only the most rural of areas would use Starlink. I mean yes? Rural and underserved areas always been the target market of Starlink in the first place. Starlink isn't attempting to target the urban market.

dragontamer 5y ago
> I mean yes? Rural and underserved areas always been the target market of Starlink in the first place. Starlink isn't attempting to target the urban market. Are there millions of people in rural areas who will trust a US-based space ISP over local ISPs? The thing about targeting rural areas, is that you're by definition targeting a small subset of people. People generally live in cities, on the average.
- lazide 5y ago
  There are millions of people in current rural US with terrible terrible ISP options that would happily pay this. And that isn’t counting other countries. Australia alone is terribly underserved right now by all national ISP’s. Even if you put in the TOS that the NSA is going to jerk off to all their stuff, most would probably be super happy to sign up if it meant sub-300ms pings and > 5mbps speeds.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural/ua-facts.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g... Of the 300-million people in the USA, 250-million live in "Urban" areas. https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf By definition: this is all towns of 50,000 and above. The next big group of people are in 5,000+ person towns, which are a good target for 5G and fixed wireless internet. I've got an uncle who lives in one of these areas ("rural" for sure, but with line-of-sight to the town center so wireless / line of sight still works and so do cell phones / internet) I think you're grossly overestimating the number of people where Starlink's $500 upfront costs + $99 / month is competitive. Furthermore: line-of-sight is not a problem for a lot of people. Huge swaths of the USA's rural areas are extremely flat (ex: Kansas, Iowa, etc. etc.). So Fixed Wireless is reliable for many miles.
    - lazide 5y ago
      So you’re agreeing there are millions unserved and in truly rural areas right? That’s all it takes, and all I was referencing. Fixed wireless has been an option for a decade plus. When it works, it’s great. Almost everyone I know in rural areas has thought of it or tried it once. Trees, distance, sometimes a hill usually get in the way. Hughes and others don’t have the subscriber numbers they do because they’re good services that people like using over alternatives. Don’t forget there are a lot of people that would love to live in a rural area that haven’t because of lack of a decent connection. If starlink keeps on this trajectory, a lot of folks will be moving who never could before.
- SonicScrub 5y ago
  The purpose of my comment wasn't to discuss the efficacy of Starlink's strategy on targeting rural / underserved areas. Only to point out that was indeed their strategy. Which I think was important to highlight given your criticism of Starlink being uncompetitive in urban markets.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    My point about Urban markets is that 80% of the US's population is in an urban area in the 2010 census. Which means that Starlink immediately disqualifies itself from 80% of the US population. The remaining 20% seem to be largely covered by direct line-of-sight wireless technology.

dragontamer 5y ago

> I mean yes? Rural and underserved areas always been the target market of Starlink in the first place. Starlink isn't attempting to target the urban market. Are there millions of people in rural areas who will trust a US-based space ISP over local ISPs? The thing about targeting rural areas, is that you're by definition targeting a small subset of people. People generally live in cities, on the average.

lazide 5y ago
There are millions of people in current rural US with terrible terrible ISP options that would happily pay this. And that isn’t counting other countries. Australia alone is terribly underserved right now by all national ISP’s. Even if you put in the TOS that the NSA is going to jerk off to all their stuff, most would probably be super happy to sign up if it meant sub-300ms pings and > 5mbps speeds.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural/ua-facts.html https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g... Of the 300-million people in the USA, 250-million live in "Urban" areas. https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf By definition: this is all towns of 50,000 and above. The next big group of people are in 5,000+ person towns, which are a good target for 5G and fixed wireless internet. I've got an uncle who lives in one of these areas ("rural" for sure, but with line-of-sight to the town center so wireless / line of sight still works and so do cell phones / internet) I think you're grossly overestimating the number of people where Starlink's $500 upfront costs + $99 / month is competitive. Furthermore: line-of-sight is not a problem for a lot of people. Huge swaths of the USA's rural areas are extremely flat (ex: Kansas, Iowa, etc. etc.). So Fixed Wireless is reliable for many miles.
  - lazide 5y ago
    So you’re agreeing there are millions unserved and in truly rural areas right? That’s all it takes, and all I was referencing. Fixed wireless has been an option for a decade plus. When it works, it’s great. Almost everyone I know in rural areas has thought of it or tried it once. Trees, distance, sometimes a hill usually get in the way. Hughes and others don’t have the subscriber numbers they do because they’re good services that people like using over alternatives. Don’t forget there are a lot of people that would love to live in a rural area that haven’t because of lack of a decent connection. If starlink keeps on this trajectory, a lot of folks will be moving who never could before.
SonicScrub 5y ago
The purpose of my comment wasn't to discuss the efficacy of Starlink's strategy on targeting rural / underserved areas. Only to point out that was indeed their strategy. Which I think was important to highlight given your criticism of Starlink being uncompetitive in urban markets.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  My point about Urban markets is that 80% of the US's population is in an urban area in the 2010 census. Which means that Starlink immediately disqualifies itself from 80% of the US population. The remaining 20% seem to be largely covered by direct line-of-sight wireless technology.