I hate everything about this. We’re ruining our astronomical observations and risking Kessler Syndrome so a trillionaire can price gouge rural internet subscribers because he wants to get the high score on net worth because he can’t get a high score on twitter likes (despite owning it) or any video game (despite having paid help). Who the hell told the United States that we have regulatory authority over our shared sky anyway?
Starlink is extremely competitive for rural customers, due in no small part to the USA’s extreme reluctance to make telecoms with monopolies actually reach people.
I’m not sure I would characterize a $1500 access surcharge as “extremely competitive” but I agree we should run fiber to rural areas.
If you’re referring to the dish purchase, they’re free these days. But even so, when your competitor is $200-500 upfront for a latent multi hop WISP topping out at 30 or 50mbps, a solid 300mbps for $130 and $1000 for a dish is cheap
No I mean the $1500 monthly demand surcharge that is the subject of the article you’re commenting under:
SpaceX is now charging some users so-called “demand surcharges” of up to $1,500
TIL about Kessler Syndrome. Thanks.
There’s an anime/manga series kinda about it. They’re a misfit space garbage disposal crew. Meant to prevent space collisions.
If you’re on a fedi service that allows you to follow individual accounts, like mastodon or piefed, you can follow my favorite astronomy professor in the fediverse who talks about this @sundogplanets@mastodon.social
Followed because awesome.
It’s terrifying.
Me too. Also, I’m surprised Bezos doesn’t just do “space debris” cleanup. He’s not going to get into Musk’s space anytime soon.
They aren’t price gouging rural internet subscribers it’s the opposite they get half priced subscriptions for as long as they keep them. It is the people who try to sign up that already live in a congested area that get fuck off prices. You can sign up and get a rural deal and then move to a congested area with fuckoff pricing. That is what I did inadvertently.
Sieze his assets and throw him in prison
In China they probably would execute him.
Thanks for getting me aroused, stranger.
They like him there. His mom is fully set up in China.
Elon Musk Is Charging Starlink Customers Gigantic Bogus Fees Because Its Network Is Being Crushed by [Musk’s] “High Demand” for more money
FTFY
Elon Musk Is Charging Starlink Customers Gigantic Bogus Fees Because Its Network Is Being Crushed by [Musk’s] “High Demand” for more
moneyketamineFTFTFY
Nah hes running out of dupes. Private equity is very, very stupid but theyre catching up
Lol. Lmao, even.
Skimping out on backbone capacity is definitely a Musk move 😂
Yes, there is a high demand for SpaceX to be less insolvent.
Guess this Nazi welfare queen’s government handouts aren’t enough.
So if you’re out on a farm, what’s the best option for Internet? Is 3g an option? (Either unlimited or a very large amount) Any line of sight service good?
Biden’s broadband equity program earmarked over $42MM to expand broadband; past admins were incentivizing telecom to take action, but lo and behold, doge slashed a gutted to move funding toward starlink.
Is there any source of high speed internet? You could look into a community mesh network.
If you’re out on a farm, you fit the intended use case for starlink.
The issue is that all them city folk see starlink as a way of escaping the locked in municipal ISPs. So they clog up satellite bandwidth when they have fibre/5G/HFC/wireless/xDSL options literally at their front door.
What’s the best option after satellite.
Depends on the place. In a lot of countries, the countryside has complete coverage of 3G and 4G. There are also places with at least coax, and even fiber.
In places like the US, companies like Starlink have lobbied so that no cable is installed and no nationwide 3G/4G coverage exists (5G coverage would be near impossible due to the limitations of the technology).
Imho we should be focusing on running cable everywhere instead of trying to maintain a massive network of thousands of satellites in LEO. It’s probably cheaper in the long run, and it doesn’t ruin scientific observations or the ozone layer.
Probably cellular-based internet.
You would be very surprised how many rural areas have barely-working cellular networks that are unreliable and not fast enough for usable data.
Violence against billionaires and trillionaire is not the answer. It is the question. And the answer IS YES.
Even my keyboard has trouble coping with the concept of a trillionaire.
Company gives me a Starlink for deep remote work. I’m doing my part!
Posted 3 days ago with almost 300 comments to this same community
More!
Elon’s mom is also in high demand, but he’s still selling her cheap
Prior to and including IPO they have been on quite a marketing kick. Referral schemes, equipment rentals, discount plans for low usage etc. Seems like they’re trying hard to make the business make sense. I maintain that LEO (and WISP) ISPs should be limited to more extreme applications yet I see them all over the place in residential areas. Their technical achievements are impressive but if phone systems to remote areas were possible, then so should fibre optics.
Also this should be built by international organisations, not billionaires. A plague on Musk and a plague on Bezos.
they were, for months, literally giving the hardware away. no hardware cost. no recurring fees. just 20 bucks for shipping, then the whatever for the actual internet plan itself. a flat $80/mo i think the lowest cost one was. i have a few users on it that bought into that deal. i think it was just before the ipo where they started tacking-on an extra monthly fee.
I’m not in a remote area, just a geographically inconvenient one. Two blocks over they have fiber. Not in my neighborhood. I have been complaining about this for well over a decade.
Ma Bell had several decades to gain good ROI with POTS, while the rate of technology change today shrinks that outlook to just one to two decades. Plus the most profitable high income areas to be installing fiber now often have local laws requiring much more expensive underground installations so residents don’t have to see the ugly poles with wires hanging between them.
We’re still using dot-com fibre. There’s a long ROI.
Which snap a lot more regularly now with the broken weather.
Seems like every other 4x4 has one on the roof, every camper, people even mount them on their motorcycles.
I don’t think that’s really the issue, it’s the streaming that really does them in.
On one hand you have Netflix trying to cram 4k through and the neighbour is trying to have a phone call.
True, I don’t know if they already do it, but limiting media streams to 480p like cell providers do on some plans would probably lower congestion a lot. And maybe limiting large file transfers over a certain size to a lower priority and speed.
High-demand fees are just surge pricing for the internet.
