this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Are they truly able though? I'll readily admit I'm not very knowledgeable on this, but radio towers have a limited range, right? Satellites have the ability to provide internet and communications to truly remote areas where it may be logistically challenging or impractical to build radio towers.
Well sure there is use cases for satellites like ocean and sea going ships, remote ocean island and antarctic research stations. However "small village in rural, but mainland USA" is not one of those to me. It could be handled by radio towers and wired links. If only the political and resource priority was there. It is far more permanent and sustainable infrastructure choice, than "we have to keep blasting space rocket very 5 years to keep this towns internet going. If they stop blasting the rockets, we lose the internets."
Same applies to pretty much all mainland and all communities outside of something like deep jungle and deep siberia. I come from Finland. Finnish Lapland is not exactly hive of population density, but still couple hundred people villages and just summer cottages have mobile internet cell coverage. I remember when it wasn't so. There was time, when dial up and satellite internet via geostationary was a thing in 1990's and early 2000's. It all fell out with the spread of cell networks. Who in their right mind would compete with "20€/month, you get 5G/4G internet. Unlimited data, 100Megs speed", heck 50€ per month as much you can eat and 5G can deliver 1G service mobile cell network with constant satellite launching. putting up towers with microwave links isn't that expensive. I streamed Netflix at family summer cottage in Lapland.
The "but vast distances" is empty argument. Is USA way vast to Finland.... yeah, but there is also 300 million people compared to 5 million to pay for it all. . Problem in say USA isn't vast distances or small population density. It is that mobile carriers are run as regional monopolies without sufficient monopoly controls of "no you have to serve also that town there, you have to serve that ranch there. You are utility company using the public good of shared radio spectrum slots. Sure you paid license for it, but those are limited resource. Even the paid for radio slots come with obligations. Electric utility has minimum service obligations, now you telecoms are new electricity, here is demands for minimum service obligations. In this county you have sought to have under your coverage, you provide radio coverage for every permanent residence. Including that farm. Don't like it? You are free to relinquish your temporary license for exploitation of common good resource and we will find someone who will do same business with acceptable to us terms.... Oh would you look at that, seems to be like 5 companies in queue there at the door."
Do the Finnish mobile operators like they have service obligations in certain regions to cover even low density areas as private profit seeking business? Noooo, but ahemmm they are still making profits. Do they like they have to offer roaming under fair terms to competitors to avoid every operator having to put their own mast for every last village? Probably not. They are still making profits. They fullfill their minimum service obligations and play by the roaming and competition rules, government leaves them alone to run their business.
ROFL trying to compare the US to Finland is like comparing a postage stamp to a bill board. Not to mention a vast difference in government. 'Common good' is a catch phrase used to sell bullshit to the public, hoping to distract them from the massive theft of public funds that's about to happen. And it's never enforced.
Google couldn't afford to get fast internet to America. Running the wires is barely a rounding error in the cost of getting around the law suits and regulatory requirements.
Well the one thing you are right about is the governments being different.
Cell networks are modular as such those can be compared per capita, not per absolute. USA has population density twice of Finlands. Also since these are cell networks affordability can be talked network wide instead of locally. Sure that one Winston farm is not affordable, but we'll the local city already makes up for it.
Upon which we come to the reason we can demand they take that hit of providing for Winston Farm and not just picking the cream from the top by sticking to the city.
Common good or public good. Limited shared reasource, that can't be utilised without affecting others. If one company gets for radio band and is choosing to not provide for Winston Farm, that shuts out company B. Company B was also going to utilise the radio band, but their plan was to serve Winstons also. Company A thus excludes ability of winstons to be served, even if winstons wanted to be served and willing to pay fair price
Same as we don't allow companies to pollute air endlessly, since it denies the ability to habitate in the polluted air. There is only one atmosphere, there is only one radio space around Earth. It is only feasible to run one water network, one electricity grid in a city. In that case the shared common good is just the space itself. If someone puts up an utility pole on the only strip of land next to the road, someone else can't.
There is more than one radio band, but only limited amount.
You can't compare population density with the US because of the large cities. Finland peaks out at far less than half the US, leaving larger areas of the US at a far lower density, making for much larger of a problem given the range limits of cellular towers. On top of that the US has far larger areas that are prohibited or restricted from building towers or the infrastructure to support them.
Yes, cell/radio towers operate on Line of Sight. In flat, no vegetation lands you can see for data towers maybe 5 to 10 miles of range radius from the tower. In more realistic conditions you see 2 to 4 miles at best range. You'd be surprised how many cellular towers there are everywhere hiding in plain sight, since the high frequency bands such as 1900mhz don't have penetration like 600mhz bands do. Lower frequency tends to not be as fast as higher frequency bands so its usually a tradeoff for speed or range. Before I was running Starlink I used to run 4G internet, and because where I live is rural, hilly, and full of trees, I had no direct line of sight. 1000 dollars in special parabolic radio antennas were required to focus on signal reflections to get data signal and even then I only had 3 bars roughly of signal. The tower is about 3.5mi away as the crow flies.
100% this. Think of a satellite as a really tall Radio tower able to reach much further away.
So why do you think Starlink needs more than one satellite in orbit?