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Comment by Comevius | Hacker News Reader

Starlink seems like a premium service, even if it's sold at a huge loss to gain market share. Not sure if it's worth subsidizing if the terrestial networks can do better at providing low-cost internet to much more people.

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If you live in rural America, Starlink is the only option for somewhat modern broadband internet. When I bought my house (not-even-that-rural Oregon), there was no landline internet available of any kind. I do have copper phone line, so I guess dial up might have technically been an option. The only real option was Hughesnet with its horrible latency and absurdly tiny data caps. Shortly before I got Starlink (late 2021), Centurylink "modernized" their infrastructure, bringing fiber to the node and enabling blazing fast speeds of 10Mbs (originally 20, but they quickly cut it in half). Brand new infrastructure offering 10Mbs. The idea that terrestrial networks are going to do better for anyone more rural than the "small city" level is laughable.

The potential for this service is absolutely massive on a global scale. I know four people personally who have it here in Eastern Washington and they are thrilled with it. It is literally a lifesaver for rural communities. This is only premium and niche if you are looking at it from an urban perspective. There are plenty of other options... that don't get built. Rural DSL is scary bad (1 Mbps max with dropped packets). Line-of-sight is available to some based on mountaintop visibility. TV band internet was tried by a local provider and didn't even pass their testing phase. Hughesnet and Viasat are insanely expensive and have horrifically high latency. Cellular is way, way oversold and terrible on data coverage. Starlink is here already and it works.

Potential is theoretically massive, practically miniscule, because of Starlink cost, it can target only 1) relatively rich people 2) living in nowhere.

That's actually very narrow niche.

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