Given you can get a relatively fast 4G connection in Deadhorse, AK (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Deadhorse,+Prudhoe+Bay,+AK...), it's pretty crazy that there's still places with 2G only connectivity anywhere in the US.
the remote areas with less connectivity are probably places without deep-pocketed corporate customers that would justify the expense of running fiber. I suspect large swaths of the Alaskan interior fall under that description.
0: https://alaskapublic.org/2017/12/05/new-fiber-optic-cable-sy...
Starlink has to travel minimum of 550km twice + distance from ground station to destination server. For remote locations, you generally also have an additional satellite to satellite relay distance as well. So realistically say 1500km minimum, likely way higher. Speed of light time on that distance is ~5ms, and that doesn’t account for latency losses at each hop and also remember that’s one way time.
There’s a reason microwave is still used, even sometimes over fiber, where latency matters.
So it's about +10ms to your ping for nearby destinations, less (and potentially even faster) for more distant destinations. That's really not enough to worry about in most contexts; even for FPS gaming, unless you're a pro 10ms isn't a huge difference maker.
> There’s a reason microwave is still used, even sometimes over fiber, where latency matters.
Only for HFT as far as I know; latency mattering that much is a tiny niche.
You obviously live in a tech bubble. Remote industrial machine control definitely has concerns around guaranteed latency.
Oh, so you are finally conceding that Starlink doesn’t fit every use case? Because Starlink definitely goes down during a storm occasionally but a dedicated microwave link with high gain parabolic dishes won’t in the same conditions.
> I very much doubt there are any cases for remote industrial machine control where microwaves are the better option.
Oil and gas industry would beg to differ.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/yllqk6/space_lase... [2] https://www.highnorthnews.com/en/elon-musks-starlink-expands... [3] https://www.starlink.com/map
I was thinking that they were way overdue to replace those microwave dishes with a Starlink terminal.
Deadhorse also has a fully functioning commercial airport with Alaska Air flights that are "free" for the workers there.
neat, I didn't realize the US had anything like 'company towns' anymore, hopefully they avoid the paternalism stuff that ruined company towns in the previous centuries.
There are places in California that only have 3G, as of last month when I visited one.
It's a different world outside the Bay Area bubble.
I will never understand how the powers that be decide where to deploy coverage.
That didn't happen for a solid 30 or 40 miles, because none of us had signal. And that was on an interstate.
I've lived in the heart of a 2M+ city, and the skyscrapers made reception so difficult that AT&T gave me a free pico cell for my apartment.
I was somewhere between Hazen and Bismarck recently and had no signal.