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Comment by hungryforcodes | Hacker News Reader

No one in Asia or Africa or India seem to be using it. Are we just polluting LEO for the sake of a handful of Americans? I feel like in the US it's not even widely used...

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> No one in Asia or Africa or India seem to be using it

from my understanding in order to provide internet services in any country you need to register with the authorities and get approval for providing those services.

their map shows where they got approval so far and where they're still in the process: https://www.starlink.com/map

In India satellite services are illegal except Inmarsat because they have a deal with them for surveillance. That's probably why. You can get in serious trouble there for carrying a satellite phone too.

That's interesting-- I didn't know this.

I just know because I used to own a sat phone and I would bring it on business trips.

China's another one that doesn't permit them. Which, together with India, means that the majority of the world's population lives in countries where they are (mostly) banned.

I wonder what's going to happen now that sat features are becoming ubiquitous on mobile phones. Apple has it (with Globalstar), Motorola/Bullitt is introducing it right now (with Inmarsat), and Qualcomm is introducing the features in Q3 this year (with Iridium)

This means that banning sat phones will no longer be as easy as it once was, as most visitors will carry one right in their pocket.

https://blog.telestial.com/2017/11/countries-where-satellite...

I believe so - its a very small niche. If I understand correctly, the target audience is:

- remote places, with

- people who need internet but dont have a wire or fiber running to them, and

- who can afford a super expensive starlink (have disposable income), and

- for who 3G/4G isnt good enough

Thats not a lot of people outside the US

There is no reason why they would necessarily need to charge such high monthly prices in poorer countries. If the marginal costs can be kept low enough then it would be stupid to miss out on the revenue. A key to that is probably the inter satellite links to avoid needing so many base stations.

Also, parts of Africa have pretty good cell coverage. So it may not be needed in a lot of areas.

It’s a lot of geographical Australia.

Which isn’t a lot of people. A million, perhaps. Two at most.

That's pretty ideal for satellite services. It doesn't cope well with large clusters of customers, having them spread out is pretty ideal.

You don't need to be in "remote" places for Starlink to be a big benefit. My brother lives about a 10 minute drive from about a 10K person city in coastal Maine and he could not get wired Internet at all and the other wireless options are poor and data limited. There are a ton of places like that. You could argue that there should be a program at the national level to get wired Internet to anywhere that gets electricity but, given the existence of Starlink, I'm not sure a many many billions of dollars program to do that makes a lot of sense and would have at least some people here throwing a fit about subsidizing rural residents.

My topic was originally about users OUTSIDE the US. Everyone I meet in Asia is pretty OK with 4g, also home based internet is pretty good. It's important to understand the US is behind the rest of the world in many things, including this area.

You forgot:

- who have reliable electrical power

- who need low latency in particular

- who do not need internet access while outside wifi range of their base station

I honestly can't think of more than a handful of applications for which Starlink makes sense. And even then, it would make more sense as a backhaul for a cellular network.

They've only just started expansion into those areas (so far 2 countries in Africa). Here's the service map: https://www.starlink.com/map

They will. This technology will do a lot to bring the internet to low index of development countries.

It's pretty cool to think about the impact of all the kids who will go from no access to having the world at their fingertips.

Which is? Most of these countries have really strong 4g already...

More than a third of the world has never used the internet according to the UN.

> Are we just polluting LEO for the sake of a handful of Americans? I feel like in the US it's not even widely used...

It is quite popular in Ukraine. Granted, Ukraine is neither in Asia nor in Africa.

True, although their circumstances now might be quite exceptional?

> their circumstances now might be quite exceptional

They might be.

Also, even if "the house is on fire" might be quite exceptional circumstances, this is not an argument against fire brigades.

It's only launched in a few African countries, see starlink.com/map

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