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Wouldn't that end up costing $300k+ per house when you get to the really remote areas? I know some people that had to pay that amount to get a few houses connec
by sebzim4500 5y ago
Wouldn't that end up costing $300k+ per house when you get to the really remote areas? I know some people that had to pay that amount to get a few houses connected up, and they weren't that far from civilization. Hard to imagine there is political will to spend that much taxpayer money on such a small portion of the population when it looks like Starlink will provide decent internet for a tiny fraction of the cost.
- ghaff 5y agoYeah. If there were truly no other options, I'd certainly be in favor of a debate about bringing near-universal broadband to people, in the same manner as electricity and telephones. Of course, that only applies country by country and presumably leaves poorer countries SOL. However, given that we do seem to have a good option with the tradeoff that there will be more satellites in LEO, that seems to be a reasonable tradeoff. There are already a lot of satellites in orbit, to say nothing of planes, and a lot of light pollution. So this idea that we're besmirching the virgin night sky seems... overwrought.
- pradn 5y agoBut providing practically every service to a rural person is more expensive, but we do it anyway since we like to have a somewhat equal living standard for our rural citizens. Hell, the same goes for suburbs too. In many cities, poorer urban areas end up being net tax positive compared to suburbs because of the extensive amount of low-density infrastructure required outside the core.
- totalZero 5y agoI think it’s more likely that you’d lay fiber to a backbone of 5G base stations and rent wireless modems to customers. This would work fairly well in non-mountainous areas.