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Same 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 - wh

by M_bara 2y ago

Same 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 ago
What 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 ago
  Probably "dishy": Their terminal is internally called "Dishy McFlatface".
  - M_bara 2y ago
    Yep, blame my phone’s auto correct…
    - ImJamal 2y ago
      No worries. I just thought you were trying to connect starlink to a fish tank and wanted to know more.
lxgr 2y ago
How would Starlink (the Ka band service) interfere with GSM frequencies? Or is that about the new "direct to cell" product? Is that even being launched near Kenya (presumably it'd not emit anything over areas it does not have a license in)?
- RicoElectrico 2y ago
  Obviously it doesn't, but government officials everywhere are technically inept by default. It's a FUD.
  - m463 2y ago
    Well, it may interferes with the frequency of billing.
  - M_bara 2y ago
    Precisely,Safaricom also alleged that they would allow for illegal connections… perhaps they meant connections that we can’t easily wiretap on behalf of the government. Interestingly, during the protests a few months ago, the government severely throttled all external connections by putting a few interfaces down at the fibre sea landing points. Only Starlink users were getting good connectivity. A lot of folks migrated at that point.
rcxdude 2y ago
Interesting, because in principle they don't need to bother so much. Starlink doesn't actually have the capacity to provide that kind of connection to everyone in a densely populated area, there are underlying limits to how much bandwidth they can provide to a given area, so it's not given at all that they will be able to grow drastically beyond that 0.5% or so (I wouldn't be surprised if they can get a bit more capacity, but it's just not likely to be able to meet even a large fraction of the demand).
- CSMastermind 2y ago
  Can you help me understand the fundamental limitations? I remember people saying that about cell phone networks but clever engineering has meant more and more capacity (and bandwidth) in spite of the laws of nature.
  - nordsieck 2y ago
    The issue is, there just aren't that many satellites in orbit. 7000 (for SpaceX, less for other networks) for the globe means that only a few connections over a particular geographical area end up causing serious congestion. SpaceX is pushing hard to address this - they'll probably end up launching ~135 times this year, and are aiming for more than 180 times next year[2], most of which will be Starlink. But no matter how many satellites are in orbit, there just won't be the bandwidth to service dense urban areas. The reason that cell phones work is because there are so many cell towers. And, those towers have a density that correlates with demand. The problem with LEO satellites is, they have to evenly cover the Earth[1]. Which means that a level of service sufficient for a dense urban area would mean that rest of the world would be ridiculously over provisioned. --- 1. It's more complicated than that. Specifically, providers can use inclination to limit orbits to mid latitudes. But that only helps so much. 2. These numbers may not mean much to you, but they are absurd compared to pre-SpaceX years. SpaceX is doing more launches in a year than most rockets do in their entire lifetimes. A normal year for a SpaceX competitor like ULA is 4-10 launches, although those companies are also aiming to ramp up as Starlink competitors like Kuiper demand more launch volume.
  - erikpukinskis 2y ago

by M_bara 2y ago

ImJamal 2y ago

What 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 ago
Probably "dishy": Their terminal is internally called "Dishy McFlatface".
- M_bara 2y ago
  Yep, blame my phone’s auto correct…
  - ImJamal 2y ago
    No worries. I just thought you were trying to connect starlink to a fish tank and wanted to know more.

lxgr 2y ago

How would Starlink (the Ka band service) interfere with GSM frequencies? Or is that about the new "direct to cell" product? Is that even being launched near Kenya (presumably it'd not emit anything over areas it does not have a license in)?

RicoElectrico 2y ago
Obviously it doesn't, but government officials everywhere are technically inept by default. It's a FUD.
- m463 2y ago
  Well, it may interferes with the frequency of billing.
- M_bara 2y ago
  Precisely,Safaricom also alleged that they would allow for illegal connections… perhaps they meant connections that we can’t easily wiretap on behalf of the government. Interestingly, during the protests a few months ago, the government severely throttled all external connections by putting a few interfaces down at the fibre sea landing points. Only Starlink users were getting good connectivity. A lot of folks migrated at that point.

rcxdude 2y ago

Interesting, because in principle they don't need to bother so much. Starlink doesn't actually have the capacity to provide that kind of connection to everyone in a densely populated area, there are underlying limits to how much bandwidth they can provide to a given area, so it's not given at all that they will be able to grow drastically beyond that 0.5% or so (I wouldn't be surprised if they can get a bit more capacity, but it's just not likely to be able to meet even a large fraction of the demand).

CSMastermind 2y ago
Can you help me understand the fundamental limitations? I remember people saying that about cell phone networks but clever engineering has meant more and more capacity (and bandwidth) in spite of the laws of nature.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  The issue is, there just aren't that many satellites in orbit. 7000 (for SpaceX, less for other networks) for the globe means that only a few connections over a particular geographical area end up causing serious congestion. SpaceX is pushing hard to address this - they'll probably end up launching ~135 times this year, and are aiming for more than 180 times next year[2], most of which will be Starlink. But no matter how many satellites are in orbit, there just won't be the bandwidth to service dense urban areas. The reason that cell phones work is because there are so many cell towers. And, those towers have a density that correlates with demand. The problem with LEO satellites is, they have to evenly cover the Earth[1]. Which means that a level of service sufficient for a dense urban area would mean that rest of the world would be ridiculously over provisioned. --- 1. It's more complicated than that. Specifically, providers can use inclination to limit orbits to mid latitudes. But that only helps so much. 2. These numbers may not mean much to you, but they are absurd compared to pre-SpaceX years. SpaceX is doing more launches in a year than most rockets do in their entire lifetimes. A normal year for a SpaceX competitor like ULA is 4-10 launches, although those companies are also aiming to ramp up as Starlink competitors like Kuiper demand more launch volume.
- erikpukinskis 2y ago