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Starlink - think carefully

FWIW, This is from a column by Shira Ovide of WaPo which I can't link but others may be able to.

"There’s an irony with Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service beamed from space: The more popular it becomes, the worse its speeds and reliability tend to get.

Those limitations are known, but a new analysis estimates the tipping point at which Starlink connections could bog down: With as few as 419 Starlink customers in an area the size of Tacoma, Washington, service for all users in the area could become unusable.

The research, led by telecommunications technology expert Sascha Meinrath, is just a hypothetical scenario. But it supports some internet policy veterans who believe that Starlink is a technology marvel and an amazing internet lifeline, as long as hardly any Americans need to rely on it."

Comments

  • edited July 18
    To vary an expression often said of boats:

    The two happiest days in a man’s life are: the day he puts up a Starlink dish and the day he takes it down.”

    It was great going from cellular-based data when I installed my Starlink setup. Best game in town at that time. But it got more expensive and, as Mark mentions, did slow down as more users joined. Musk was toying around with data caps when I ditched it. On the plus side, I cannot ever remember my Starlink going down completely. The fiber optic network I now use is one-third less expensive, has no data caps, seems a little faster than Starlink. However, I have had a few outages with it. Some lasted several hours. The April ice storm shut it down for over a week.
  • edited July 18
    Here's that WaPo link- Elon Musk’s Starlink internet works great if hardly anyone uses it
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