I live in rural America. The story is quite similar here. My options were (a) cellular hotspot, which is slow and expensive, or (b) satellite internet, which is also slow and expensive. Despite government programs, there are no cable/fiber/DSL options in my area. Starlink fills the gap nicely; it's not blazingly fast, but pretty much meets FCC broadband definitions for $55/mo.
It’s also surprisingly reliable given the physics of it all. I built a house out in the country in 2007 and 10Mbps DSL was all that was available for terrestrial connectivity up until literally yesterday.
The DSL would go down for hours a couple of times per month. I got on an early starlink pilot program and had a dish up in early 2021. Aside from momentary blips on the leading edge of a stormfront and occasional network issues a couple of times per year, it’s been rock solid with half the latency and 20x the bandwidth.
My parents in rural America had a local ISP that did long distance wireless (highly directional antenna mounted on the house pointed at the top of the grain elevator a few miles away) but it was an unreliable 20 Mbps because the ISP wasn't interested in upgrading their equipment.
Isn’t this a similar argument to how Africa adopted mobile phones significantly faster than other regions? When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations. Especially if there’s no infrastructure needed to install.
As others mentioned, It’s a very similar situation for rural America. My dad lives in a rural setting, and for years could only get slow geostationary satellite Internet. As soon as he got Starlink, his connectivity improved dramatically. Only now that there was an established market for rural internet users in his area, are cable and fiber lines starting to get run.
Africa is mostly on 4G networks, and while 3G isn't a majority of the connections, it's still the next biggest share of infrastructure, far ahead of 5G which is relatively scarce.
This is in the context of a population that really depends on mobile wireless for market information if they are farmers, and for payments. Having a mobile phone can take priority over having a flush toilet.
Starlink has both opportunities and challenges: 5G is faster and cheaper and more reliable. But mobile wireless revenue is low, so capex is low too. Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it.
> Isn’t this a similar argument to how Africa adopted mobile phones significantly faster than other regions?
You didn't read the article:
>Africa’s internet infrastructure is not fit for purpose. During a communications boom in the early 2000s, the continent eschewed fixed-line internet for cheaper mobile broadband; today more than 400m Africans, the bulk of the continent’s users, gain access to the internet this way.
>But the technology has not kept pace with the rapid increase in data demand from streaming and AI-powered applications.
I'm in the desert in utah right now, i drove two hours offroad from a small town, turned on starlink, and got faster internet than my office in NYC. Incredible. I can run the whole starlink off a small battery pack ($100), dont even need the car on.
I can bring it on long hikes, and be sure ill have internet access if i need it. completely changes the risk profile of remote outdoors activity
I’m not sure regular internet access is changing the risk like you say, but I agree that people like connectivity and hence will do more risky things because they think it’s safer.
This seems like a crazy position to me. In what world is someone with connectivity not significantly safer in remote areas? Obviously doesn't help with immediately fatal scenarios (falls, drowning etc), but there are whole classes of getting-lost or losing-mobility disasters that just don't exist anymore with connectivity.
I am not sure how to write this without it sounding like an ad for Starlink. It definitely isn't. Just trying to add an anecdote to the conversation. I live in Canada and there are a small number of people that I know that have given up faster, cheaper internet from Telus/cable/etc for Starlink. I think what it comes down to is people are tried of the two year contracts and having to negotiate a better rate and never being able to get the same deal as a new customer. Loyalty is punished.
> Starlink ... is much pricier than mobile internet, and often costs more than even fibre broadband. The service ... halted new subscriptions for seven months to maintain connection quality. ... [T]he weather can mess up the signal: "You need a backup in those heavy months of rain."
There are really no shortcuts to the immense goal of covering the African continent with reliable internet.
I mean, it's not a shortcut to send tens of thousands of satellites into space instead of running copper wires across vast stretches of desert where they're going to get stolen, but it has certain advantages.
You mean to say there are no shortcuts to improving lives of poor people without actually improving their lives. Only yesterday, there was video of people stealing concrete mix from road construction sites in India for their own homes.
EDIT: In order to improve their lives, they need internet, but they also need everything else. Not providing everything in lockstep fails hugely. (And this includes providing good governance and non-corrupt leader, a problem we have no idea how to solve.)
I've spent a little time in Northern Iraq and war torn Northeast Syria (Kurdish areas). You can, and I have seen people leave thousands of USD in the street and no one will touch it. That's a ~year wages in the area. Crime exists but you can hand almost anyone a year's wages worth of stuff and be sure they won't steal it, even if they badly need it.
You can call it religion, you can call it culture, you can call it fear of choppy choppy of the hand, or maybe the fact everyone and their brother has a full auto AK, but there's something on a whole other level happening with poor (and also rich thieves) people in much of Africa.
Thieves are not educated enough to understand the difference and will steal the fiber and try to sell it (with no success) and in the anger, destroy huge swathes of the remaining fibre.
No. By that logic, PVC pipes wouldn't be safe from thieves, because thieves wouldn't be able to understand the difference from copper pipes. Anyone who's ever touched a fiber cable before immediately understands the difference from a copper cable, and if thieves can't get paid, they're not going to waste their time stealing it.
Starlink is a massive national security risk, and that is one of the primary reasons it has not been allowed in South Africa.
It's also why Starlink has pushed so aggressively to establish itself in South Africa, going as far as to hold private meetings with the Democratic Alliance and even spamming their customers with emails urging them to put pressure on the government.
tldr; Starlink doesn't work in South Africa, Elon's home country, because the ANC and its lawfare arm ICASA demands they hand over 30% to the State because of BEE laws.
The DSL would go down for hours a couple of times per month. I got on an early starlink pilot program and had a dish up in early 2021. Aside from momentary blips on the leading edge of a stormfront and occasional network issues a couple of times per year, it’s been rock solid with half the latency and 20x the bandwidth.
The difference in latency is massive. 3ms vs 220ms roundtrip time at the speed of light.
So, needless to say, starlink has been amazing.
https://starlink.com/service-plans
As others mentioned, It’s a very similar situation for rural America. My dad lives in a rural setting, and for years could only get slow geostationary satellite Internet. As soon as he got Starlink, his connectivity improved dramatically. Only now that there was an established market for rural internet users in his area, are cable and fiber lines starting to get run.
This is in the context of a population that really depends on mobile wireless for market information if they are farmers, and for payments. Having a mobile phone can take priority over having a flush toilet.
Starlink has both opportunities and challenges: 5G is faster and cheaper and more reliable. But mobile wireless revenue is low, so capex is low too. Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it.
Satellite internet is not a “generation above” fibre internet
You didn't read the article:
>Africa’s internet infrastructure is not fit for purpose. During a communications boom in the early 2000s, the continent eschewed fixed-line internet for cheaper mobile broadband; today more than 400m Africans, the bulk of the continent’s users, gain access to the internet this way.
>But the technology has not kept pace with the rapid increase in data demand from streaming and AI-powered applications.
I can bring it on long hikes, and be sure ill have internet access if i need it. completely changes the risk profile of remote outdoors activity
Rescues even with EPIRB’s can still be difficult.
There are really no shortcuts to the immense goal of covering the African continent with reliable internet.
EDIT: In order to improve their lives, they need internet, but they also need everything else. Not providing everything in lockstep fails hugely. (And this includes providing good governance and non-corrupt leader, a problem we have no idea how to solve.)
You can call it religion, you can call it culture, you can call it fear of choppy choppy of the hand, or maybe the fact everyone and their brother has a full auto AK, but there's something on a whole other level happening with poor (and also rich thieves) people in much of Africa.
It's also why Starlink has pushed so aggressively to establish itself in South Africa, going as far as to hold private meetings with the Democratic Alliance and even spamming their customers with emails urging them to put pressure on the government.
tldr; Starlink doesn't work in South Africa, Elon's home country, because the ANC and its lawfare arm ICASA demands they hand over 30% to the State because of BEE laws.