[afransen]

I think rural fibre is DOA. Satellite internet is already mostly good enough, and it will only get better.

 

[afransen]

The E-U, Canada, Japan, South Korea and Mexico.

Not used to seeing EU written as E-U. It is mapped in my brain as États-Unis (aka the US).

 

[lenaitch]

I think rural fibre is DOA. Satellite internet is already mostly good enough, and it will only get better.

We are with Starlink. It is stupid fast . . . but not cheap. We pay about $160/month and that just for Internet connectivity. Subscriptions for phone, TV, etc. are on top of that. I haven't found any reference where the government defines "affordable" in their policy statements but suspect that many would find that cost to be anything but affordable. They do define "high speed" as 50 Mps down.

 

[afransen]

We are with Starlink. It is stupid fast . . . but not cheap. We pay about $160/month and that just for Internet connectivity. Subscriptions for phone, TV, etc. are on top of that. I haven't found any reference where the government defines "affordable" in their policy statements but suspect that many would find that cost to be anything but affordable. They do define "high speed" as 50 Mps down.

I find it unlikely that the government can deliver rural internet cheaper than this. Subsidies to a Musk company may not be popular, but it is probably more economic than untold billions in grants for laying fibre past cornfields and muskeg.

I also expect the cost of satellite internet like Starlink to come down with time. It's not inherently expensive. They are charging what they can to get good utilization of the bandwidth/capacity they have available. Their endgame is to provide service to mobile phones, and that will be a massive market. They plan to scale up by several orders of magnitude. To sell that capacity, prices will have to come down.

 

[guavadelic]

Agreed but honestly, I can see that coming down the pipeline.

The US is one executive order away from dictatorship and only those outside the US see it coming. When I look at Trump and the current mechanations in the the US, I see shades of Nazi Germany.

I would not be surprised if we saw something similar to the burning of the Reichstag in the US to justify Trumps actions.

Yes it sounds extreme but then again....

eh, that's doubtful. Those countries couldn't even band together and coordinate a response to Trump's tariffs, leaving Canada to go it alone.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I think rural fibre is DOA. Satellite internet is already mostly good enough, and it will only get better.

This reminds me of the Victorian era race to lay undersea telegraph cables, all while Marconi was about to make it all obsolete with his wireless. Of course today telegraphy is no longer a thing. Technology comes and goes.

 

[PL1]

C.f. so-called developing nations bypassing wired phones and skipping directly to cellular service. As long as there isn't a monopoly in the satellite Internet game, it seems likely that is the best route

 

[lenaitch]

I find it unlikely that the government can deliver rural internet cheaper than this. Subsidies to a Musk company may not be popular, but it is probably more economic than untold billions in grants for laying fibre past cornfields and muskeg.

I also expect the cost of satellite internet like Starlink to come down with time. It's not inherently expensive. They are charging what they can to get good utilization of the bandwidth/capacity they have available. Their endgame is to provide service to mobile phones, and that will be a massive market. They plan to scale up by several orders of magnitude. To sell that capacity, prices will have to come down.

The concepts of 'rural' and 'remote' have a wide range. I'm not a telecom expert but I suspect a terrestrial cable makes sense if there are enough customers along the line. Fixed wireless requires a tower (plus power) at about $1mn a pop.

I'm also not a satellite-ologist but the process strikes me as somewhat expensive or everybody would be doing it. No doubt costs are coming down, but so are the Starlink satellites. Because they are in low earth orbit and have to expend fuel to stay on station, they have an expected lifespan of about five years. They currently have about 5000 in orbit and are planning on about 12000 (some say 37000). That's a lot to maintain.

This reminds me of the Victorian era race to lay undersea telegraph cables, all while Marconi was about to make it all obsolete with his wireless. Of course today telegraphy is no longer a thing. Technology comes and goes.

Yet the successors of those cables are still carrying most of the intercontinental data traffic.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The limiter is radio spectrum - there is only so much of that resource to go around. Telecom is such a fundamental thing that I would loath to cede control to any non-national entity - much less one with a track record of using that power to deleterious ends.

AoD