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Appalachia has some of the highest poverty rates in the country. They don't have money for food, let alone a $120/month service that they can get for cheaper vi

Appalachia has some of the highest poverty rates in the country. They don't have money for food, let alone a $120/month service that they can get for cheaper via cellular data or conventional ISP At worse this is a non-gesture. For the actual relief effort itself, those travelling to do rescue - starlink has its use cases (as would a satellite and sat phones, but starlink does somewhat shine for first responder use cases)

inemesitaffia 2y ago
It might not have meaning for you, but someone on the ground had a real need and asked for it. These people can't get Internet via WiFi or cellular and you know it. This is concern trolling at best
- seadan83 2y ago
  Asteroid stated earlier: "At worse this is nice gesture " I mostly wanted to correct that to say at worse it is a non gesture. Somewhat helping a couple hundred people out of a million plus, is not quite the "nice" gesture. Particularly a relatively poor population. IDK, a pedantic debate of "nice and meaningful" vs "nice but not significant" is not interesting. Non-gesture I would equate to the latter. It is not like 10k of these devices were rushed in, fully activated, on the second day when it would have counted most. The help here is now coming late. 5 days ago (Monday) and this would have been much more helpful. To boot, just "first month free" Which is my same response when you say someone, yeah that is some people. Not many, does not really move the needle as much as it could. Though, for those where this first month free was helpful - that is great. Except overall, "first month free" is not really a gamechanger for the significant population on the ground. Find specific evidence otherwise if you want to make that claim. I'll be in the area in a week or two, I'll ask about this. > This is concern trolling at best Concern trolling vs savior complex.. The quality of this dialogue is now severely degraded after this insult. My family is in western NC not far outside of Asheville. Town of 100k. For _all_ of them, this "gesture" is meaningless since both factors of cell phone coverage and money are at play. Cell phone coverage (for SMS) came back online last sunday, and they reported to me a lot of people are badly off because the end of month paycheck was not soon enough and those people could not buy supplies in preparation. I do not know where you are located. I have the impression this forum is dominated by people that don't understand how poor rural parts of the country can be. Appalachia is one of the very poor parts of the country. Poverty rates in western NC are typically 15 to 20% [1]. Per capita income in appalachia is roughly $40k [2] (consider the implications for the distribution). About 1.2M people [3] in western NC, with 200k of them unable to even buy food. As far as pre-existing deployments, $300 for a starlink and $120/month is way out of the question. I don't see the numbers working out where a "first month is free", even with the device being donated as all that terribly useful en masse here. Though, in fairness, I do see utility to have a starlink on the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of supplies heading into a small, cut-off, town of 100 and then coordinating further relief effort. At the same time, supplies and evac are more priority. Which is to say, the use case where I think this shines is for emergency workers. Again, first month free is meaningless there. Worst case, yeah - essentially a non-gesture (worst case) [1] https://www.arc.gov/map/poverty-rates-in-appalachia-2013-2017/# https://www.arc.gov/map/poverty-rates-in-appalachia-2013-201... [2] https://www.arc.gov/map/per-capita-income-rates-in-appalachia-2017/ https://www.arc.gov/map/per-capita-income-rates-in-appalachi...
  - inemesitaffia 2y ago
    The devices were in immediately the storm passed. Not X days later. The people who brought them in are the ones who asked for it because they have activation issues. The world and Asheville doesn't exist only for you. And as I've pointed out a lot of those towers are backhauled over starlink. They could very well have received those texts over it before fiber was restored. Even today, days later, there's people asking for starlink to be delivered because x town is down
    - seadan83 2y ago
      > The devices were in immediately the storm passed Fema currently only has 40 in. (Citation in another comment, kindly take my word for it). Do you know how many immediately afterwards, any data or evidence? Even wild ass guess? > The world and Asheville doesn't exist only for you. This sounds like your own bias and frustration and assumptions. I'll respond to the insult by asking we calm down and have dialogue. This is not twitter. > a lot of those towers are backhauled over starlink. Do you have more information on this? How many? Which ones? Do I have starlink to thank for enabling SMS to waynesville? > They could very well have received those texts over it before fiber was restored. This is speculation. Can we firm up this claim?
      - inemesitaffia 2y ago
        We have videos of several people who were there the next day with Starlink. Their names are in this thread. They are the ones that had activation issues. It's not expensive and they also brought power. They met the actual first responders who lost access to firstnet More than 40 is my guess. Understand that these are individuals. No link to charities or organizations. Just people going in on their own. In every disaster, mobile providers bring in tower on wheels. Starlink is the cheapest provider. Lots of cell towers these days don't have microwave. If you only get calls/SMS on a tower these days you've definitely lost your fiber connectivity. With connectivity over SATCOM or even another 4G network. i.e a hotspot. If you find recent documents about TOW's you'll see you can lease one and they mention you have to bring your own starlink. When they tell you how much alternatives cost you'll be happy to go with it.

inemesitaffia 2y ago

It might not have meaning for you, but someone on the ground had a real need and asked for it. These people can't get Internet via WiFi or cellular and you know it. This is concern trolling at best

seadan83 2y ago
Asteroid stated earlier: "At worse this is nice gesture " I mostly wanted to correct that to say at worse it is a non gesture. Somewhat helping a couple hundred people out of a million plus, is not quite the "nice" gesture. Particularly a relatively poor population. IDK, a pedantic debate of "nice and meaningful" vs "nice but not significant" is not interesting. Non-gesture I would equate to the latter. It is not like 10k of these devices were rushed in, fully activated, on the second day when it would have counted most. The help here is now coming late. 5 days ago (Monday) and this would have been much more helpful. To boot, just "first month free" Which is my same response when you say someone, yeah that is some people. Not many, does not really move the needle as much as it could. Though, for those where this first month free was helpful - that is great. Except overall, "first month free" is not really a gamechanger for the significant population on the ground. Find specific evidence otherwise if you want to make that claim. I'll be in the area in a week or two, I'll ask about this. > This is concern trolling at best Concern trolling vs savior complex.. The quality of this dialogue is now severely degraded after this insult. My family is in western NC not far outside of Asheville. Town of 100k. For _all_ of them, this "gesture" is meaningless since both factors of cell phone coverage and money are at play. Cell phone coverage (for SMS) came back online last sunday, and they reported to me a lot of people are badly off because the end of month paycheck was not soon enough and those people could not buy supplies in preparation. I do not know where you are located. I have the impression this forum is dominated by people that don't understand how poor rural parts of the country can be. Appalachia is one of the very poor parts of the country. Poverty rates in western NC are typically 15 to 20% [1]. Per capita income in appalachia is roughly $40k [2] (consider the implications for the distribution). About 1.2M people [3] in western NC, with 200k of them unable to even buy food. As far as pre-existing deployments, $300 for a starlink and $120/month is way out of the question. I don't see the numbers working out where a "first month is free", even with the device being donated as all that terribly useful en masse here. Though, in fairness, I do see utility to have a starlink on the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of supplies heading into a small, cut-off, town of 100 and then coordinating further relief effort. At the same time, supplies and evac are more priority. Which is to say, the use case where I think this shines is for emergency workers. Again, first month free is meaningless there. Worst case, yeah - essentially a non-gesture (worst case) [1] https://www.arc.gov/map/poverty-rates-in-appalachia-2013-2017/# https://www.arc.gov/map/poverty-rates-in-appalachia-2013-201... [2] https://www.arc.gov/map/per-capita-income-rates-in-appalachia-2017/ https://www.arc.gov/map/per-capita-income-rates-in-appalachi...
- inemesitaffia 2y ago
  The devices were in immediately the storm passed. Not X days later. The people who brought them in are the ones who asked for it because they have activation issues. The world and Asheville doesn't exist only for you. And as I've pointed out a lot of those towers are backhauled over starlink. They could very well have received those texts over it before fiber was restored. Even today, days later, there's people asking for starlink to be delivered because x town is down
  - seadan83 2y ago
    > The devices were in immediately the storm passed Fema currently only has 40 in. (Citation in another comment, kindly take my word for it). Do you know how many immediately afterwards, any data or evidence? Even wild ass guess? > The world and Asheville doesn't exist only for you. This sounds like your own bias and frustration and assumptions. I'll respond to the insult by asking we calm down and have dialogue. This is not twitter. > a lot of those towers are backhauled over starlink. Do you have more information on this? How many? Which ones? Do I have starlink to thank for enabling SMS to waynesville? > They could very well have received those texts over it before fiber was restored. This is speculation. Can we firm up this claim?
    - inemesitaffia 2y ago
      We have videos of several people who were there the next day with Starlink. Their names are in this thread. They are the ones that had activation issues. It's not expensive and they also brought power. They met the actual first responders who lost access to firstnet More than 40 is my guess. Understand that these are individuals. No link to charities or organizations. Just people going in on their own. In every disaster, mobile providers bring in tower on wheels. Starlink is the cheapest provider. Lots of cell towers these days don't have microwave. If you only get calls/SMS on a tower these days you've definitely lost your fiber connectivity. With connectivity over SATCOM or even another 4G network. i.e a hotspot. If you find recent documents about TOW's you'll see you can lease one and they mention you have to bring your own starlink. When they tell you how much alternatives cost you'll be happy to go with it.