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Demand for Starlink in Zimbabwe is overwhelming capacity
- johanneskanybal 2y ago[flagged]
- briandear 2y agoDevil? He’s a hero.
- Auracle 2y agoNo, no - you see, despite rapidly speeding up EV adoption, completely transforming how we get things into space, and enabling many people to finally get high speed internet… He’s (gasp)…a republican!
- bamboozled 2y agoWhat’s the point of rapidly speeding up EV adoption if you have elected “drill baby drill”? Is that to save humanity ?
- snovv_crash 2y agoThere's no way you can convince republicans to buy electric cars if the electric car guy is a democrat.
- bamboozled 2y agoOn the other hand he’s isolated a LOT of his original customers and most of republicans still think EVs are stupid.
- snovv_crash 2y agoThe stated goal of Tesla was acceleration of electric car production and adoption. It's fine if the people who believe in global warming buy a car from someone else. The republicans need an electric car that they can take to the gun range and not get laughed at though. Coastal elites ignoring flyover states is nothing new, Elon just figured out how to exploit it.
- Sparyjerry 2y agoAs a stop gap until infrastructure is updated to handle the electricity and generate it from renewable sources. Tesla is heavily in the battery and solar space as well, they just have focused on cars so much its practically been ignored. Solar in order to generate electricity, and battery to store it so you can use it when its night or cloudy. Once alternatives are truly available, you'll see you'll see a huge change, but as it is now, electrification itself enables you to later simply change your power plants rather than every vehicle on the road.
- bamboozled 2y agoThat's not going to happen when there is vested interest in propping up fossil fuels. I hope I'm wrong and you're right, I just don't think that's how the incoming administration sees things.
- timschmidt 2y ago> That's not going to happen when there is vested interest in propping up fossil fuels. Sure it will, because Solar PV is less expensive than any other option: https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2013/4/2/1051953-13649193321115432-zjkiss.png https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2013/4/2/1051953-136... from: https://seekingalpha.com/article/1324411-trends-in-the-cost-of-energy https://seekingalpha.com/article/1324411-trends-in-the-cost-...
- bamboozled 2y agoYou can ruin that by introducing tariffs on Chinese products for example and disincentivizing local solar production. Hacker News has lost it's imagination IMO. The "facts" you site are obvious, we could've solved climate change 50 years ago with nuclear, it's not about that. It's about fossil fuel money.
- timschmidt 2y agoSeems like you're looking for reasons to complain. "Total U.S. solar module manufacturing capacity grows by 71% in Q1 2024" https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/06/06/total-u-s-solar-module-manufacturing-capacity-grows-by-71-in-q1-2024/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/06/06/total-u-s-solar-modul... "The U.S. Solar Market Insight Q2 2024 report says 11 GW of new solar module manufacturing capacity came online in the United States during Q1 2024, the largest quarter of solar manufacturing growth in American history." "Renewable Energy Is Now The Cheapest Option - Even Without Subsidies" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/renewable-energy-is-now-the-cheapest-option-even-without-subsidies/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesellsmoor/2019/06/15/renewa... There you go. Economics will handle it. No stopping it. > we could've solved climate change 50 years ago with nuclear Next time you fire up that time machine, let me know. I've got a sports almanac packed and ready. On this timeline it never happened. Meanwhile, solar pv production capacity has doubled reliably every couple years for decades. And is only a few doublings away from providing all the power the world needs.
- latentcall 2y agoYou can do good things and still be a bad person. I’m glad the company he is CEO of is bringing Internet to rural or underserved communities. However I do think he’s a bad person. I prefer my company to be down to earth and act with humility, not to be smug “know it all” edgelords. I am aware many American men are also immature so I won’t pretend to not understand the worship.
- Sparyjerry 2y agoHe makes jokes and is humble but wouldn't know it from democrat reporters. In a way he was forced into being a republican just like most former democrats like him were. When you are trying to get things done, things like anti-meritocratic ideas like woke culture get in the way. Things like California eliminating advanced classes for students altogether because it was seen as diverting too many resources away from black and brown students. That's one example of hundreds where the democrat run states/cities/officials always seem to make things harder to accomplish anything.
- olyjohn 2y agoI hope you can come up with more than he makes jokes and is humble. That's not proof that he's a good person. I'm curious, how did 'woke culture' get in the way of Tesla or SpaceX? Seems like they are doing fine to me.
- timschmidt 2y agoWhat's wild is that he could take his billions and retire to a private island for the rest of his life, but he seems to spend a great deal of time working on large difficult projects which further humanity's place as a species. I.e. shifting humanity to renewable power, engineering the first reusable rockets, worldwide internet and cellular phone communication, colonizing other bodies in the solar system as backup civilizations, and you've got to wonder why with the way he's vilified. Paints an interesting picture as to why other billionaires aren't interested in grand projects. Edit: downvoting this comment just reinforces my impression.
- bamboozled 2y agoWhy is he a “hero”?
- 10u152 2y agoIf fast, reliable, cheap internet worldwide is a "minor" gain what's a major gain? Fusion power? Teleportation? Dyson Spheres?
- ethagknight 2y agoIs there any benefit, from Starlink’s perspective for them to sell ‘reseller kits’ for a single ground based antenna to serve a neighborhood? Or are Starlink’s radios so efficient that it doesn’t really matter? Also, I wonder why Starlink wouldn’t have more demand-based pricing based on consumption? With a very finite service window at least for the next 10 years, seems like each allotment of time talking to a satellite is worth a highly variable amount depending on its location.
- oskarkk 2y ago>Is there any benefit, from Starlink’s perspective for them to sell ‘reseller kits’ for a single ground based antenna to serve a neighborhood? Or are Starlink’s radios so efficient that it doesn’t really matter? I think their antennas can go to half a gigabit or maybe even higher, but in practice the speed will be limited by how many customers are served by each satellite. You can see some medians like 80-120 Mbps[0]. Also seemingly there's an option to buy a big "Starlink gateway" with speeds like 10 Gbps[1] - that could be nice for small ISPs. >Also, I wonder why Starlink wouldn’t have more demand-based pricing based on consumption? With a very finite service window at least for the next 10 years, seems like each allotment of time talking to a satellite is worth a highly variable amount depending on its location. What do you mean by "very finite service window at least for the next 10 years"? Starlink satellites are designed with a lifespan of 5 years, so every Starlink sat that is now in the sky will be replaced by a new sat relatively soon (surely by an improved model). There are more Starlinks in the sky each week, the sats launched today are more powerful than older sats, and Starship will be launching even bigger sats for less money. Right now the prices vary by country (120 USD in USA, 80 USD in Poland, 50 USD in Zimbabwe), and they have "regional savings"[2] and "congestion charges"[3] in specific areas. Anyway, cities aren't really a market for Starlink (too many customers per satellite, so there can't be many customers per capita, and it's expensive so no one would buy it if it was even more expensive), only in moderately populated areas Starlink starts making any business sense, but there's still competition from other ISPs, so prices can't be very high. In sparsely populated areas, you have all the bandwidth, but customers may not have any alternatives, so there's no reason to have very low prices even where the demand is very low. For ships the price is 250 USD, because the only alternative is another satellite service, but much slower than Starlink. [0] https://www.ookla.com/articles/starlink-hughesnet-viasat-performance-q2-2023 https://www.ookla.com/articles/starlink-hughesnet-viasat-per... [1] https://www.starlinkinternet.info/community-gateway https://www.starlinkinternet.info/community-gateway (That's not official starlink.com, but https://www.starlink.com/community-gateway https://www.starlink.com/community-gateway redirects to it, so it's not a fake website) [2] https://www.starlink.com/support/article/efa87a10-aa1d-783a-ae80-0e1425041708 https://www.starlink.com/support/article/efa87a10-aa1d-783a-... [3] https://www.starlink.com/support/article/63d885d3-c269-21f9-69d6-3ed1b2fd18e9 https://www.starlink.com/support/article/63d885d3-c269-21f9-...
- bamboozled 2y agoWe really, really need a competitor before we end up with the “one world internet” type situation, at least in the developing world.
- threeseed 2y agoThe competitor is domestic fibre and every country is rolling it out, albeit slowly. Starlink will increasingly just be a product for rural and niche use cases.
- vermilingua 2y ago“Increasingly” doing a lot of heavy lifting there, fiber rollouts are slow and complex and still lend to the kind of semi-natural monopoly that’s caused massive ISP price gouging in western urban areas. I agree that fibre ultimately dominates the last-mile market, but Starlink et al. are still needed to keep last-mile providers to account.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoAnd the niche will get smaller. I live in a rural area, and while we had to wait a few years, they finally pulled fiber to the houses around here.
- lxgr 2y agoOn the other hand, "but Starlink is available there" seems like a very quick way to stop most government incentives and subsidies to get fiber rolled out anywhere.
- 15155 2y agoAfrica is decades away from continent-wide fiber optic internet outside of a handful of highly-developed metros.
- verzali 2y agoThe Chinese providers will soon offer real competition over Africa and South America at least.
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- shariat 2y agothis is when starlink business plan breaks down
- tomcam 2y agoI live one neighborhood away from their building in Redmond, WA and can’t get service lol. Oversubscribed here.
- hoseja 2y agoDo they still need local ground stations?
- inemesitaffia 2y agoNo. But it helps with latency and capacity. Proof is there's service in Antarctica and without it you need to be at most 1600km from a ground station
- misiti3780 2y agois there any reason to think this will be a trend all over the world where people have shitty internet?
- nordsieck 2y ago> is there any reason to think this will be a trend all over the world where people have shitty internet? I think it really depends on why the region has bad internet. If it's because the government officials wants kickbacks from ISPs, they're probably not going to give SpaceX a license to circumvent that arrangement. If it's because the infrastructure is bad, and there's no money to improve it at the moment, I'd probably be more hopeful.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Crosseye_Jack 2y agoSure it will be, as long as the price is right. If you live in the sticks, not serviced by fibre/cable then 200meg for £75p/m isn’t the end of the world (if you can afford it). But if you can be serviced with fibre/cable then it’s just not worth it (imo). For example where I live, I could get 500/75 meg fttp connection for less than half the per month cost of starlink, not have to fork over £300 for hardware upfront, nor pay for shipping or Starlinks congestion charge, and I’m not even in an area that offers an altnet (which would either be cheaper still and/or offer a symmetrical service). But if I was stuck on a shitty copper line with very low speeds, didn’t want to move, and mobile internet wasn’t an option. I would consider using it. But all depends on if you can afford it to determine if it’s a good value or not.
- lxgr 2y agoHopefully! If nothing else, it's great to have an upper cap on what local ISPs can maximally charge and minimally provide in terms of bandwidth. But something tells me that it won't universally receive a license. At least some government-owned or incumbent ISPs will probably succeed in lobbying the government to protect their investments in some way, for better or worse. For example, Saint Helena (which is extremely remote and until recently had only geostationary-based slow internet connections with low data caps) doesn't allow Starlink, apparently because the government has invested a lot in a new fiber project and wants to recoup that cost at least partially from ISP subscriptions rather than people switching to Starlink.
- gcormier 2y agoCanada checking in. Data caps have only recently increased. Note, I did not say things got cheaper. My understanding is the Canadian government asked for a lower $ per GB. This means by throwing data at customers that isn't needed, they're actually charging "less". I think Starlink is a huge game changer for rural Canadian areas served only by copper, and to be honest, I'm not sure if Bell cares when the large cities are where most of the population is and that's where they can make their money.
- freedomben 2y agoIndeed. Rural areas have always been neglected due to The economic realities. It's just very expensive to build and maintain infrastructure out here to less dense populations, and realistically The big earners who could afford to pay high rates are all in the city. There are sometimes requirements forcing providers to deliver some service, but they will always do the bare minimum because there is just much more money to be made in the denser areas. Starlink is the first time where the script is being flipped somewhat. Starlink works better with less density. It is also delivering reliable and excellent service. I have been using starlink since it was very first available, and it has really been life-changing.
- M_bara 2y agoSame thing in Kenya. A 150km radius around Nairobi is maxed out. I have a fishy kit that can’t join due to capacity issues. In fact, the advent of Starlink - which had acquired 0.5% of the entire market - has rattled the existing players so much that, 1. They’ve doubled available bandwidth for residential plans without increasing cost. Safaricom went way overboard and 5x-ed plans. So if you were on 40mbit for $40 USD, you’d get 200mbit for the same cost. 2. They are all writing letters to the fcc equivalent crying about GSM spectrum interference (duh…) and predatory pricing [1]. I’m all for more competition! I’m only considering moving to Starlink due to frequent fibre cuts. 1. https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/technology/starlink-sustains-price-cuts-despite-local-firms-outcry-4850324 https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/corporate/technology/...
- ImJamal 2y agoWhat is a "fishy kit"? When I tried looking it up the results were for aquariums.
- blacksmith_tb 2y ago"Kit" is synonymous with "gear", so I took that to mean "I have some unreliable equipment..."
- lxgr 2y agoProbably "dishy": Their terminal is internally called "Dishy McFlatface".
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- faraixyz 2y agoI'm glad they're here to shake things up, our local ISPs are insane. You should see some of the quotes I've gotten for internet[1] at work and that's in a rather dense place out of the city center! The worse wat $650/month for 8Mbps! The $100 plan I get at work is probably overkill but the internet is no longer a bottleneck to our work like it once was with 20 devices using a 5MBps ADSL line. Before it was legal people smuggled kits in and used the roaming plans from a neighboring country. The $350 sounds like a lot, but that's what the fibre providers charge to terminate at your house, more if they need to lay more cable. You'll find plenty in the ghetto areas. At home I've got fibre which is about as good as Starlink offers for $100. It used to be 20Mbps and it went up to 75Mbps max late last year when it looked like starlink would enter and they're gonna do 300MBps soon. It seems local ISPs are trying to do better offering more bandwidth though it's still expensive and heavily abuses "up to" marketing. Like, there's no reason that ISP can't offer 20MBps for $30. It's not the easiest country to do business, there are a lot of exchange rate shenanigans and ISPs seem addicted to rent seeking. Heck, getting Starlink approved seemed to be a huge mission that surprised the execs working on it. Funny bit is that I messed up ordering the kit at work so it's in my name meaning I can technically buy the kit off of them and they can get on a business plan without a waiting list or using the overpriced "authorized providers". [1]: https://im.farai.xyz/the-classics/blog/zim-internet-sucks/ https://im.farai.xyz/the-classics/blog/zim-internet-sucks/
- lurking_swe 2y agothis blew my mind: “The worse wat $650/month for 8Mbps” insane.
- fwip 2y agoAre those prices in USD, or a local currency? (Apologies for not knowing which local currency to ask about; it seems that Zimbabwe changed currency recently and no longer uses the Zimbabwean Dollar?)
- oblio 2y agoI'm guessing the local currency as Zimbabwe's GDP per capita is $2,005, so salaries have to be lower. I doubt anyone could afford to pay 30% of their yearly income on an internet connection :-)