Technology

Whatever the case with other stuff, Starlink is a pretty solid offering. I know people who would have been stuck with barely better than dialup, but now have a connection that's fast and reliable enough to work remotely.

Telcos, meanwhile, have often been given money to improve infrastructure and just... didn't. Not to mention continually charging customers for services they couldn't readily offer.

Don't get me wrong, Elon is a shit in many ways, but Starlink as a product is excellent and a game-charger for many.

Well sure there is use cases for satellites like ocean and sea going ships, remote ocean island and antarctic research stations. However "small village in rural, but mainland USA" is not one of those to me. It could be handled by radio towers and wired links. If only the political and resource priority was there. It is far more permanent and sustainable infrastructure choice, than "we have to keep blasting space rocket very 5 years to keep this towns internet going. If they stop blasting the rockets, we lose the internets."

Same applies to pretty much all mainland and all communities outside of something like deep jungle and deep siberia. I come from Finland. Finnish Lapland is not exactly hive of population density, but still couple hundred people villages and just summer cottages have mobile internet cell coverage. I remember when it wasn't so. There was time, when dial up and satellite internet via geostationary was a thing in 1990's and early 2000's. It all fell out with the spread of cell networks. Who in their right mind would compete with "20€/month, you get 5G/4G internet. Unlimited data, 100Megs speed", heck 50€ per month as much you can eat and 5G can deliver 1G service mobile cell network with constant satellite launching. putting up towers with microwave links isn't that expensive. I streamed Netflix at family summer cottage in Lapland.

The "but vast distances" is empty argument. Is USA way vast to Finland.... yeah, but there is also 300 million people compared to 5 million to pay for it all. . Problem in say USA isn't vast distances or small population density. It is that mobile carriers are run as regional monopolies without sufficient monopoly controls of "no you have to serve also that town there, you have to serve that ranch there. You are utility company using the public good of shared radio spectrum slots. Sure you paid license for it, but those are limited resource. Even the paid for radio slots come with obligations. Electric utility has minimum service obligations, now you telecoms are new electricity, here is demands for minimum service obligations. In this county you have sought to have under your coverage, you provide radio coverage for every permanent residence. Including that farm. Don't like it? You are free to relinquish your temporary license for exploitation of common good resource and we will find someone who will do same business with acceptable to us terms.... Oh would you look at that, seems to be like 5 companies in queue there at the door."

Do the Finnish mobile operators like they have service obligations in certain regions to cover even low density areas as private profit seeking business? Noooo, but ahemmm they are still making profits. Do they like they have to offer roaming under fair terms to competitors to avoid every operator having to put their own mast for every last village? Probably not. They are still making profits. They fullfill their minimum service obligations and play by the roaming and competition rules, government leaves them alone to run their business.

Yes, cell/radio towers operate on Line of Sight. In flat, no vegetation lands you can see for data towers maybe 5 to 10 miles of range radius from the tower. In more realistic conditions you see 2 to 4 miles at best range. You'd be surprised how many cellular towers there are everywhere hiding in plain sight, since the high frequency bands such as 1900mhz don't have penetration like 600mhz bands do. Lower frequency tends to not be as fast as higher frequency bands so its usually a tradeoff for speed or range. Before I was running Starlink I used to run 4G internet, and because where I live is rural, hilly, and full of trees, I had no direct line of sight. 1000 dollars in special parabolic radio antennas were required to focus on signal reflections to get data signal and even then I only had 3 bars roughly of signal. The tower is about 3.5mi away as the crow flies.

We already spent taxpayer money trying to get ISPs to build infrastructure out to rural areas. They all pocketed it instead.

I like your optimism. I think we monkeys all die on this rock.

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.

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.