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>are funded with tax-payer money This has nothing to do with profitability. DoD/War Dept contracts are "tax payer money" and shareholders are happy to have tho

>are funded with tax-payer money This has nothing to do with profitability. DoD/War Dept contracts are "tax payer money" and shareholders are happy to have those. >it is actually cheaper to run 10 KILOMETERS / 6 Miles of Fiber cable through the jungle Cheaper, sure. But try getting this approved in the US through a County Planning Commission. And you did get NEPA/CEQA done too right? >No, not rural USA. Fiber will be cheaper. My not-that-rural town has fiber only 80% of town. Houses with city sewer/water don't have fiber

Fischgericht 1y ago
All of this is regulatory stuff. Your state has the option of making it expensive and a PITA or not. In my ex home town in Germany we had the exact same thing as you are describing - Fiber available everywhere up to 20 meters away from our house, and no chance to get it connected. For purely regulatory reasons.
- BenjiWiebe 1y ago
  True. And starlink is a way to bypass all your/my local regulatory hurdles. They had to deal with several very large regulatory hurdles, and then they're golden. No dealing with every little town separately.
  - Fischgericht 1y ago
    Not true really. You will hit regulatory hurdles if your rockets explode in other countries too often :) And: RF spectrum is HIGHLY regulated. Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s. Yes, you have read that correctly: 17 Billion for 300 MBit/s.
    - lxgr 1y ago
      So you're telling people to live with bad/no Internet connection now (due to local regulations) because of hypothetical future problems with their viable alternative in the future? Easy advice to give from the outside, especially (presumably) from a place with great fiber options. > Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s. That's L-band spectrum for direct-to-device services, which comes at a heavy premium due to its advantageous physical properties and inherent scarcity (the entire L-band has fewer Hz of spectrum than what Starlink alone is already using in the Ka band). Ka-band spectrum is much, much cheaper. You're comparing the cost of real estate for factory/campus on a green field hours away from everyone with that of a high street storefront.

Fischgericht 1y ago

All of this is regulatory stuff. Your state has the option of making it expensive and a PITA or not. In my ex home town in Germany we had the exact same thing as you are describing - Fiber available everywhere up to 20 meters away from our house, and no chance to get it connected. For purely regulatory reasons.

BenjiWiebe 1y ago
True. And starlink is a way to bypass all your/my local regulatory hurdles. They had to deal with several very large regulatory hurdles, and then they're golden. No dealing with every little town separately.
- Fischgericht 1y ago
  Not true really. You will hit regulatory hurdles if your rockets explode in other countries too often :) And: RF spectrum is HIGHLY regulated. Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s. Yes, you have read that correctly: 17 Billion for 300 MBit/s.
  - lxgr 1y ago
    So you're telling people to live with bad/no Internet connection now (due to local regulations) because of hypothetical future problems with their viable alternative in the future? Easy advice to give from the outside, especially (presumably) from a place with great fiber options. > Also, 4 weeks ago they spent 17 BILLION USD on buying ~30 MHz of spectrum in the 2 Ghz range. 30 MHz translated to a total bandwidth capacity of about 300 MBit/s. That's L-band spectrum for direct-to-device services, which comes at a heavy premium due to its advantageous physical properties and inherent scarcity (the entire L-band has fewer Hz of spectrum than what Starlink alone is already using in the Ka band). Ka-band spectrum is much, much cheaper. You're comparing the cost of real estate for factory/campus on a green field hours away from everyone with that of a high street storefront.