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Comment by s5300 | Hacker News Reader

10 years or less (likely less) starlink will have that covered IMO.

Feel free to consider this a bet to come back to.

Most of the world relies on mobile devices and mobile networks for their connectivity needs. Starlink isn't going to really move the needle in the developing world.

Will Starlink ever be affordable for people living in least developed counties?

I guess that depends on how much they develop and how ubiquitous the tech is.

Cell phones, for example, are widely used in developing nations. Tech in general has been the best at reducing costs over time compared to things like food and energy which haven't really fallen in price.

I consider myself very well off. My internet is 4G and gets me about 15-20Mbps on a good day. I was considering starlink, but a set up fee of 600€ is a bit too much. Starlink is NOT feasible in developing countries. It's Elons' cash cow now.

Can’t one dish essentially serve an entire region through wiring to it?

€600 for an entire village/favela/whatever else to have some form of internet sounds fairly reasonable in the early 21st century. And prices will surely go down over the next few years.

I was about to suggest the one-per-village idea too. It isn’t designed for lots of ground stations to be close to each other anyway.

That said, given the base station is currently sold below cost, it may take quite a while to get cheap.

Only if you're willing to pick up the responsibility for hosting/downloading CP for example...

I think it's more of a poverty problem than technology problem.

It's a bit of both. Delivering an internet connection to a remote mountain or desert location is a hard problem. It's compounded by other tech problems like an unreliable electricity supply. If the people there have very few resources it's even harder.

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