I looked into Starlink years ago when I was RVing. It came out to over $600 up front in equipment costs, THEN $240 a month or w/e. And it’s not like Elon wasn’t a piece of shit back then, either. $50 a month for T-Mobile “5G at home” with no upfront or hidden costs did the trick nicely and bridged the gap until I found a place with cheap fiber. Now I have 2.5Gbps up and down and it’s still less than half the price of Starlink before this price hike.
Starlink makes sense for the scenario it was designed fill the gap for. A lack of any other terrestrial options.
Legacy satellite has always been terrible, but the only option in many rural areas, and obviously the middle of nowhere. Starlink is an insanely reliable and decent deal in most of those circumstances. That’s it’s bread and butter.
But if you have literally any other option, it’s usually not the best choice, it’s not meant to be the best choice, it’s intended for use where it’s likely the only choice.
One of my brothers is in Alaska right now. It’s wild to me that he even gets internet where he’s at. Where he’s at they don’t even have mailboxes just PO Boxes.
Like it or not, it’s the only option for high speed internet for large swaths of the world. ViaSat is the only competitor and they’re even worse: slower, unusably high latency and ridiculously low data caps.
I cant speak for other countries, but in the US, we are spending hundreds of dollars a month per household in these areas to the richest man in the world for shitty internet service instead of EITHER holding ISPs to the contracts they agreed to when municipalities gave then the right to build without competition from public services for which they were meant to supply high speed wired services to everyone, OR throw those contracts away and build reliable and profitable public services anyway and fuck the useless ISPs over. Instead we are just inviting in another ISP to fill the gap, this one also a racist fascist who is littering space with unregulated junk.
Yeah there are always exceptions of course. I’ve seen some in that position able to get away with direct line-of-sight connections for a reasonable rate, but it depends heavily on the layout of the surrounding mountains and location of the service provider plus you have to shell out for an antennae or dish. For any wondering, that’s almost always cheaper than the Starlink sign up costs.
Then again, if internet is important to someone, gotta consider if mountain-side living is the right choice to begin with. I’m sure your acquaintance has his reasons though!
The former $240/mo was not outrageous to begin with?…
These Elon fanboys just love getting scammed by him. I can almost hear the little pay piggies squealing now.
I looked into Starlink years ago when I was RVing. It came out to over $600 up front in equipment costs, THEN $240 a month or w/e. And it’s not like Elon wasn’t a piece of shit back then, either. $50 a month for T-Mobile “5G at home” with no upfront or hidden costs did the trick nicely and bridged the gap until I found a place with cheap fiber. Now I have 2.5Gbps up and down and it’s still less than half the price of Starlink before this price hike.
It’s worth it.
If you’re in the middle of the Pacific often.
I’ve heard it also works well to put pressure on rural Alaskan GCI (the scam that is 0.25¢/GB).
Yeah, but the 5000 people that applies to can’t afford the entire network.
Starlink makes sense for the scenario it was designed fill the gap for. A lack of any other terrestrial options.
Legacy satellite has always been terrible, but the only option in many rural areas, and obviously the middle of nowhere. Starlink is an insanely reliable and decent deal in most of those circumstances. That’s it’s bread and butter.
But if you have literally any other option, it’s usually not the best choice, it’s not meant to be the best choice, it’s intended for use where it’s likely the only choice.
One of my brothers is in Alaska right now. It’s wild to me that he even gets internet where he’s at. Where he’s at they don’t even have mailboxes just PO Boxes.
He is sharing 1TB a month among ~60 people tho
Like it or not, it’s the only option for high speed internet for large swaths of the world. ViaSat is the only competitor and they’re even worse: slower, unusably high latency and ridiculously low data caps.
I cant speak for other countries, but in the US, we are spending hundreds of dollars a month per household in these areas to the richest man in the world for shitty internet service instead of EITHER holding ISPs to the contracts they agreed to when municipalities gave then the right to build without competition from public services for which they were meant to supply high speed wired services to everyone, OR throw those contracts away and build reliable and profitable public services anyway and fuck the useless ISPs over. Instead we are just inviting in another ISP to fill the gap, this one also a racist fascist who is littering space with unregulated junk.
But for those large parts of the world, 240 USD per month is even more ridiculous
I haven’t looked at the FCC map but I bet Starlink takes Last Mile credit for everywhere.
So every tax payer pays Starlink plus tax payers that are their customers pay Starlink a second time with these high prices.
I know one guy where he’s just on a damn mountain. Not many other options.
Not saying it’s the option I’d take, just saying. If you’re in the sticks in a red state…
Yeah there are always exceptions of course. I’ve seen some in that position able to get away with direct line-of-sight connections for a reasonable rate, but it depends heavily on the layout of the surrounding mountains and location of the service provider plus you have to shell out for an antennae or dish. For any wondering, that’s almost always cheaper than the Starlink sign up costs.
Then again, if internet is important to someone, gotta consider if mountain-side living is the right choice to begin with. I’m sure your acquaintance has his reasons though!