Hi,
I got a beta invite for this last weekend.
The beta is $99/mo and $499 for the terminal.
You get a beta for that amount and only 150 mbps approximately based on the
speed tests I have seen.
My ISP (Xfinity) is not good but they offer $90/mo for 1 GBPS.
Just my $.02.
Brett
> On Jan 31, 2021, at 10:14 AM, M. Taylor wrote:
>
> What's Behind America's Starlink Obsession? PC Magazine
>
> What's Behind America's Starlink Obsession?
> Starlink is catnip for PC Mag readers. Just say the word and they come
> a'clicking in the tens of thousands. The satellite ISP's mystique is a
> combination of Elon Musk (an unappealingly named men's cologne) and
> Americans' hopeless desperation for better home Internet choices. And at
> this point, it's getting way out of hand.
>
> "SpaceX is aiming to one day deliver 10Gbps internet speeds over its
> satellite internet system," our story reads, couching SpaceX's ambitions in
> similar terms to my ambition to have ripped abs.
> Americans are desperate for better connectivity. They've given up on
> regulators, incumbent ISPs and their own communities to provide them.
> They're holding out for a hero ('till the end of the night). They want Musk
> to be their streetwise Hercules, but he's Loki. But not hot. Kind of moist.
> Damp Loki.
>
> Putting up satellites is the most expensive, lowest-capacity way to spread
> Internet access, except in very rural regions. Whether your satellite is a
> Virgo or a LEO doesn't change this. The fact that anyone in a suburb thinks
> it's a more practical solution than just running fiber a few hundred yards
> speaks only to the complete failure of the US ISP market to encourage
> buildouts.
>
> Of 114 million fixed-Internet subscriptions in the US, around 2 million use
> satellite Internet. It's the Internet of last resort. And while Starlink
> will release a few million rural users from the tyranny of Hughesnet and
> Viasat, it's not going to help us with our cable monopolies.
>
> A research note from Cowen says that at full capacity, the Starlink
> constellation will support 485,000 data streams. Multiply by, say, 100 for
> oversubscription, and you get around 50 million people-but that's globally.
> The US is only 2% of the area of the globe. An anonymous, but convincing
> space-tech blogger points out that only about 3% of Starlink's satellites
> will be over the US at any given time and estimates a maximum capacity of
> about a million US subscribers.
>
> Starlink will have a much bigger effect elsewhere in the world, in places
> where it's actually impossible to build good wired broadband. I'd be excited
> to see what a Starlink connection per village does in much of the developing
> world. If a village of 100 families each pay $1 per month to share a
> terminal connected to a Wi-Fi router...now we're talking.
>
> The wireless internet promised by T-Mobile and Verizon could help tens of
> millions more Americans than Starlink, except that T-Mobile and Verizon have
> miserably failed at communicating and promoting it. Verizon's 5G Home
> rollout is incomprehensible. It's Schrodinger's Internet. T-Mobile service
> is available to customers at certain addresses, but the carrier doesn't
> provide coverage maps.
>
> There are much easier ways to offer more Internet to more Americans. We
> could demand that our states drop their bans on municipal broadband. Or we
> could demand that the Federal government open cable and fiber lines to
> competitive providers, as is true in Canada and the UK, as Canadian ISP rep
> (and ex-PCMagger) Bryson Masse pointed out on Twitter.
>
> But no. Elon Musk!! Gamestonk!! We have decided that as a society it is
> easier to shoot a thousand satellites into space than just pass a law.
>
> Original Article at:
> http://archive.enews.pcmag.com/csb/Public/show/g6xi-2ctjn6--tdepy-b6uzad45
>
>
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