That is apparently going to have competition soon.
But … yeah. Operating via satellites is profitable for sparsely populated areas, operating via wire - for densely populated ones. In addition to that Earth’s orbit is not under anyone’s sovereignty.
Both have their uses, but, I think, in locations in a developed country with old infrastructure because it’s not profitable, - this means there won’t be any.
The sad part is that if, say, I want to have unabused Internet connectivity from Russia, a Starlink terminal is not my solution, cause Elon still wants to be friends with those obnoxious people. And also if it were a solution, a terminal could be triangulated and my ass would meet a soldering iron. Maybe not, but some fines.
henfredemars@infosec.pub 1 day ago
This is exactly what some of my extended family uses because there’s literally no other option. Not even cellular.
This isn’t even up in the mountains or something. This is just rural Alabama where kids are struggling to do homework because they just don’t have access, and it all but guarantees that their technology skills will remain woefully outdated.
I remember when they had DSL not that long ago and I would turn off updates on everything because it was a complete waste of time to attempt.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
My grandparents lived in rural OK and had dial-up until 2018 when they finally were able to get a 2mbps DSL line. It really wasn’t much faster than the dial-up.
amorpheus@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
You mean it wasn’t able to be saturated?
As slow as 2MBit/s is, relatively speaking, it’s still magnitudes better than dial-up.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Yes, I mean it never hit its rated speed. Also that many modern sites didn’t work any better than they did on the dialup anyway.