Thank you so much ! /s
Come and join me where the options are many and the price is so cheap. /s /s
If you’d like to experience what it’s like to access the internet sans Starlink, perhaps you could just throttle your modem to 8 or even 10 Mbps. Yes? No? Then consider how lucky you are, and have some empathy for those of us who have little or no alternative.
Your options are limited not by random angry dude on the Internet, but by deliberate and calculated lack of development conspired between legislators and telecoms. Starlink will hit the limits imposed by physics and geometry, and then will get worse and worse the more people sign up.
The limited bandwidth of practical microwaves shared by everyone in the footprint of a satellite, which is thousands of square kilometres. More satellites help, but since it hears the signals from every person on earth in its footprint, even if that person is connecting to a different satellite, there are limited gains when you reach the point where they have a lot of overlap - literally limited by geometry. Compare that with fiber, which allows for virtually unlimited unshared service bandwidth that can get faster as it’s built out and becomes more popular.
Beam steering largely mitigates most of these problems. Fiber is definitely more scalable, but also far more expensive (somehow…) to provide last mile to the entire planet.
From orbit, whole regions are within a few degrees arc from the perspective of orbit. It’s not enough to overcome what is fundamentally a business hype problem. Starlink is wonderful tech for remote outposts, boats, disaster areas, emergency service workers, and things like that, but those customers would never pay enough to be profitable, so they have marketed it as general purpose internet, so it will get slower the more people sign up.
“I know millions of people use their service because it’s the only real option they have, but because it’s associated with this one guy I don’t like, they can all eat a dick!”
Thank you so much ! /s Come and join me where the options are many and the price is so cheap. /s /s
If you’d like to experience what it’s like to access the internet sans Starlink, perhaps you could just throttle your modem to 8 or even 10 Mbps. Yes? No? Then consider how lucky you are, and have some empathy for those of us who have little or no alternative.
push and advocate for municipal and community owned broadband
Your options are limited not by random angry dude on the Internet, but by deliberate and calculated lack of development conspired between legislators and telecoms. Starlink will hit the limits imposed by physics and geometry, and then will get worse and worse the more people sign up.
You seem to know a lot about these limits, can you elaborate?
I don’t think there are actual physics limitations on network capacity right now
The limited bandwidth of practical microwaves shared by everyone in the footprint of a satellite, which is thousands of square kilometres. More satellites help, but since it hears the signals from every person on earth in its footprint, even if that person is connecting to a different satellite, there are limited gains when you reach the point where they have a lot of overlap - literally limited by geometry. Compare that with fiber, which allows for virtually unlimited unshared service bandwidth that can get faster as it’s built out and becomes more popular.
Beam steering largely mitigates most of these problems. Fiber is definitely more scalable, but also far more expensive (somehow…) to provide last mile to the entire planet.
From orbit, whole regions are within a few degrees arc from the perspective of orbit. It’s not enough to overcome what is fundamentally a business hype problem. Starlink is wonderful tech for remote outposts, boats, disaster areas, emergency service workers, and things like that, but those customers would never pay enough to be profitable, so they have marketed it as general purpose internet, so it will get slower the more people sign up.
“I know millions of people use their service because it’s the only real option they have, but because it’s associated with this one guy I don’t like, they can all eat a dick!”
*one guy who is ruining the planet and purposely pushing laws that eradicate queer and trans people
Them: “We need a strong central government to protect everyone!”
Me: “Don’t do that! If bad people get control there’s gonna be trouble!”
Them: “You just hate people!” votes for strong government
Them when that strong government is then taken over by bad people: 😯