• AA5B@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Starlink (which is suffering from congestion problems already and cannot be scaled up).

    Where does this come from? Yes there are congestion issues at the moment and even congestion charges, isn’t this just a matter of more satellites? They only have like 10,000 but planned for a gazillion and are continuously increasing …. The very definition scalable

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      17 hours ago

      I was reading off the articles that talked about the SpaceX IPO and why it’s a bad investment. But a websearch seems to reveal a number of problems, from the collision risks caused by exponentially larger numbers of satellites to the environmental impact of the launches to get them into orbit. And then there’s the problem that Starlink satellites are falling from space by the hundreds (and not always fully burning up in the atmosphere).

      As it is, congestion, especially in cities, is critical, and Starlink is now charging extreme congestion fees. For now Starlink is being promoted as a rural option, since the US is disinterested in running fiber, or even copper. (We had programs that were so budgeted but now they’ve been shut down, and Musk has a lot of access to the White House.) But satellite internet doesn’t work well for activities that require high bandwidth, such as gaming or high-resolution streaming.

      Also revealed by my websearch, Starlink customers are desperate for better customer service, and instead are having to rely on online user groups.