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Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, w

by db48x 4y ago

Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, which is not very far away. In order to be sure of having service available in a month or two, they have surely already built a ground station or two, printed some instruction booklets in Nigerian, hired some Nigerian sales reps, etc.

capableweb 4y ago
Yeah, I saw that when you hover, it shows you an estimate of when it'll be available. But saying that it's available in X weeks/months/years in Africa directly conflicts with the tweet saying "Starlink is now on all seven continents" when it's not available in Africa or Asia right now.
- parineum 4y ago
  I think you're being a little obtuse here. The point of the tweet seems to be that the laser links are up enabling a true global network without the need for nearby ground stations. They have coverage over all seven continents because of that and I have very little doubt that it's been tested in those continents as well. "Availability" here seems to be a proxy for "is technically solved" vs. "is commercially available". If you're asking "what's the difference?" Think about the war in Ukraine. Starlink wasn't (and isn't?) commercially available there but was able to be deployed in an emergency.
elil17 4y ago
FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!
- db48x 4y ago
  Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)
  - capableweb 4y ago
    There are something like 10-15 countries in Africa where English is the official language, and there is almost as many English speakers in Africa as in the US in total :)
  - gpm 4y ago
    It's much more likely to do with licensing radio bandwidth.
kingkawn 4y ago
Ahh yes, the language called Nigerian…

by db48x 4y ago

capableweb 4y ago

Yeah, I saw that when you hover, it shows you an estimate of when it'll be available. But saying that it's available in X weeks/months/years in Africa directly conflicts with the tweet saying "Starlink is now on all seven continents" when it's not available in Africa or Asia right now.

parineum 4y ago
I think you're being a little obtuse here. The point of the tweet seems to be that the laser links are up enabling a true global network without the need for nearby ground stations. They have coverage over all seven continents because of that and I have very little doubt that it's been tested in those continents as well. "Availability" here seems to be a proxy for "is technically solved" vs. "is commercially available". If you're asking "what's the difference?" Think about the war in Ukraine. Starlink wasn't (and isn't?) commercially available there but was able to be deployed in an emergency.

elil17 4y ago

FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!

db48x 4y ago
Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)
- capableweb 4y ago
  There are something like 10-15 countries in Africa where English is the official language, and there is almost as many English speakers in Africa as in the US in total :)
- gpm 4y ago
  It's much more likely to do with licensing radio bandwidth.

kingkawn 4y ago

Ahh yes, the language called Nigerian…