Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliable luxury

Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by fomine3 on Sunday April 02, 2023 @10:58PM (#35418009)

Here in Japan, Starlink price is continuously down (now $50) because only richer techy people (of course they have fiber and live in metropolis) buy it and they don't use much. FTTH coverage is really comprehensive even in very rural area, so there are very few residential practical use case. It would be excellent for camping.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by realusername on Monday April 03, 2023 @02:47AM (#35419456)

It's pretty much the same in France, standard internet cost is about 35€ and fiber is being deployed at record speed, I live in the countryside (real countryside, 50 inhabitants village) and I have access to fiber.

I'm not sure starlink has a future in this kind of environment outside of niche applications.

Their business model is difficult in my opinion, they both need a lot of customers from rich countries to recoup the costs but in the same time, the vast majority of those rich countries are well equipped already (or about to) since having a decent internet coverage is critical for their economies.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by Ekaros on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:38AM (#35420357)

It seems that Starlink works in places that fail to build either fiber or good 4G/5G coverage. But even there if the demand is too much they might not have capacity to provide good service.

I don't believe it is viable model they are running.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by realusername on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:40AM (#35420372)

Yeah that's clearly another issue on top, if there's a place where they have some demand, they'll have a lot of demand, it's an everything or nothing market.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by rsynnott on Monday April 03, 2023 @05:54AM (#35420913)

Also, if such an area exists, and there are enough people willing to pay $100/month to congest starlink, then it probably makes sense for someone to set up a WISP, which will be able to provide a better service.

In fact, if this isn't happening at scale already, I would expect that some WISP companies will start using starlink congestion areas to figure out where they should be putting masts.

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Re:Starlink internet is going from rural savior to unreliabl... by kobalsky on Monday April 03, 2023 @04:38PM (#35430929)

> real countryside, 50 inhabitants village) and I have access to fiber

small town and fast internet? it's my dream come true

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