this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Except StarLink cannot possibly provide the same bandwidth, latency, and throughput a fiber connection can. Because of physics.
I can either share my 10G symmetrical connection with nobody, or with 200 others.
And, Fiber costs me $70 a month. Starlink, with worse performance, costs 4x more.
It's not secure either. The next world war will involve efforts to sabotage satellites.
That's the point. Musk wants control over the entire internet.
If all the other internet infrastructure was abandoned, he would be the most powerful person in history. Want to regulate him afterwards? He could just shut down the internet in your region until you accept his terms.
He has already meddled in the Ukraine war doing things like this, too. He turned off Starlink during an offensive Ukrainian mission. He claims he had to because civilian systems aren't allowed to be used for a foreign incursion into Russia and that he'd face consequences. Which is a complete lie.
This is the number one reason my friend and I refused to even consider StarLink. We don't live in the US and do not want all our traffic going through there.
Pfff, physics, pesky detail! Clearly you are not a true visionary like Musk! /s
Starlink has no answer to dark fiber.
In principle I agree with you, but as a network guy, somewhere, between you and the server you are connected to, the bandwidth is shared. The only question is just where and how much bandwidth (well network throughput) there is to share. I work for a large university and our main datacenter has 10GbE and 25/100GbE connections between all the local machines. But we only have about a 3-5gb connection out to the rest of the world.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’d 100% rather have a symmetrical fiber connection to the ISP than something shared like radio or DOCSIS. I used to live in a neighborhood where everyone had Spectrum and about 5-6 PM the speed would plummet because cable internet is essentially just fancy thinnet all over again. Yes I’m old since I used to set up thinnet :)
PS: I would kill for $70 fiber where I am now. Used to have it but we moved to the sticks and I miss it terribly.
But the difference here is that on a fibre connection the shared portion goes over higher speed trunks which gives you most of that 1Gbps bandwidth. A wireless connection has a limited number of slices in the same band that it can share.
It's the same issue with too many people on a single WiFi connection.
Yep very true.
To me the main benefit of the direct fiber connection is the symmetry. With cable here I’m “supposed” to get “up to” 1000mbs down but my upload speed is at best 40. Moving large files back and forth to work is very painful.
Man, you get 40 up? I'm stuck on 30 up. And the funny thing is that just on the other side of the creek on the other side of my street is where they stopped the fibre rollout.
Technically correct. The best kind of correct ;). He should have said not sharing that last mile connection, like one would share with a satellite downlink.
Starlink is 120/mo. Over the past 30 days my average DL is 144Mb, UL 18Mb, with a 27ms ping. It suuuuuuuuuuuuucks, but the only other option is a literal 4Mb DSL for 80$/mo
And, wait until Starlink hits saturation... Your speeds will be 1mb down, 300kb up, and latency hitting 100ms...
You're only benefiting from early adoption at this time. It can only get worse the more they onboard.
How much for install?
Dish, router, and long ass cable was on sale for 300. Another 70 for a roof bracket if memory serves.
TIL 120 is 4 x 70....
Edit to add everything below this line
Downvotes for facts. I pay 120/mo. It's either this, 3Mbps DSL, or T-Mobile home 5G that works when it feels like it.
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I’m on the mid tier fiber plan(3gbps) with my ISP which is $100 a month. Here’s the results from the daily speed test my router does.
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StarLink is very expensive for the service provided. Its only advantage is the location availability which is essentially anywhere. If they installed fiber to rural areas then its usefulness falls dramatically. I’d rather they invest in more fiber rather than more StarLink satellites that only last about 5 years.
lol. I thought those commas were decimals for a second. Wow.
I'd rather have fiber, too. But until it's available here, this is the next best thing.
You lack individual choice by design. You should choose whatever is best for you, obviously, but you can be pissed there’s no fiber running alongside your electricity service.
So, not 4x, but 2x.
BTW, did you know HughesNet is cheaper, and works just as well. Or, it will work just as well once Starlink reaches the saturation HughesNet faces.
Physics says otherwise.
Geostationary orbit, which is where hughesnet satellites are, is approximately 22 THOUSAND miles away.
That's a round trip of 44 thousand miles.
That's a ping time of 236ms just for the satellite connection, before any other connections are added in.
That's worse than my dialup latency was in the 90s
Meanwhile, my Starlink ping averages less than 40ms, because these satellites are MUCH MUCH closer.
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Wonder how your starlink will work once it reaches it's peak market saturation?
It's cute that you're worried about me. But it's still better than whatever else is currently available at my house. And it will always be better than anything using geostationary orbit.