10 ms·

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber

• CrankyBear 3mo ago
  There are many places, even in the US, where your only alternative is--believe it or not--dial-up modems. Others had painfully slow--1 Mbps up, 5 Mbps down--Internet.
• ThrowawayTestr 3mo ago
  People in rural parts of America where ISPs don't want to expand into.
  • adventured 3mo ago
    They seem to be expanding even across rural America. These days it's fairly common for small and medium size towns to have access to 500mbps-1gbps for $50-$90 per month, and essentially all small cities and above. Reddit is overflowing with threads where people are getting AT&T to give them 1gbps for $30-$35 per month. Comcast has repeatedly offered me 1gbps for ~$50/m for five years locked-in. I have no practical use for it. The US has more broadband than it knows what to do with at this point. Somebody needs to figure out a mass public use for home 1gbps+.
    • jonah 3mo ago
      Fastest option I can get where I am is 260 Mbps for $250 from a local wireless ISP... This makes starlink tempting but for that I'd have to run cabling 50 plus. M to get the this where it has a clear view of the sky... (Edit) A nearby small town is installing municipal fiber right now, which is great, but that's half an hour away.
    • ThrowawayTestr 3mo ago
      Do you think those prices would be available if SpaceX wasn't providing strong competition?
    • AngryData 3mo ago
      It is far from complete but yeah I got co-op 1 gig fiber in my rural 56k only area like 2-3 years ago. Some places nearby still don't have it but expansion is ongoing. Some select areas are starting to offer 2 gig but im unsure what most users would use it for.
    • kube-system 3mo ago
      The word "rural" by definition typically refers to areas outside of a town or city.
• swingandamiss 3mo ago
  I have fiber (I can get up to 300 Gbps at my home in the Seattle area, but I got opted for the 2Gbps) and I have Starlink as backup/failover. I previously used my mobile service for that but learned the hard way that when there's a large internet outage in the area, as it did when we had a bad storm, so does mobile service, either power loss or it can't support the influx of everyone using their phone internet. So now I have starlink as a backup. It's a very small portable unit that I can also take when camping. It's a great service. Also it's powering a lot of airlines now, it's fast and reliable to the point I can watch youtube and tiktok on my flights.
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    That was my thinking as well here in EU farmland. I would use it as a backup. I really wanted to have an excuse to use the cool af Starlink tech. However, after half a decade the fiber has gone down 3 times, and I just shared my iPhone's LTE as a hotspot in 2 cases, and in the third I did yard work for 20 minutes.
  • MostlyStable 3mo ago
    300Gbps? Is that typo? Unless you are connecting to some very particular infrastructure on the other one, nothing you could possibly connect to could use it, and you would need gear that would be somewhat high end even for server grade. (I know you said you didn't select that option, but just the idea that it's even offered to residential units is mind blowing).
    • minitoar 3mo ago
      Usually there is a 300 Mbps - 10 Gbps range of offerings.
    • swingandamiss 3mo ago
      No, not a typo. Ziply has 300 Gbps at my house if I want to pay $900 a month. Instead I pay $65 for 2 Gbps
      • 3mo ago
• varispeed 3mo ago
  It's good to have option in case your own government turns rogue.
  • ravetcofx 3mo ago
    Option being Starlink run by the rouge fascist billionaire who tries to use it to manipulate global wars?
    • Petersipoi 3mo ago
      Even if your outburst was true, yes.. If your government turns rogue it's better to have 2 options than 1. Period.
    • zackgzard 3mo ago
      Better to have two dictators competing than one dictator controlling everything.
• usui 3mo ago
  Recently I flew on a long-distance (so at least a dozen hours of flight time) low-budget airline that had 60 Mbps download/12 Mbps upload and it specifically called out SpaceX Starlink for being able to provide this for free. A video call went smoothly. There was connectivity from takeoff to landing with no interruption in between. This was the best airline experience I've had yet.
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    OK, so for this, Starlink is AMAZING! In-flight Starlink is undeniable. The first time I experienced it, I could not believe what was happening. I messaged my nerd friends with screenshots of https://speed.cloudflare.com/ https://speed.cloudflare.com/ Also, their required zero-friction UX is the shiznit. Then, I fell asleep as I finally had theoretical time off.
  • basisword 3mo ago
    And this is exactly why we don't need internet on planes.
    • ceejayoz 3mo ago
      Yeah, planes are noisy enough without making them into a call center cubicle farm.
      • jen20 3mo ago
        Voice and video calls are both outlawed in the US by the DOT.
        • inemesitaffia 3mo ago
          And the FAA, FCC and as part of the Labour agreement with the Flight staff
  • sixtyj 3mo ago
    I’ve read so many posts from both CEOs and programmers about their higher in-flight productivity thanks to be offline.
• xutopia 3mo ago
  I have a really good friend who used Starlink for his cottage in Canada and as soon as there was broadband he switched away. Starlink was unreliable and slow compared to what he has now. In my country today the people who use it the most are in northern cities that don't even have roads going to them.
  • qup 3mo ago
    I have it, I live in a very rural place. I've had to reset the router 3 or 4 times in two years. I don't suffer outages even in thunderstorms. It may be slow compared to fiber or something, but it's the fastest steam game downloads I've ever had personally (no big city life). But reliability has been almost 100%
  • brianwawok 3mo ago
    Unreliable usually means not a clear signal? May have needed to adjust the install.
  • kortilla 3mo ago
    He probably had it pointed at trees. It was super reliable for me when I worked from a rural location in Maine for a couple of months.
  • m463 3mo ago
    I wonder if that was at the beginning. They've been quietly launching so many satellites over time.
• wmf 3mo ago
  Many places have incompetent government that can't/won't build proper infrastructure. For example, the US has allocated around $50B for rural broadband and almost nothing has been built.
  • s1artibartfast 3mo ago
    1 billion of that rural broadband funds was allocated to SpaceX, but the Biden administration revoked it in 2020. I wonder which has connected more rural Americans
    • wmf 3mo ago
      Obviously Starlink has connected far more Americans than unbuilt rural fiber. Starlink did get $730M in BEAD grants more recently.
    • grahamburger 3mo ago
      I don't think you have that right; BEAD funds were not originally allowed to be awarded for technologies other than Fiber. No one had been awarded in 2020. Many ISPs had been awarded for Fiber projects by 2025, but under this administration, the NTIA changed the rules so LEO could get the funds and rug pulled the original awardees. States had to start the bidding process over under the new rules. SpaceX took home something like a billion dollars at that point (it pays to make large campaign donations, I guess!). Projects should finally get underway later this fall in most states.
      • wmf 3mo ago
        s1artibartfast is correct; Starlink was awarded RDOF money that was later rescinded.
        • grahamburger 3mo ago
          Ah, fair. I read BEAD in another comment and conflated the two.
• therobots927 3mo ago
  24/7 high fidelity radar of the entire earth’s surface. Probably used by NRO’s sentient system and similar classified skynet projects
• rzerowan 3mo ago
  Eeh even ther its a stretch , when people talk about Africa - they should really specify where exactly. PLaces like SouthAfrica [1] already have a robust Fiber network with accelerated buildout of FTTH. Ditto for most of Eastern Africa countries which have FTTH to most of the major cities and subururbs with accelerated buildouts ongoing. Unless its a conflict area most regions are getting wired up pretty fast to enhancce business connectivity - the speeds and bandwith for starlink make noe economic sense once a developing pop are factored in.The only major push for many countries approvals is basically strong armed and shaken down by the US admin on behalf of Musk[2]. [1]https://ctcommunications.co.za/blog/south-africa-fiber-rollout-2026 https://ctcommunications.co.za/blog/south-africa-fiber-rollo... [2]https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/us-pushes-nations-facing-tariffs-184114152.html https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/us-pushes-nations-fa...
  • inemesitaffia 3mo ago
    Still no 100% coverage and export promotion is part of Foreign Affairs work.
• lowkey_ 3mo ago
  Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and, given the government, staying out for quite a while. It's a fair point that those in poorer places will have less money, but for instance, Mexico's Starlink pricing is pretty standard, it's like 50-100 EUR per month. They pay it anyways because they need it, and because it's the best option. Starlink is a great decentralization for anyone living under corrupt dysfunctional governments, where they can't rely on that centralized system.
  • wolvoleo 3mo ago
    Who digs up fibres to sell? It's worthless material. Copper yes but nobody lays that anymore. If it even has to be metal it's usually mostly aluminium.
    • dylan604 3mo ago
      You'd be amazed at how unintelligent about things tweakers are. They don't know it is fibre when they are taking it. It doesn't keep all of the users on the other end of those lines from losing signal.
      • garbagewoman 3mo ago
        What are you basing this view on, sounds like you have personally seen this happen?
        • dylan604 3mo ago
          On multiple occasions I have had my fibre service go down because of this.
    • rjsw 3mo ago
      They dig up the fibre to check that it isn't copper.
• khurs 3mo ago
  > I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things. Starlink has a Military arm called Starshield. If strategically important to US military and other militaries who are partners of the USA, that will be many millions/billions. https://www.spacex.com/starshield https://www.spacex.com/starshield
• jampa 3mo ago
  When COVID hit, I knew a lot of engineers who decided to move to rural areas / small farms because they could leverage Starlink to work remotely. Last year, when I asked whether they still liked Starlink, all of them said it is amazing, but they had gotten fiber coverage in their area from a local provider, so they don't use it anymore, or just use it as a backup. I think Starlink was a huge demand signal that there were people willing to pay a premium for faster-than-radio internet. So, unless they manage to be cheaper and faster than fiber, I don't think there is much of an endgame there. But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation.
  • palmotea 3mo ago
    > But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation. There's also drones and front-line trenches, but your point still stands.
    • luke5441 3mo ago
      And for that reason the EU, India, China and Russia will build their own Starlink alternatives. To offset costs they'll then provide it for civilian use, competing with Starlink in the above areas.
      • ianm218 3mo ago
        India is super super poor still I cannot imagine they would build out domestic Starlink for hypothetical wars before other actual critical infrastructure.
        • luke5441 3mo ago
          Same as Russia, yeah. But Reliance Jio seems to have announced something. Don't know if it'll actually happen.
• ghoul2 3mo ago
  India really has very deep penetration of 5g, and at very low cost. There might be a rare place that starlink might be needed but really I cannot image starlink having much consumer/retail uptake in india. Not needed, and too expensive. There might be commercial users - offshore rigs etc, but india is too densely populated for there to be many 'truly remote' locations. India has still not permitted starlink to start ops.
• vessenes 3mo ago
  You’ve clearly never lived in the US! Big place, not a lot of fiber.
• dfee 3mo ago
  i live a few miles west of core Palo Alto (technically, still in Palo Alto); Starlink is my only real choice for broadband, and it's great.
• Sparkle-san 3mo ago
  I feel like no-earth orbit is always going to beat out low-earth orbit in the long-term. I live an area that the USDA classifies as rural and I now have multiple fiber options, including municipal. This isn't to say that Starlink doesn't have its place and I only see it becoming more niche over time and facing more competition in the LEO segment.
  • deaton 3mo ago
    I live in what is probably the first place to get these things in the world, but it feels like fiber is being built at an extremely rapid pace. Just in the past couple of years it seems like Google and AT&T fiber went from being a relatively confined thing to being available everywhere in the city, and everywhere outside, and at my friend's ranch 100 miles in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere.
    • ipdashc 3mo ago
      Given that fiber's been around for literal decades, though, and the Internet hasn't recently gotten more popular or anything, why would this suddenly have changed? I could believe what people are saying re. Starlink providing competition and finally incentivizing fiber buildouts
      • deaton 3mo ago
        Probably the remote work boom, in part
        • ipdashc 3mo ago
          That'd make sense!
• StuMarkSez 3mo ago
  [flagged]
• small_model 3mo ago
  [flagged]
• gwbas1c 3mo ago
  It's very popular in rural US where running wired broadband is cost prohibitive. There are many parts of the US that are very spread out, and thus running wires to every home is expensive without subsidies.
  • Freedumbs 3mo ago
    Right the areas that companies took money to roll out high speed internet to, then just kept the money and called DSL high speed or just did nothing. The government should keep giving companies money and investing in them. It's brilliant.
  • derektank 3mo ago
    Exactly. Central Europe is one of the most densely populated regions on the planet outside of Asia. High population density makes fiber more economical, and low population density, the inverse. As other la have pointed out, India actually has very deep fiber penetration exactly for this reason. The Americas, by contrast, are largely devoid of people which makes the economics of any networking infrastructure harder
• out_of_protocol 3mo ago
  There's a lot of places without fiber, e.g. all the ships/jets etc. there's a lot of low-density areas, there's islands with no internet or VERY expensive internet
  • kibwen 3mo ago
    Ships and jets are different segments from residential. Planes are definitely a textbook use case for satellite internet, but just like airlines are in a race-to-the-bottom for everything from in-flight snacks to legroom, they're not going to spring for premier high-quality internet service, they're just going to scrape by with the bare minimum. The market potential is not spectacularly impressive. Meanwhile, for residential services, rural areas continue to shrink, the people remaining in rural areas tend to be poorer, and the rural areas where rich people live have fiber, because the rich people can pay for it. Satellite internet will remain a crucial service for certain rural populations, but it's not going to take over the world, and it's not going to justify an order of magnitude more launches. Let's stop beating around the bush: the bull case for both Starlink and SpaceX is that the US military sees them as indispensible military assets, the former for global logistics, and the latter for the rapid weaponization of space.
    • NetMageSCW 3mo ago
      Airlines are already springing for Starlink and can’t charge their customers for it.
      • kibwen 3mo ago
        Costs get passed on to the consumer. You're paying for it in higher ticket prices, which is where the race to the bottom comes in.
• m463 3mo ago
  one difference is that fiber isn't mobile. Though all these satellites might give fixed-location folks higher bandwidth, they could also service many more concurrent mobile customers. Connectivity would probably be better too because more satellites would be in view. Also, don't underestimate the benefit of robust competition, even if you don't use starlink.
  • spwa4 3mo ago
    The price difference for mobile satellite service is rather substantial though.
    • m463 3mo ago
      It might come down with more satellites and more breaking up service into different levels. Imagine a cheap emergency-text-message level of service (like apple has, or maybe the garmin inreach type service). Then a compete-with-cellular cheap version for limited cellular service. Then a car service (premium-connectivity+satellite). then on up to residential broadband. also, with more satellites might come the ability to talk to each other laterally, more load balancing and fewer ground stations. might be drive prices down.
      • spwa4 3mo ago
        More satellites increases the cost, not the reach, and so, not the customer base. I've worked in internet for 20+ years. The problem with "cheap emergency-text-message level of service" is not that it's not possible. It already exists (really Iridium offers that with a tiny modem that plugs into your cell phone). It's like observing that doing internet for your village or neighborhood is pretty easy and cheap, especially with cooperation from city hall, which is often a possibility. It's easy to beat incumbent telcos locally at internet services. The argument incumbents make is that once that happens, the government will be responsible, first for paying for the entirety of telecom infrastructure outside of well-populated areas. Second governments need infrastructure wherever there is a border, or even the tiniest of villages, and getting dsl service in a border post will often mean paying for 100km of cable laying (or at the very least microwave towers). And so governments make these services impossible at any scale through legislation. So either SpaceX pushes these through with "help" from Trump, or this doesn't happen. There is a reason everybody RAN out of the global satellite data business in 2010 (and government bail outs mean that those people are still in business at $0 valuation). Satellite launches do not pay for the income that the market can provide. Then you calculate with Elon's numbers and well, frankly you get the usual outcome with Elon. "Yes, you improved the economics ... but not to the point of profitability, can you do another factor of about 2? No? Sorry then". And, yes, I realize that the problem with that factor of 2 is that it's not physically possible (technically SpaceX could get another 30% or so cost reduction with an RDE engine). That is why SpaceX owns Starlink. It's value is negative (meaning it would be stuck running a loss without access to SpaceX investors)
• tyjen 3mo ago
  There's many isolated communities abroad that benefit from this coverage. Plus, when I begin my solo sailing adventure, I intend to use Starlink as my primary method to maintain contact, of course with traditional methods serving as backup.
  • tasty_freeze 3mo ago
    The sailing-around-the-world (and similar) market is obviously miniscule. The isolated communities probably tend to be on the less affluent part of the world, so it doesn't seem to justify a 100x expansion.
    • NetMageSCW 3mo ago
      How about the sea traffic and jet plane market?
      • halfmatthalfcat 3mo ago
        What about them?
      • Ekaros 3mo ago
        About 36 thousand planes and 105 thousand of 100 tonnes ships (not a lot) or 57 thousand of over 1000 tonnes ships... At what ever unit economic price... That is not exactly massive market globally.
    • lumost 3mo ago
      I think the theory is that they can expand the infrastructure enough that conventional fiber etc. stops being competitive.
      • lokar 3mo ago
        I don’t see how. Maybe someone here can attempt the napkin math. But the satellites have much shorter lifespans than fiber.
• game_the0ry 3mo ago
  Elon is probably setting sup the infra for space data centers.
• mooktakim 3mo ago
  The obvious is the cost of deploying. You don't need to dig to add cable. Full country coverage. Worldwide customers.
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    I agree with that, but it's great for a greenfield project/area. Say, Mars or very high and low latitudes, or ships/airplanes. However, once you are in an area of "civilization," there is not only an opportunity for fiber, but also maybe the locals don't want a foreign power controlling your citizens' data access. India + China = 35% of the global population, and Starlink is not legal in either place. Meanwhile, the free speech absolutist is focused on breaking up the ~5.4% of the globe, (EU) where Starlink is legal.
    • mooktakim 3mo ago
      Yes, but those are different reasons. Eventually we'll have many different providers offering LEO internet. Competition is the best way to solve this. The benefits of LEO internet is obvious.
      • consumer451 3mo ago
        > The benefits of LEO internet is obvious. No, I disagree, maybe. The terrestrial Internet was literally designed to route around a nuclear war. That was its initial purpose, was it not? Starlink needs ground stations, which are visible from orbit, and can be Shaheded... unless every Starlink terminal can also become a down-link.. which would be cool. However, then it all still relies on terrestrial fiber, right? Or, then that would be a Starlink-only WAN? I don't want to call out a specific HN'er, but he is an HN hero. Years ago, in person, he told me he was bored. I tried to convince him to work for Starlink in Redmond, as what could be cooler than working on an entire new satellite laser-based Internet 2 backbone?! This was back when GMaps labeled that office "A Place of Worship." I failed at that, because he probably saw that the entire concept was questionable. My point here is that this is all very complicated, and while Starlink is the coolest tech in my lifetime, it still relies on terrestrial fiber in the end. Please, help me work through this. I am likely very confused.
• dmix 3mo ago
  I have a friend who lives 1.5hrs outside Toronto and needs Starlink because ISPs don’t offer anything useful. Same with a family member with a house even closer to Toronto. These aren’t far off North Ontario rural houses and there’s tons of people living up there.
  • 486sx33 3mo ago
    [dead]
• jordanb 3mo ago
  This was always the sour economics of satellite internet. Satellite internet works for a low density of customers spread evenly across the globe. But customers are not spread evenly they mostly live in megalopolist regions that can be served more efficiently with land infrastructure. Worse most of the people not in the megalopolists have less money to spend on internet services. So your customer base are limited to people who aren't already served by better/cheaper terrestrial internet, but who can pay for better internet. Those people exist but the history of satellite internet service hasn't been a massive money printer. Most providers have struggled to stay solvent let alone produce great returns for shareholders. Paul Allen wanted to build a megaconstellation back in the 1990s but then Iridium went bankrupt twice. Iridium ended up being rescued by the US military. I wonder if this is ultimately SpaceX's plan.
  • JumpinJack_Cash 3mo ago
    Space Bears have been saying this forever.
    • jordanb 3mo ago
      And the satellite internet business has been a dog since forever. Even starlink only makes sense if you ignore the absolutely immense capital investment in it. And they're probably hiding losses in the launch division considering it's losing money despite 80% of its business being launching starlink satellites (they blame starship but that was supposed to be funded by NASA).
      • inemesitaffia 3mo ago
        NASA isn't paying for Starship. They are paying for HLS. You can't (according to old space companies) build a lunar lander and its launch system for under $10B The S1 says they SpaceX is providing launch to Starlink at cost. ~$20MM per Tim Farrar and Lionett Pierre. Two industry analysts.
      • JumpinJack_Cash 3mo ago
        > > And the satellite internet business has been a dog since forever. So is the nuclear reactor business but at least with that you gain independence from Iran whereas the satellite dog business gives you independence from the tyrant T-mobile or Verizon...
• fragmede 3mo ago
  But would that have happened that way if Starlink hadn't come about?
• bastawhiz 3mo ago
  Same. I bought a cabin, which had the equivalent of pretty good DSL. I got starlink and immediately cancelled it when 2gbps fiber arrived 9mo later. Fiber is rolling out faster than a lot of people think.
  • brianwawok 3mo ago
    Would fiber have come so fast without starlink as a threat though
    • maxerickson 3mo ago
      What's the reasoning? That people won't switch away from the more expensive, slower, less reliable service if you get there a bit later? Starlink isn't wildly expensive, nor is it unreliable or slow, but it loses the comparisons.
      • christina97 3mo ago
        When a telco provides poor quality service somewhere, people have no choice but to pay them as price takers. When there are options, telcos have to provide better service to win your business. Telcos with monopolies have always been rent-seekers. It happens time and time again that some newcomer comes up, and just the hint of competition gets Verizon/Spectrum/etc to suddenly build new tech and dig some trenches.
        • blooalien 3mo ago
          ^^^ Exactly this. I live in just such an area (one where Cable and DSL providers successfully bribed local officials to get fiber blocked so the two of them could split the city between them). They're both literally the worst Internet service providers I've ever had, but the only two choices besides insanely expensive celphone service providers.
        • maxerickson 3mo ago
          Spectrum here rolled out fiber when other companies did. I'm pretty sure it is because it is the same subsidized last mile fiber and not because they were inspired by competition.
• steve_adams_86 3mo ago
  Here along the BC Coast, the organization I work for has an expansive sensor network. Weather stations, CTDs, custom equipment in watersheds, research facilities with all kinds of equipment to monitor, and so on. There is no broadband or fiber on remote islands along the coast. We used to use satellite internet, and getting data off of our main hubs (everything is relayed to the hubs by radio) was very slow and precarious. Since starlink it's a breeze. We will finally be able to get video feeds off of some of the stations; a totally untenable concept before.
  • rurp 3mo ago
    Sure, and that's great, but this is an extremely small niche case right? No one is denying that there are some cases where Starlink is amazing, but niche products don't usually command a $1T value.
    • Recurecur 3mo ago
      Starlink is wonderful for many reasons. It allows technical folk to live wherever they’d like as long as they’re working remotely. The mobile applications, particularly in the case of airline aircraft, have also been compelling and worth a lot of money to SpaceX. Starlink has also brought broadband Internet to a vast number of people that would not have had it otherwise. This will boost the worldwide economy by an enormous amount.
      • Alpha3031 3mo ago
        I don't think rurp was saying there is no market, just that there was no obvious realistic TAM worth 1.6 trillion (going by the amount given by the S-1). How many people living remotely in an area with no fibre do you really expect there to be?
        • ElProlactin 3mo ago
          In the future, nobody will have to work (thanks AI!) and we'll all be digital nomads roaming the earth living off of 0DTE option gainz and UBI. /s
• onlypassingthru 3mo ago
  Elon turning off Russian access to Starlink by whitelisting only authorized terminals in the region was a turning point for Ukraine's success. The conflict has proven that modern warfare depends on Starlink and its mimics.
  • rush86999 3mo ago
    China has a huge microwave to destroy any kind of Starlink over its head.
    • sieabahlpark 3mo ago
      [dead]
    • t-writescode 3mo ago
      Citation Needed. The specifics of an implementation of this are objectively absurd. Power requirements alone make this a non-starter. If that weren’t enough, it would be a declaration of war.
      • aidenn0 3mo ago
        Not to mention they are spending an awful lot of money on developing anti-satellite missiles for having a working directed-energy weapon that can do the same. I'm sure they are experimenting with directed-energy ASAT technology though, because why wouldn't they?
  • mighty_plant 3mo ago
    Some day before invading Taiwan China and Russia will try to take them all down: https://archive.is/AMIxX https://archive.is/AMIxX
    • onlypassingthru 3mo ago
      'A new piece of electronic warfare equipment appears more precisely targeted, apparently capable of jamming Starlink terminals on the ground across an area of up to 20 square kilometers.' Here's the result of Russia's efforts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpX5mqeK5PI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpX5mqeK5PI
• SequoiaHope 3mo ago
  Not all of us live in places with EU funding. I worked at a rural farm in California and the EU refused to fund our network infrastructure. We had few reliable options, and Starlink turned out to be the best.
• servo_sausage 3mo ago
  Its also a pricing thing; in Australia our nationalised provider keeps getting more expensive, starlink is now getting cost-competitive.
  • sen 3mo ago
    Stop using Telstra then. There’s an abundance of NBN resellers who sell better packages for cheaper than Telstra. At this point Telstra is just for old people who don’t want to change the services they’ve always been with.
    • servo_sausage 3mo ago
      If you compare 100/40 plans to starlink, starlink is about 10aud more over the best reseller promotion I can see, but has the occasional promotion; and getting cheaper. If you are churning plans anyway, and that's the speed you want, you should have starlink in the mix. I fully expect the NBN wholesale to keep getting more expensive, while I expect satellite providers to get cheaper.
• Baeocystin 3mo ago
  I live in the suburbs in the bay area in California, and starlink offers a significantly better quality of service than charter spectrum cable service, which is my only other option. Considering the current state of our government, I don't see things improving anytime soon.
  • mullingitover 3mo ago
    Crazy, I didn't realize starlink is in the gigabit range for bandwidth? And how are they getting past the speed of light wall on their latency?
    • Baeocystin 3mo ago
      They aren't, at least not yet. It's more a reflection of how bad internet service is in places you wouldn't think it would be, at least here in the states. My as-advertised gigabit cable service slows to an utter crawl around Netflix O'Clock, And multi-hour+ outages are a regular occurrence. Regarding latency, starlink satellites are low enough that it just isn't an issue.
      • mullingitover 3mo ago
        I had a hilarious interaction with a Spectrum technician when I was dealing with an oversubscribed node with my home service (same issue you're describing here). He was a line tech and was fully aware that my slowness wasn't related to the line, and as he replaced all the lines to my house he enthusiastically recommended that I report the company to the FTC and demand a refund for the service degradation which wasn't meeting their advertised speeds. He actually gave me great advice for getting my case escalated and I was refunded for several months on my service. They eventually got the node upgraded (I was once struggling to get 60Mbps down on the same line I'm getting >1G on today), and they're upgrading everything to DOCSIS 4.0 currently. I'm not trying to sell you on them, just saying they'll likely work their problems out in the long run. Fundamentally, coax line connection's floor is Starlink's ceiling as long as the nodes are able to keep up.
• kevinkeller 3mo ago
  > I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things. India is rapidly expanding fiber internet connectivity, even in rural areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Broadband_Network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Broadband_Network In addition, 4G/5G coverage is extensive: https://www.ookla.com/articles/india-mobile-connectivity-1h2025 https://www.ookla.com/articles/india-mobile-connectivity-1h2... See India in this 5G global coverage map: https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-map-2026 https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-map-2026 The number of people who are not covered by above-mentioned fiber/cell network, and can afford Starlink as it is priced now, will be extremely small (likely making Starlink unviable as a profitable business).
  • deadbabe 3mo ago
    Automated cargo ships. Traveling to automated ports.
    • dopa42365 3mo ago
      The 5 wage slaves on current ocean giants aren't even a rounding error on any calculation.
      • deadbabe 3mo ago
        The wage isn’t the problem, it’s the regulations.
        • abeppu 3mo ago
          ... would there really not be regulations on giant unmanned ships? That seems concerning, though I could certainly understand international / maritime law having a gap.
          • FridgeSeal 3mo ago
            I give coastal piracy about 3-weeks to figure out how to commandeer unmanned cargo ships. I bet they’d be ecstatic.
• anukin 3mo ago
  India has one of the fastest and cheapest internet in the world. In fact you can get an extremely fast download atop Himalayan mountains in comparison to remote USA
• givemeethekeys 3mo ago
  In much of the US, internet companies run a racket. While there are often multiple providers to choose from, if you want reliable service at good speeds, you end up with two, or if you're really lucky, three options. One of those options is Starlink.
  • afavour 3mo ago
    In NYC we’re often only wired for one provider. 5G home internet was a big deal in finally opening up that competition.
• xenospn 3mo ago
  You’d be surprised how poor broadband Internet coverage is outside of major metropolitan areas in the United States. Some places are simply off-grid, or have to rely on dial up. All you have to do is drive an hour out and there’s no more Internet.
• kortilla 3mo ago
  You are in a dense population. A large chunk of the world (and many people even in the US) are in low density environments where fiber rollouts are too expensive.
  • blooalien 3mo ago
    > where fiber rollouts are too expensive Or in cities where fiber gets blocked by cable providers bribing corrupt local officials.
• roysting 3mo ago
  You’re not dumb. It has come up in extremely sophisticated valuations of SpaceX pre-IPO, if I recall off the top of my head, the only business that actually had any value, StarLink, assumes an irrational TAM.
• DoesntMatter22 3mo ago
  I live not to far from NYC and I think it’s fantastic. Comcast was charging me 75 a month and Starlink charges me 40 for the same service which is generally excellent
• anonzzzies 3mo ago
  I am also in rural EU and have 1 house that has fiber, and another, 10 minute drive away has nothing, not even cell signal and it won't get anything any time soon. Starlink is basically the only option.
• Salgat 3mo ago
  Starlink is a problem that solves itself. If enough fiber rolls out that there's no more customers, they'll scale back satellites (since they only last 3-5 years).
  • magicalist 3mo ago
    Not if you're a publicly traded company and that's a major part of your revenue.
• sashank_1509 3mo ago
  Surely funding cell towers in Africa / India is cheaper and easier to maintain than 100k satellites in space.
  • wmf 3mo ago
    It's not but it's all so tiresome to explain why. Also, those (hypothetical) towers have no ROI because they only serve poor people. Starlink covers the entire world so parts of the world can subsidize service to other parts.
    • triceratops 3mo ago
      > It's not but it's all so tiresome to explain why I'd really love to hear it. Obviously you aren't obligated to provide an explanation but if someone else does it, I'm all ears. > Also, those towers have no ROI because they only serve poor people So why are they being built at all?
      • wmf 3mo ago
        Towers aren't ever going to be built to cover the most rural areas. That's why Starlink is needed.
        • triceratops 3mo ago
          I understand why it's good and necessary for the rural areas to have Starlink. I don't understand the big profit opportunity for Starlink in serving them.
  • deleted 3mo ago
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• slashdev 3mo ago
  It works on planes, ships, and in remote areas with no coverage. I live in Canada where the whole of Europe would fit many times over, nothing else would work in the remote areas at that scale. My parents live in Panama and use starlink to get reliable high speed internet at the beach. Even when the power goes out, their solar panels keep the internet online.
  • deleted 3mo ago
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• Mikhail_Edoshin 3mo ago
  This is a military tech.
• afavour 3mo ago
  I think that while Starlink is a technical innovation its primary benefit is as a political innovation: it lets you sidestep a lot of politics. Rural communities in the US should have high speed internet, just like efforts were made to give them electricity back in the day. But the layers of politics and dysfunction in the way are deep.
  • dtagames 3mo ago
    If we can get internet from the sky, it's hard to justify digging up the earth with cables for the same thing. I realize Space X "pollutes" space and astronomy is also important, but it's not more important than communications and information for people on earth.
    • m463 3mo ago
      Assuming there are poles (or trenches) for electricity, cable is a modest addition.
      • SoftTalker 3mo ago
        Modern installation is direct bury. There are no trenches, no way to run new cables without new directional drilling. In any already built areas, these projects are constantly hitting gas, water, sewer, cable, electric, and other already buried infrastructure. Maybe (probably) it's still cheaper than launching satellites but it can be quite disruptive.
    • afavour 3mo ago
      I disagree, maintaining a giant fleet of satellites is almost certainly more expensive in the long run than just running a lot of cable. Not that cable doesn’t need maintenance but Starlink needs to replace every satellite every five years. And they can’t recycle a thing, they just burn up. You’re presenting a false choice. It isn’t “Starlink or no internet”, it’s “why not other internet options?”
      • consensus1 3mo ago
• engineer_22 3mo ago
  My parents live in New York State, 8 miles from the main east-west transportation and data corridor. They still have no high speed wired internet options. No fiber, no cable, no DSL, and dialup ISP has been retired long ago. Their only option is satellite. This is in 4th most populous state in the US, and #1 highest GDP/capita. Internet across the United States does not have the penetration many think, the US is vast.
• bogota 3mo ago
  [dead]
• gucci-on-fleek 3mo ago
  In Europe, even rural areas tend to be fairly close to cities, whereas in North America, lots of farms are really remote. This map from NASA [0] should give you an idea of how remote some areas can be. Now, 99% of these areas have electricity from the grid and analogue phone lines, so there's no reason why we couldn't also run fibre out to them, but for political reasons that's fairly unlikely to happen anytime soon. [0]: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/images/imagerecords/79000/79765/dnb_land_ocean_ice.2012.13500x6750.jpg https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/i...
• kylehotchkiss 3mo ago
  India can lay some fiber. The secret is that every time a road gets repaved it gets dug up a week later so easy conduit pathway. (Citation: lived in Gurugram for a few years where I witnessed the same 100ft of sidewalk get rebricked and torn up monthly at least 20 times)
• abroadwin 3mo ago
  I live in an area of the US where the only alternatives are 3.5 megabit DSL which stops working when it rains or Hughesnet, so basically no real competition at all.
• zitterbewegung 3mo ago
  In America for my lifetime I have never been able to get fiber and it’s because America is too large and I live in an affluent suburb.
  • smashed 3mo ago
    Lack of competition is the reason. Not the size of the country. Especially in a suburb.
• rayiner 3mo ago
  Fiber deployment is bottlenecked by Baumol's Cost Disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect. There's basically no productivity gains being made in how quickly skilled laborers can deploy fiber. Like everything else involving skilled labor, the price keeps going up.
• SilverSlash 3mo ago
  One place where fiber cables cannot reach would be... way up in the air. Think about how many people fly each day and then remember how poor internet connectivity and speeds are at 40,000 ft. So Starlink in flights seems like a perfect fit.
• giancarlostoro 3mo ago
  People who live out in rural areas. Think farmers, or just people who love living out on their own lands, common enough in the US. I have a friend who lives off Starlink internet, it would cost way too much to get internet all the way to his property, not really worth it.
• ssl-3 3mo ago
  I have a good friend who relies upon Starlink for connectivity for his home in southeastern Ohio (USA). We've worked through all of the other alternatives there, including using cellular modems with directional antennas mounted up high on a mast pipe and multi-carrier aggregation tricks like Speedify. There is no local WISP serving the area, no fiber, no coax for DOCSIS, and xDSL is either a bad joke, basically basically abandoned, or both in much of the US in 2026. So far, Starlink is the win. (I'm pleased to hear that things are better than that for you in your neck of the woods.)
• jandhdhshhh 3mo ago
  Most people hate Comcast’s and att duopoly so much that’s reason enough to get starlink. I just got it in ca and it works very well
• anakaine 3mo ago
  Australian here. We generally have 1st world internet for most towns. The moment you are outside suburbia, speeds are embarrassingly slow. On my own farm, we dont even have power, or city water, and little to no mobile / cellular reception. We are like hundreds of thousands of other people with rural property here. I suspect the same is true in New Zealand, much of South America, Pacific Islands, Indian Ocean Islands, rural Canada, and often times rural USA.
• quantummagic 3mo ago
  Everyone at sea, uses them now.
• freakynit 3mo ago
  From India here: With their current pricing, they can't compete with local vendors. These local vendors charge like $10/month for 100-200mbps (vendor/bundle dependent) speeds, with no data-capping. For just $5 extra, they also bundle 20+ OTT channels, including netflix and prime video (HD only). And yes, fiber connections are everywhere here for past 5 years... and I'm from a very small town here.
• olcarl75 3mo ago
  Family lives in Rio/Brazil. With the efforts from our government every year that passes, public safety becomes worse and suburban areas get more marginalized, it got to a point where the drug traffickers from my area start cutting the fibers and leaving letters on mailboxes saying that from now on, anyone who wanted internet had to get their illegal internet. Which meant shitty speeds and if you have a problem with billing/service you cannot complain to anyone. Their service would go down for days and there is nothing you can do besides rely on shitty 4G. When Starlink became available in Brazil this was the lifesaver for my family
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    That is freaking amazing. I want to be clear that reusable first stage of Falcon 9 + Starlink is the coolest tech that I have ever seen. It was just that for me, the financials didn't work out.
  • HWR_14 3mo ago
    So the drug traffickers that cut the fiber have no problem with your Starlink dish outside your home, and don't break it and/or threaten you? If they care, that seems like an oversight they will soon correct once enough people start using it.
    • blkhawk 3mo ago
      They clearly don't want to threaten all the people directly for protection money. That limits what they are willing to do for the scheme. So they cut the cable at places where people are not. This is both efficient in employee time as well as in risk. Starlink antennas can be installed on roofs or in places that aren't easily visible. Also you could install it in things that don't look like it since it only needs an mostly unobstructed view in a cone to the sky. For example I could se an installation in a fake rain barrel, old bathtub inside a stack of firewood. some cloth coverings also would work so it doesn't have to be open either. The only way to find the actual installations would be survey flights that take pictures and compare the data. Then send out inspectors to see if changes on buildings hide starlink antennas. I think the only effect will be that the scheme will go away. Alternatively they could just improve their service so it competes on performance and price with starlink.
• jorisboris 3mo ago
  Maybe it’s about the power to control the internet (and what is does and doesn’t serve) worldwide.
• yieldcrv 3mo ago
  the next generation of satellites base stations that are currently going up remove the need for base stations you’ll have similar throughout and latency direct to your phone but since this dream has been mired by delays, the starlink base station is still convenient lots of people that would otherwise be stationary for reliable internet can go on the road week long festival campsites have lots of people who aren’t taking any PTO that connect to their teams during the day time, while everyone else has nonexistent cellular service solely due to the overloaded networks I would wager that most don’t unsubscribe to starlink in between time they just increase their mobility since its suddenly practical speaking of PTO, if they are accumulating it but now travelling and never using it then its functionally a raise, all because they keep a starlink subscription bigger satellites will bring that to everyone
• biztos 3mo ago
  Here in rural USA, we were paying $150 for very slow DSL, and now we're paying about $50 for quite fast Starlink. In Asia I was paying $50 for very fast fiber, but that was in a major city; out at the farm you're on the mobile networks. So if I build a house out there and can do Starlink, I will do it. Plus, there's the whole Starlink Roam thing: in California this summer, I see more and more vans with the little Starlink rectangle on top. "Work from Campsite" is pretty compelling, honestly.
• piloto_ciego 3mo ago
  Here in Alaska it’s literally better than the cable internet (except apparently for gaming but I don’t really game), and $10/mo cheaper for a starlink roam. At where we are building our cabin, it’s infinitely cheaper than the alternatives lol.
• me551ah 3mo ago
  I don’t know why India is mentioned here. I live in India and have used 1Gbps Fiber since almost 10 years and pay only 40$ for it. Internet access in India is quite cheap and fiber is quite easily available
• crossroadsguy 3mo ago
  I'd agree with the last part of your comment. Because at least India doesn't depend upon Starlink for broadband access. Even in remote regions, now that it has seen first hand what modern economic and tech blockade means (after struggling for decades with older sanctions including related to nuclear tests and thank goodness it did that), it really isn't very keen on Starlink and wants home-grown alternatives (which definitely will take time) and also is now indicating to multiple players that they are welcome (but within limits and regulations). Musk isn't pushing Starlink for "upside" for the people or your "central EU", or Africa, or India, or the moon (let's just assume for the time being), Musk is hoping to saturate the market and remain the only player or only major player, and Musk wants that perceived dependency as a weapon, as a tool of control. I won't be shocked if Musk later lobbies for "ah, too many satellites up there already.. it'd be dangerous to send more… ". In fact I am counting on that. > where they have <.1% the money That's another part where, again, I'd agree with the last part of your comment. That country has so many people that just from one region if enough rich people (and sadly with the great divide there are way too many), if they need it, it will outspend too many countries from Europe single-handedly when it comes to Starlink or satellite Internet access. Having said that, these things are not this black and white… but I've tried at least one part, or rather a fraction of one part I'd say. Satellite Internet is one of the best things I'd say but I'd bet my spare kidney that not in the hands of Musk and Musk is trying hard that he/Starlink becomes the almost single player, first mover etc etc.
• wyager 3mo ago
  > EU funding brought fiber to my farm area Yes, boondoggle subsidies allow you to un-economically bring fiber to a subset of random places. I say this as the beneficiary of one such boondoggle. It doesn't scale well
• plantain 3mo ago
  Subsidies make anything possible. Your grandkids will be paying for that fibre. Starlink is revolutionary for long last-mile links that will never be economic.
• consensus1 3mo ago
  I suspect what is going on is just a matter of relative density. I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "central EU," but just guessing from a map I get Romania as the least population dense country that I would think of as Central Europe at 83 / km3. That is more than double the US pop density and if it were a US state only 15 out of 50 would be more dense. So then taking the least population dense region of the least dense country I get Tulcea with 23 / km3. That's 66% of the density of the US (37) which would come in at 34 / 50 if it were a US state. So the most sparsely populated region of the most sparsely populated country in Central Europe is just a bit below average for the US. Our least dense state is Alaska at 0.5 / km3 or almost 50x less dense than that. But that's almost cheating. So lets take mainland only and that's Wyoming, with 2.3, so 10x less densely populated than the outlier in Central Europe. So basically the US is just really damn empty to the point there just isn't any comparison in Central Europe and that's why it's so hard to get internet access out there.
• dyauspitr 3mo ago
  India? It has the world’s cheapest data rates and nearly 90% of the population have 5G coverage. They don’t need this.
• miyuru 3mo ago
  I am from Sri Lanka, which is a large island. We have a smaller number of ISPs due to the cost of submarine cables, and ISP prices were high due to profit-seeking. After Starlink came, the incumbent ISPs started to offer unlimited packages for the first time. Also, Starlink is good as a backup connection for rural areas too.
• drysine 3mo ago
  > the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India Which together have four times more people than the EU. Needs of the many outweigh, you know
• hiAndrewQuinn 3mo ago
  It's closer to only 10% the money to spend on such things, and that gap is closing rapidly. The poorest African countries these days still have a GDP in the low thousands per capita, and poorish central Europe trends to have low tens of thousands per capita. I could see 5 families in rural west Africa or something deciding to pool their funds to get one shared Starlink connection if they didn't have cheaper internet available some other way. Moreover the utility of internet connection faces an extreme amount of diminishing returns - hear me out on this. You can very easily download an entire plaintext book on a subject you need to study up on in a few seconds with even a 100 Kbps connection, from any where and for any reason, and that's immensely valuable if previously you didn't have access to it before. You can't stream YouTube on it, but a YouTube instructional victory makes whatever you're doing merely easier, not possible. WhatsApp and text messages, as well. It's very cheap to send a couple bytes back and forth to coordinate eg local market prices in fish, and so if you and a couple buddies team up to get one starlink connection you can very quickly tear the volatility of your local first market prices to shreds. I'm extrapolating from an earlier study that found just such an effect after cell phones were introduced to rural areas. I guess my overall point is don't rule out the transformative effects that a few very reliable low bandwidth connections can have on an area. If the Romans discovered AM radio (possible given their late tech) we'd probably all still be speaking Latin, even though they couldn't play Fortnite.
• wodenokoto 3mo ago
  Outside of war, ships and planes, I agree with you, that their benefit doesn’t seem like all that. But then again, I never thought WiFi would take over wired network cables, but now even my desktop is connected with WiFi. I also didn’t think cellular would be a replacement for copper or fiber, but now my modem for the apartment is 5G. Both ended up being good enough, easier and cheaper (!)
• dartharva 3mo ago
  India? LOL, India has internet connectivity of scale the kind most other countries couldn't dream of. Though most of it, sadly, is IPV4 and concentrated in oligopolies (which for now are still "generous" enough to give us 5G for cheap).
• rahimnathwani 3mo ago
  How much did EU taxpayers spend to make that possible?
  • mrtksn 3mo ago
    Very little, EU budget is minuscule - something like 500 euros per person per year.
    • rahimnathwani 3mo ago
      The annual per capita EU budget doesn't tell us how much was spent to bring fiber to that particular rural area.
      • mrtksn 3mo ago
        It’s definitely less than 500 pp even if they spent all of it on this.
• petterroea 3mo ago
  Starlink has its uses, but I really don't understand those who get starlink while living in built-up areas. Starlink is just a re-skin of the "Wireless optic" thing a lot of ISPs are pushing because they would prefer not having to lay cables and instead have everyone use 5g routers. Of course, the service isn't comparable, but regular people don't necessarily know it. Fiberoptic is still king, and probably will be for a long time. There's nothing comparable to direct fiberoptic cable, and anyone who says otherwise immediately outs themselves as being a sellout or having anti-consumer motives. In 100 years it may be different, but I'm probably not going to be around in 100 years, so...
  • holoduke 3mo ago
    For war it is. Drones and other unmanned aircraft are the future of warfare. That's the whole reason why every country now heavily invests in low orbit sats. It's not about consumers. Also not for spacex. Defence contracts are zillion times more worth. Once you are in you reach the end level as a business.
    • GCUMstlyHarmls 3mo ago
      Didn't we just see that wired drones are the current peak over wireless, and Russia is at this moment jamming satellite drone control...
      • petterroea 3mo ago
        You are right about drones, but Starlink etc is still used a lot by forward deployments of troops. Afaik it has revolutionised the ability to contact these deployments. But I'm not an army guy
      • nradov 3mo ago
        Russia has attempted to jam Starlink satellites but with very limited success. The problem for Russia is that the constellation is enormous and uses highly directional phased-array radios which are naturally resistant to jamming. They can temporarily jam a few birds over a limited area but don't have the resources to effect sustained denial. We might eventually see them escalate to kinetic strikes on the satellites.
• jofzar 3mo ago
  I have a friend who does not live that remote in Australia and his choice is either "satellite" internet or starlink. It's not even a choice because "skymuster" (the satellite option) can't even be considered internet. I remember him taking about getting 7 seconds of latency at one point. It's actually impressive how terrible it is.
• skor 3mo ago
  seems like starlink is useful for armed conflicts
• Leynos 3mo ago
  From a purely utilitarian standpoint, direct to cell feels like a good thing to me. Large swathes of Scotland don't even have sufficient mobile connection to send a text message (some people will tell you that's a good thing, but I'm not one of them).
• onion2k 3mo ago
  Fibre is better if you have a static point on land like a farm. It works less well if you're in a moving vehicle or if you're at sea.
• pcpuser 3mo ago
  I live in a major Indian city and 1 gig fiber up and down is $30. We've also got really good 4G/5G in most places. Also in the super remote areas WiMAX is (still) an option.
• kakwa_ 3mo ago
  Well, it has proven itself to be a very useful military asset in Ukraine. The rural & underdeveloped area and the niche applications (ex: ships and planes) will bring-in some cash. And in addition, the US Army will pretty much guaranty it to be in the green: it wants this capability plus some control over it. If it was civilian only, I doubt the economics would make much sense, specially given the amount of satellites and their short lifespan combined with the overall shrinking market (rural flight to cities + fiber deployment on land).
• flanked-evergl 3mo ago
  I live in Norway. Starlink is cheaper than FTTH by a country mile. At the very least it's going to force down prices for fiber providers. Also just because FTTH exists does not mean it's reliable.
• yxhuvud 3mo ago
  I suppose one real upside is that in very regulated areas with only one operator this gives them some baseline regarding service that they actually need to beat.
• mFixman 3mo ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if the EU and ISPs are funding fibre to remote locations _because_ of Starlink competition. Taxis and minicabs all over the world were unreliable, expensive, and unsafe before Uber came along with some healthy competition. The same dynamic is happening here between Starlink and rural fibre.
• heyheyhouhou 3mo ago
  Starlink is a military project, but they dont say that in public.
• nikvee 3mo ago
  How much did it cost to have fiber ran to your house from the road?
• matwood 3mo ago
  > I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India You just said it yourself: > Then, only months later, but after years of planning: Starlink is no replacement for fiber, but even all across the EU and the US there are many places without fiber access.
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    But, are there enough? Generally, people live in high-density areas :)
• Cthulhu_ 3mo ago
  There's a market for it, think internet on vacation, on ships, trains, planes, and underdeveloped / remote areas (some of which skipped wired internet entirely and just have 3/4/5G). But you're also showing a lot of bias and ignorance towards Africa and India and their financial means.
  • consumer451 3mo ago
    > But you're also showing a lot of bias and ignorance towards Africa and India and their financial means. OMG. I just finally scrolled through all of these replies, and yes! I was extremely dismissive about their financial means by at least one order of magnitude. Solid catch, and I genuinely apologize for my stupidity.
• TheSkyHasEyes 3mo ago
  > I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India Many in Canada have no broadband options. My gf has this because otherwise, no internet access. Even cellphone reception is spotty where she is in rural Canada.
• rr808 3mo ago
  I think in most markets the advantage SpaceX has is it isn't paying huge fees for Spectrum, the frequencies it owns were very cheap. Eg in the USA I think the providers spent nearly $100 Billion on spectrum where SpaceX can compete without that cost.
• ktosobcy 3mo ago
  It's less about India and more about Usanai where urban sprawl is all the rage which makes wiring it impossible… and capitalist-driven-development doesn't help.