this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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While I see your point, some people don’t have any other option than this and it is a game changer for rural areas. The only other option would be to run the infrastructure to them and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately.
"We have failed as a society to help small communities. Instead of seeing this an choosing to be better, it's OK to let billionaires fuck up space."
Seriously. Small towns and rural communities could have high speed network access already if they stopped voting for people that refuse to fund infrastructure spending and that bend over backwards to prevent community-based initiatives to create high speed networks! Elon's not helping them, he's exploiting the fact that they've backed people who actively keep them in the stone ages.
We already spent taxpayer money trying to get ISPs to build infrastructure out to rural areas. They all pocketed it instead.
Not all, my isp expanded a fiber network to me. I live deep on a dirt road in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. Sure some pocketed but its unfair to say all did.
Just like he admitted the Hyperloop was motivated by a hatred of high-speed rail programs.
As well it’s important to develop this technology on our planet for when we become an interplanetary species. Being able to quickly surround a habitable planet with infrastructure that can beam network, position, even power directly down to the surface without interference is hyper critical. EMS will also love this for when natural disasters strike and communication via ground based systems is knocked out. This is ultimately the direction we will be heading in for future points, but making satellites that encompass multiple things. However it’s important that any company, or even government, operating in space should have to pay into some sort of UN fund for cleaning space junk as it is becoming a problem and it’s so easy for companies to launch stuff in space and avoid any consequences when it turns to junk.
I like your optimism. I think we monkeys all die on this rock.
I dare to believe we can exile at least a couple of billionaires to Mars before that happens.
So we should cause a global sky pollution problem to solve local political problem. How about... No. We don't pollute global shared good and instead USA just has to pull it by it's boots straps and solve it's political administration problems.
Africa, North Europe and so on doesn't have problem with setting up cell networks even for rural areas. Point to point microwave links have been invented to even avoid having to run ground fibre to each cell tower. We have the tech. Thus it isn't a absolutely necessary problem. It is local political problem.
Fix it.... or well suffer lack of internet. USA doesn't get to ignore the external global costs just to make things politically more convenient locally.
Exactly. Oh, Bumfuck, Nebraska doesn't have 1GB fiber speeds because of a shitty city council!? There's only one solution: we blot out the entire planet's sky.
It could if the will was there. We’re able to run water & electricity - but we can’t figure out how to run a strand of glass or 1 new piece of copper? It’s called greed, laziness, ineptitude & creative companies & their lawyers which took tax payer money without delivering the services they promised year over year.
Most of the rural areas that the universl coverage concept is intended to serve don't have water lines running from a central location and may not even be connected to a large grid. Satellite internet serves remote homes and scientific outposts in a way that cannot be met with physical lines and depending on terrain it may not be possible through towers.
When you are living in mountain vallleys or working in the middle of a desert having the same access to the internet through a non-physical connection is crucial.
That said, the current implementation has some serious downsides and we should learn from that in a future iteration that requires fewer physical objects that are far less reflective than the current models.
Not because it can't happen though, but because it isn't profitable or beneficial to the right people.
I'm no expert, but I would think running cables (or using existing ones which undoubtedly exist) or whatever other terrestrial solution, would be infinitely easier and cheaper (and less destructive) than networking the entire sky with satellites.
Seems like yet another instance where capitalism has created a problem (not connecting remote places despite being able to because it doesn't make them enough money) only so it can sell us convoluted, overcomplicated and overpriced "solutions" that do make them money (as well as other forms of power and control). E: alternatively (more like and and/or), they needed the military application and used the side effects of it benefiting civilian as a front and a justification. And it's working, people are defending it without question.
A reminder that in the 90s there was federal funding to major companies to help expand broadband into rural areas and try to get closer to 100% connected. The money was taken.
Oh, I'm sure it was, never to be seen again.
Yeah, before Starlink I was paying $150/month for 15 Mbps down, usually getting half of that or less, and it was transmitted via radio so it always stopped working when it rained. It was barely usable, but too important to stop paying for.
Now I pay a little less and get 100-150 Mbps down, and the rain usually doesn't affect it. Latency is better too.
And I'm just 20 minutes from a fairly large city in the US. There are a lot of areas with less service than I had.
Musk can eat shit, and I hate giving him money, but Starlink has made a really big difference.
I get what you're saying but... it's just so hard to accept that we're going with satellites rather than running a fiber optic cable over to your house.
So we're defiling the night sky to... help bored Republicans get on Facebook, Twitter, and 4chan?
Well now I'm really sold on the idea!