Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network

Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by db48x on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @01:55PM (#32840765)

Well, if you hover over various countries where it’s not yet available, it will tell you when they estimate that it will be available. Nigeria says “Q4 2022”, which is not very far away. In order to be sure of having service available in a month or two, they have surely already built a ground station or two, printed some instruction booklets in Nigerian, hired some Nigerian sales reps, etc.

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by elil17 on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @02:31PM (#32841266)

FYI English is the official language of Nigeria, and the one most people who can afford satellite internet speak day-to-day. No need to translate!

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by db48x on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @03:07PM (#32841805)

Maybe that's why they're getting it months before anyone else :)

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by capableweb on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @03:14PM (#32841907)

There are something like 10-15 countries in Africa where English is the official language, and there is almost as many English speakers in Africa as in the US in total :)

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by gpm on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @03:18PM (#32841959)

It's much more likely to do with licensing radio bandwidth.

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by capableweb on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @02:04PM (#32840874)

Yeah, I saw that when you hover, it shows you an estimate of when it'll be available. But saying that it's available in X weeks/months/years in Africa directly conflicts with the tweet saying "Starlink is now on all seven continents" when it's not available in Africa or Asia right now.

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by parineum on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @03:14PM (#32841900)

I think you're being a little obtuse here. The point of the tweet seems to be that the laser links are up enabling a true global network without the need for nearby ground stations.

They have coverage over all seven continents because of that and I have very little doubt that it's been tested in those continents as well. "Availability" here seems to be a proxy for "is technically solved" vs. "is commercially available".

If you're asking "what's the difference?" Think about the war in Ukraine. Starlink wasn't (and isn't?) commercially available there but was able to be deployed in an emergency.

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Re:Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its s... by kingkawn on Wednesday September 14, 2022 @03:32PM (#32842172)

Ahh yes, the language called Nigerian…

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