TIL: The majority of Lemmys have never lived an hour from the nearest population center, down a dirt road, on a few hundred acres of wilderness. I fucking HATE musk and I still have an RV kit in my basement so when Iâm traveling around hours from anywhere, Starlink works perfectly.
My partnerâs family lives on a dirt road between a corn field and cow pasture⊠a full 1.5 hour drive from the nearest mid-sized city⊠they have gigabit fiberâŠ
Not saying that their situation is currently typical, but id argue it is indeed a sign that good internet is slowly but surely coming available to everyone.
Today you learned that the majority of people donât live in the middle of nowhere?
Of course they donât, by definition, if a bunch of people lived there, it wouldnât be the middle of nowhere.
Yeah, Musk has gone insane, anyone can see that.
But Musk aside, LEO satellites are still really the only viable and economical solution to the problem of broadband in rural areas, and Starlink seems to work great.
Also, the objection that resulted in pulling this funding looks pretty bullshit. Several other broadband providers are getting these same funding deals for doing basically nothing.
Musk has gone insane
No, he hasnât. Heâs just a bog-standard capitalist doing bog-standard capitalist things.
Brother, we have wildly different definitions of ânowhereâ if you get 5G. When I lived in a rural shithole in the US, I had to drive 100 miles to start picking up 5G signals (though that was just before the pandemic, so maybe 5G coverage has improved greatly in the past 3 years).
I live two hours from a city, waaaay up in the Alps and I have gigabit fibre forâŹ40 a month lol
Your infrastructure sucks donkeyballs đ
two hours is waaaay out there guys!
My sides are in orbit! Here is a side-by side of the Alps
next to a small section of the American Rockies,
which is still nothing compared to Canada (yes there are people in that big empty area).
No offense, but true European rural doesnât exist.
Me -
Your infrastructure is shit
You -
Here, I will demonstrate how correct you are
đ
No offense, but true European rural doesnât exist.
Bro, come to northern Sweden and say that again lol
Shit, that picture outside Edmonton is hardly even distant, there are a bunch of communities in northern Alberta and BC that donât even have roads going to them because theyâre too far away.
Itâs a difference between definitions of âcityâ and âmiddle of nowhereâ between the US and Europe. The US is a massive place. Part of the reason the US appears to have such a crappy infrastructure is that when, say, mobile carriers want to improve it to upgrade something to 5G, they have to do so for the entire country, with many US states having an area the size of whole European countries. Texas itself is the size of Germany. That is a much bigger undertaking than improving it for a single European country or even a block of countries like western or central Europe. Things are so spread out here that âremoteâ can mean REALLY remote in some areas. Distances between reasonably sized cities in the US can be much larger than in Europe, and the US has more people in those more rural areas than some think, especially in states in the middle of the country. Local ISPs for internet in those areas can be good depending on the area, but a lot of people in the really rural areas would still be better and more easily served by a service like Starlink.
https://www.wideopencountry.com/map-shows-countries-fit-inside-texas/
This is far more hilarious to see that a good number of European countries fit inside of Texas.
No where in Europe is âremote.â
Come to the South West US where you can drive 100 miles in any direction and barely see another human.
Or maybe donât go there and then complain about the obvious shortfalls of the place. The rural exodus happened for a reason.
