they’re faster in certain circumstances than even a direct fibre afaik (light in a vacuum travels faster than through air so at a certain point you overtake the fibre)
those places are so remote that we have signs when you enter some of the roads advising that you should not continue alone, that you should have backup fuel, water, and communication… because if you get stuck out there you ain’t gettin phone coverage for probably days on foot!
similar is probably true for many arctic regions
it also happens that by the merits of rich counties paying for most of starlink, developing countries suddenly get access to relatively cheap, fast internet in remote areas - something they’d struggle to provide on their own, given that even electricity can be problematic (and electricity you can fix locally with solar, etc but internet by its very nature requires some kind of backhaul)
In the long term, its financially unsustainable, and when Starlink fails, which it definitely will, those countries will be stuck with a ton of useless dishes instead of like, cell towers or other reliable infrastructure.
Reliable satellite internet alternatives already exist and are far less wasteful. Like, 3 satellites instead of thousands, with better throughput. Starlink is a bad idea all round.
they’re faster in certain circumstances than even a direct fibre afaik (light in a vacuum travels faster than through air so at a certain point you overtake the fibre)
but also, i’m not sure it counts as “avoiding building infrastructure” when it includes things like the australian outback: https://benandmichelle.com/mobile-internet-australia
those places are so remote that we have signs when you enter some of the roads advising that you should not continue alone, that you should have backup fuel, water, and communication… because if you get stuck out there you ain’t gettin phone coverage for probably days on foot!
similar is probably true for many arctic regions
it also happens that by the merits of rich counties paying for most of starlink, developing countries suddenly get access to relatively cheap, fast internet in remote areas - something they’d struggle to provide on their own, given that even electricity can be problematic (and electricity you can fix locally with solar, etc but internet by its very nature requires some kind of backhaul)
Yeah, but we could also just build infrastructure instead.
Also, the dangers of justifying a system by pointing at the outliers. I’m sure there’s a name for that
In the long term, its financially unsustainable, and when Starlink fails, which it definitely will, those countries will be stuck with a ton of useless dishes instead of like, cell towers or other reliable infrastructure.
Reliable satellite internet alternatives already exist and are far less wasteful. Like, 3 satellites instead of thousands, with better throughput. Starlink is a bad idea all round.