Starlink imposes $100 "congestion charge" on new users in parts of US

18 pointsposted 16 hours ago
by elorant

7 Comments

ryzvonusef

8 hours ago

If it's congested, then that's an indication that place needs Wired Broadband internet, preferably FTTH fibre but FTTN copper at the minimum.

FCC can use this as a gauge to force internet providers to offer services in these locations as part of their license, isntead of the current method which uses census blocks, iirc.

grecy

7 hours ago

I suspect many places where it is congested already has , and this is designed to make starlink less appealing to customers that have a wired alternative.

ryzvonusef

5 hours ago

From what I understand, if one person in a Census block has Fibre, FCC considers they all have fiber. (please correct me if i am wrong, but that's what I understand from various articles on this topic)

So if a census block is a dozen houses big, there could be 1 house just on the edge of a previous run, which has fiber, but 11 houses down the street where the Comcast or whichever has no interest in digging/trenching for whatever reason and thus they are stuck in dial-up land.

(From the articles, it seemed this wasn't a fake scenario but common place)

They all buy starlink and create a congestion, but they have no real alternative.

laidoffamazon

8 hours ago

Im sure there’s good Starlink use cases in narrow circumstances (only alternative being HughesNet with massive latency and < 30 megabits down, Ukraine, apparently cruise ships) but the more I read about Starlink pricing and constraints (like the predictable latency spikes) I genuinely wonder who it’s for.

inemesitaffia

5 hours ago

There's people who'd want it at $25,000 per dish and $10,000 per month.

All the people who waited for months to get one show there's a market

You forget all the traditional users of satellite Internet. Islands, Planes, Antarctica, regular ships, rockets, drones etc.

Right now it's priced cheap enough for some GA uses.

mensetmanusman

an hour ago

Imagine being remote in the world during your wondering:)

grecy

7 hours ago

It’s for the hundreds of millions of people around the world who have no wired option.

It’s a game changer in remote Australia, Yukon and Alaska, etc etc