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I just finished a long RV trip and I can tell you it's hard to underestimate the importance of internet access (which also means Wi-Fi calling and access to map
by dtagames 3mo ago
I just finished a long RV trip and I can tell you it's hard to underestimate the importance of internet access (which also means Wi-Fi calling and access to maps and weather) across our entire, enormous nation.
It's important not only for individuals but even more for businesses. Despite cell phone company ads with handsome celebrities in the desert, cell phones actually do not work in many places. But people do need to live and work in those places.
- mplewis 3mo agowe should lay fiber about it, not do this wasteful atmosphere polluting bullshit
- nazcan 3mo agoJust a choice of polluting the ground or the air.
- croes 3mo agoHow often do you need to replace the cable in the ground compared to the satellites in the air?
- fy20 3mo agoI can give an example. My parents live in the UK, and their house was built in 1985. A couple of years ago the copper phone line had to be replaced as it had degraded somebow. The operator had to dig up and reinstall their driveway, brick pathway and garden. Now the operator is installing fibre to replace copper phone lines, so again they need to dig it up. One days work for one house. Multiply that across an entire nation, and work out how much diesel is burned for that. Where they live you can't get cable (not very common in the UK), but if it was available I guess there would have been another digging day in the 90s.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- forgotusername6 3mo agoInstalling subterranean cable is presumably a choice right? Couldn't it be above ground?
- croes 3mo agoIn my area they did a whole street with fibre in one week.
- rebolek 3mo agoIf your trip to desert is worth polluting whole low orbit and high atmosphere is debatable. Same goes for hypothetical business there. Maybe building towers would be a better idea in long term.
- up2isomorphism 3mo agoThis is a very wasteful way of getting communications to somewhat compensate the lack of competition in US telco market.
- refurb 3mo agoIt has nothing to do with competition. You could have as many competitors as possible and no one is going to put a cell tower up in a remote location.
- downrightmike 3mo agoIt has everything to do with the lack of competition. US tax payers paid $4 billion to AT&T in 2004 for fiber to -every- home. And that was never delivered, yet they keep getting more money. This is regulatory capture.
- refurb 3mo agoWe're not talking about fiber, we are talking about cellphone coverage. As I said, no company will put a tower up in a remote area.
- downrightmike 3mo agoYou're dead wrong. AT&T is the largest carrier and they ARE doing it https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/at-t-wins-early-approval-to-end-landline-service-for-184-000-california-households/ar-AA27dTkl https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/at-t-wins-early-appr...
- refurb 3mo agoYour article is about landlines AND they received government approval to end service. We’re talking about remote areas of the US that have almost no local population. Why would a company put a cell tower in the middle of federal land where no one is allowed to live?
- askvictor 3mo agoOnce upon a time, people did long RV trips without internet access. Or even (cellular) phone access.
- jraby3 3mo agoThey did and it used to take a lot of planning, using paper maps, getting lost etc. Just like once people didn't use electricity or vaccines or indoor plumbing. For all its minuses the internet makes these long trips 10x easier.
- defrost 3mo agoHardly, and not by a factor of ten - at best it allows for digital mapping and (unreliably) replaces an ePirb. What it does do, for sure, is encourage people with no proper grounding in multi day off road adventuring to have a go and die through lack of prior experience and skills.
- HaZeust 3mo agoCan you source a citation referring to people that had "no proper grounding in multi day off road adventuring", and were thus "encouraged" to " go and die through lack of prior experience and skills" via Starlink? Whether you like it or not, Starlink being an easily-accesible internet service has likely saved dozens of noobs from certain death by offering emergency eSIM services, GPS navigation, or communciation systems that they wouldn't otherwise have. Can I prove it objectively? Likely not (outside of forum anecdotes), but I wasn't the first to make a claim with the burden to do so.
- defrost 3mo ago> Can you source a citation referring to people that had "no proper grounding in multi day off road adventuring" Sure - West Australian newspaper pretty much any week of the year - tourists come from all over the globe to visit the vast untamed outback, rent a 4x4, head out, and get into life threatening (sometimes life ending) trouble despite having a phone connection via either mobile towers or starlink. You know, no charge, no backup, no paper maps, no experience, etc. Whether you like it or not, ePiRBs being an easily accesible service has actually saved dozens of noobs and experienced personal from certain death by offering emergency service alerting - Fact! (and no internet required) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_radio_beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_position-indicating_...
- croes 3mo agoDo you know what also is important? To know when a asteroid is on its way to us. All that satellites make discovering them more difficult.
- yalok 3mo agoCould star link add some cameras on the back of those satellites and make the detection actually much better?
- weezing 3mo agoGotta be online 24/7 or what?
- dtagames 3mo agoMany, many businesses do, including ones we all like such as power and water and firemen, etc. Th thrust of my comment was about business and public infrastructure as a social good.