this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They're never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.
They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn't a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.
There's a reason it's as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.
I doubt the Ukrainians would agree with you
This is a really weird "ends always justify the means" because I could also say it wouldn't be necessary if Ukraine never gave up their nuclear weapons and how I doubt the Ukrainians would disagree. This is also further impacted by the protection of Starlink by the US military because if it wasn't an act of war against the US to destroy them, Russia could take down low earth orbit satellites pretty easily.
But none of this is relevant to how Starlink is not an ISP, it is not infrastructure it is a fleeting wasteful service.
From what I understand the Ukrainians never had control of the nukes, they didn't actually have the launch codes to use them.
Regardless, having global access to the internet is great. Ask the people living in remote areas of the Amazon, no chance for them to get fiber, or Africa, or remote islands, or ships/airplanes.
If youre speaking of rural America not needing starlink because fiber is a thing, then you should broaden your horizons
I love how you completely ignore how starlink is only viable for ukraine because the US military industrial complex.
There was satellite internet before Starlink and Starlink should be banned for all the 5ghz interference it creates
I'm ignoring that fact because its mostly irrelevant to this conversation. Would the Ukrainians prefer if it was controlled by a more reliable ally? Of course
"Regular" satellite internet is nowhere near what starlink offers and it's pretty telling you assume it is.
An actual problem that you've not mentioned is the interference with ground based telescopes
Lol "Starlink is a bad ISP" "BuT wHaT aBoUt Ukraine!!?!?!?!?" "Mostly irrelevant to this conversation" A true lemmy experience.
You claim "Starlink is a bad ISP" because you think the satellites are wasteful, I disagree since Starlink can provide a global service to areas where it's needed in a way no one else can. I don't know what you find so difficult to understand? "a TrUe LeMmY eXpErIeNcE"
Yeah, it sure can do it in a way nobody else can, the most wasteful way. But I appreciate you shifting the goalposts from Ukraine because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP. See, if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we're talking global breakdown of internet via starlink. If a war breaks out on the other side of the world a traditional isp keeps working.
Then there's also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost, the ecological damage of launching rockets every week so that someone is the middle of nowhere can jack it with high speed internet, being disabled when a nazi feels like it...
Where am I shifting the goalposts exactly?
"because being used in war is a reason why it is a bad ISP", like I said before, I very much doubt the Ukrainians would agree with your take on this.
"if a war breaks out and a power can destroy them, we’re talking global breakdown of internet via starlink" ?? Do you think anyone is advocating we should replace all internet connections with Starlink?
"Then there’s also the piss poor service, the poor number of total connections, the lack of redundancy, the cost," Should I copy-paste about Ukraine again?
"ecological damage" negligent amount compared to actually wasteful industries
I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it's still a net positive. It's not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it's probably the best option we have at this time.
Only short term, long term the repeated rocket launches can’t win out over a ditch digger.
I'm sure digging fiber out in the Amazon rainforest will turn out great
People paying for internet service don't live in the Amazon rainforest
Maybe do a cursory Google search before being confidently incorrect
Fair enough, you got me there. Didn't realize there was such a population of internet craving people in what's supposed to be one of the last relatively untouched areas of nature on the planet.
That being the case though, why didn't this all happen in 2013, when O3b launched to specifically solve this problem for them? It's still running, by the way, after several rounds of upgrades, and significantly more stable than Starlink with their dinky little 5 year disposables. Microsoft, Honeywell and Amazon all use it. But the original and ongoing intent of the project was explicitly to bring internet access to all otherwise unreachable areas, such as islands, deep in Africa, and the open ocean.
I don't oppose Brazilian villagers having internet if they want it, but the situation in which it arrived to them feels suspect to me. I have no proof that Starlink actively went out and pushed internet service onto them like a drug dealer but it would not be out of character for Musk and his subordinates to do so, and that just feels bad.
Regardless there is already an existing solution to this. If you want internet in the Amazon you can use satellite internet. It does not have to be Starlink. If you want good internet, maybe don't live in the Amazon. People in general should probably be leaving that place alone. The article you linked even talks about one of the village leaders splitting his time between the village and the city. We can try and run a fiber line to Manaus and/or Porto Velho and that should be able to serve a reasonably large enough area around them, but even if that fails there are already other solutions.
I agree with almost everything you wrote. Purely speculation but the starlink terminals might be cheaper? The latency/bandwidth would also be significantly worse with O3b since it's in medium earth orbit compared to starlinks low earth orbit. "Regular" satellite internet is prohibitively expensive with even worse bandwidth/latency.
I also agree that people shouldn't be living in the Amazon but they are and we can't really force them to leave.
Those places can get internet from satellites outside of low earth orbit that is simply slower with higher latency.