r/pcmasterrace • u/FreeHugs23 • Aug 20 '26

News/Article FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to slower technologies | FCC decides 1Gbps is too fast, standard must be “technologically neutral.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/fcc-abolishes-gigabit-speed-goal-suggesting-it-is-unfair-to-slower-technologies/
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1.3k

u/FredFarms Aug 20 '26

Ah fuck I hate the fact this is almost certainly right..

1.1k

u/Krunkfuninja Aug 20 '26

My friend (a musk Stan) was telling about how awesome his starlink was for only $150. He sent me screenshots of his speed test, 138mb down - 46mb up. I sent him back my speeds with Fiber (1GB/1GB) and my $59.99 bill. He still thinks Starlink is better.

1.1k

u/Trashman56 Aug 20 '26

Starlink is great for people that live in Unabomber cabins, otherwise, not so much.

485

u/samcuu 5700X3D / 32GB / RTX 3080 Aug 20 '26

And people who live in deep mountain areas. There's a reason developing countries are signing up for it. A whole lot cheaper than doing the infrastructure by themselves.

279

u/-spartacus- Stukov Aug 20 '26

I live in the moutains of Montana and here everyone uses it, before this it was some super terrible Hughsnet or if you are lucky crappy DSL.

130

u/choicetomake Aug 20 '26

Ugh Hughesnet. I knew a family that was missing cable internet by a half-mile. Their only option was Hughesnet. The atrocious speed, latency, AND bandwidth. Criminal in my mind.

77

u/X4roth Aug 20 '26

They also have monthly data caps, after which you get throttled to practically dialup speed… really low data caps. Might as well not have internet at all, honestly.

41

u/reddit_pug Aug 20 '26

"throttled to practically dialup speed"

So just a little bit slower than their normal speed, eh?

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u/popejupiter PopeJupiter Aug 20 '26

I worked in a call center a decade ago that also housed a Hughesnet competitor. I forget which one, but it doesn't matter. This was in the infancy of Netflix streaming, so we asked one of our coworkers on the net account what the caps were. IIRC, you could watch maybe a couple of movies before you hit your data cap for the month.

Me, who would go on to stream YouTube on my phone for upwards of 7 hours a day without looking at the screen even once: lmao.

3

u/Narrow-Key365 Aug 20 '26

Viasat, maybe?

3

u/popejupiter PopeJupiter Aug 20 '26

Sounds right. I seem to recall they were either Viasat then they got bought out by someone, or they became Viasat after the buy out.

1

u/rubytook Aug 22 '26

WildBlue?

2

u/HumanPea1140 14700K | 5070 Ti | 64GB DDR5 6000 Aug 20 '26

It's been a decade, but had a family member that had Hughes Net and their data cap was the highest available, but it was still only like 50GB for the entire month. Once you hit 50GB, throttled to dial up speeds and basically nothing would load. Blew my mind.

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u/-spartacus- Stukov Aug 20 '26

They are now bankrupt.

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u/natecoin23 9800X3D | Nitro+ 7900XTX | 64GB DDR5 | 4K OLED 144Hz Aug 20 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/J8FZIm9VoBU6Q

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u/ksheep Ryzen 9 3900X - RX 6700 XT Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

My spouse’s grandparents had a small ranch out in the middle of nowhere, and they were stuck with Hughesnet for ages. They finally got a faster option without data caps when the local ISP put up a microwave internet tower… but they were barely in range (there was a single spot on their property where the receiver could actually see the tower, and only when the receiver was at its absolute highest mounting point).

2

u/Balogne Aug 20 '26

My girlfriend’s mom can see her local cable company’s line on the pole across the street from her house. They won’t cross the road, at least not without forcing her to pay a ton of money. They had DSL until my girlfriend bought the starlink kit for them. Night and day.

2

u/sabotthehawk Aug 20 '26

Had hughesnet for 8 years. Was absolute garbage. Had high speed att two power poles away from house. They wanted 15k to connect us up (said we live on border of interconnect area and they had to run it 5 miles from other direction instead of pulling it 100 yards). Finally had fiber ran by our power company.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/-spartacus- Stukov Aug 20 '26

Not a lot of business running fibre to displaced houses in the mountains, man, or it would already be done. I would love to have it.

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u/Computermaster i9-9990K|64 GB DDR4|EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3|1440p@165Hz Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Do you have phone lines and electricity up there?

Yeah you do.

Do you know why?

Because the government decided decades ago it's better for people to be connected no matter how remote and subsidized you to get hooked up, like they were trying to do with fiber.

EDIT: OH, you're a flaired /r/conservative poster and a Musk stan. Now it makes sense why you love Starlink and hated the idea of Biden giving you fast, reliable terrestrial internet.

14

u/Fastr77 Aug 20 '26

Bet they also get the mail because again.. the government decided a long time ago every American mattered. We know the current government doesn't' believe that tho.

15

u/monkeyhitman Ryzen 7600X | RTX 3080 Ti Aug 20 '26

Don't stop them from enjoying the free market

6

u/jar36 Arch|9800X3D|9070XT|32GB6400MhzCL30|B650EF Aug 20 '26

Biden was able to get fiber out to my home 7 miles across flat land to the nearest town, but now they want an arm and a leg for the service $100/500MB no lower tier available.
I'm actually surprised the RP doesn't give them more money to expand this lucrative business
Another ISP nearby (5G) demands we put their wifi router in bc the govt gave them money to ensure they stay connected and it costs $15/month for the customer. I'm like so the gov't gave you money for this and now you're charging me money for this? Nah

2

u/ITaggie Fedora | Ryzen 5800X | 32GB DDR4 | RX 7700XT Aug 20 '26

but now they want an arm and a leg for the service $100/500MB no lower tier available.

That does suck, but at least it's still cheaper than Satellite internet.

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u/[deleted] Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/EnergyDrinkStroke 5800x (A620SE) | 5060ti 8GB | 32GB 3600mhz Aug 20 '26

It's quite literally the best option for those who have no other viable option, as soon as a viable option appears it massively changes the viability of starlink especially with the cost.

1

u/eagle6705 Aug 20 '26

OMG worked in an MSP and one of our clients had hughsnet....horrible. A friend of mine got starlink. hated the man behind it but he said it was his best choice for his road trip

1

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

Yeah, Montana is a developing nation.

Do you also not have an electrical grid?

1

u/rubytook Aug 22 '26

tbf I live in a small town in Montana and we have fiber now, so there is a difference between even small population centers and the people dotted about the landscape. But indeed, the electrical grid does extend to them, and in most cases, traditional phone lines as well, so you are still 100% on point.

0

u/SlinkyJoe Aug 20 '26

Also great for people on a road trip with campers and such. Say what you want about Elon or whatever but Starlink really is a game changer for a ton of use cases. Running fiber is just not always going to be feasible or the right answer for everything and the speeds are just fine for the purpose Starlink fulfills. Yes it's certainly preferable to have a fiber line, but it's not always going to make sense in every situation.

2

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

You’re really missing the point.

We ran electricity to basically every house in the country.

We can do the same with fiber optics.

By bringing up travelers you are just shifting the goalpost.

2

u/SlinkyJoe Aug 20 '26

I'm not shifting any goalposts I'm just commenting that there are a bunch of really useful cases for Starlink. I agree that fiber is preferable that's why I literally said that. But yeah just throw darts at anyone that tries to have any nuanced discussion outside of "Elon bad". Clearly running fiber along telephone poles is the solution to every problem. There's never any situation in which the poles are already too crowded to add additional lines, or local regulations prevent it, or the fact that fiber is less resilient to bending, tree branches falling on it, weather, etc is part of the reason it's usually run underground. Nothing to discuss here because everyone is an idiot except for you and you know everything there is to know about deploying fiber lines in every environment. I didn't realize I had encountered the fiber wizard. My apologies.

1

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

The thread started with someone claiming we can’t lay fiber in Montana.

You moved the goalpost to “well, some people travel in campers.”

That’s textbook goal shifting.

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u/qtx Aug 20 '26

And people who live in deep mountain areas.

Norway is more mountainous than most countries in the world and they manage just fine with fixed broadband, https://i.imgur.com/zfHLL4f.jpeg

https://nordregio.org/maps/access-to-fixed-broadband-at-minimum-download-speed-100-mpbs/

Pretty much everyone has access to at least 100Mbps.

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u/RenKrios 9850X3D | Red Devil 9070XT | X870E-E | 64GB CL30 6K Aug 20 '26

Norway is also smaller than the State of Montana, has 5x the population, and an economy 7x larger.

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u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

Montana has an electrical grid, so your argument is moot.

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u/RenKrios 9850X3D | Red Devil 9070XT | X870E-E | 64GB CL30 6K Aug 20 '26

You're assuming Norway doesn't?

Norway possesses one of the highest per-capita electricity consumption rates in the world due to the near-total adoption of electric heating and widespread passenger EV adoption, supported by targeted domestic grid distribution upgrades. Norway achieved universal domestic electrification in the mid-20th century. For primary homes (year-round residential dwellings) 100% of the permanent population has access to grid electricity, and all standard residential areas are tied directly to the regional distribution network. There are roughly 455,000 recreational cabins wholly or partially offgrid, that are not taken into account as primary dwellings.

​Montanas power grid is antiquated in comparison.

1

u/rubytook Aug 22 '26

I would like to put in that as antiquated as our power grid is, it's actually far better than a large portion of the rest of the U.S. Just think about that and be sad, lol.

-2

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

What a weird red herring.

You’re just proving the point that if Norway can have modern infrastructure, then so can Montana.

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u/RenKrios 9850X3D | Red Devil 9070XT | X870E-E | 64GB CL30 6K Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Not really a red herring. Might've been a misunderstanding in what each of us was trying to convey.

Montana could and should have modern infrastructure, but won't. At least not to the levels previously being mandated.

Montana's most expensive portion of their BEAD program funding for underserved areas was mostly revised and allotted to satellite providers vs. end-to-end last year. Their expected expenditure was reduced from 630 million to 310 million give or take. With the reduction in pressure on 1gb speed via the FCC's "neutral" stance, it'll be Musk/Bezos unopposed as the path of least resistance for completion compliance, but inferior performance. It also means roughly half of the 40 billion earmarked for full national BEAD funds will go unspent, leaving a cool 20 billion potentially available for Trump appropriations elsewhere.

It's all just money changing pockets and ways of making it happen at the expense of "X", "Y", or "Z" program meant for directly benefitting the American people.

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u/Ok_Cow9652 Aug 20 '26

If the economy is larger... it should be easier. So kind of a shit point tbf

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u/densetsu23 i7-12700K | RTX 3060 Ti | 32GB DDR4 Aug 21 '26

In Alberta, my rural county is currently building a fibre network to hook up every house. Our current local ISPs are line-of-sight wireless, which is horribly inconsistent and badly overloaded. You might get at best 15Mbps in the evenings when everyone is streaming. Ping is over a second.

So the fact that I can get 300Mbps down and 20ms ping via Starlink is a sour blessing. I hate supporting him, but it gives us fast, reliable internet.

I can't wait until our fibre network is complete, and/or when the Canadian satellite ISP (Telesat) comes online. If I'm going to use satellite Internet, it may as well be Canadian.

4

u/unwantedaccount56 Aug 20 '26

Sure, but it required quite some investment into the infrastructure. If there is no infrastructure yet, starlink is significantly cheaper, at least for short term or medium term. Especially for singular customers. If the population density is high enough, so the investment can be split by a lot of customers, then building the ground based infrastructure might be cheaper again.

1

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

…. It’s almost like Musk deliberately undermined or public systems to maintain a captured market, and is is flooding the public discourse to justify it.

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u/unwantedaccount56 Aug 20 '26

flooding the public discourse to justify

I hope you are not implying that I'm a musk puppet.

I'm not denying Musks harmful political influence, but this is on a per country basis, while the investment of spacex into the constellation pays off globally (apart from some groundstations, but they don't even need to be in the same country as the customer). The investment of a singular customer at a remote location for starlink (one-time cost of the antenna) is quite low compared to building conventional infrastructure for that singular customer, even in countries completely outside of musks political influence. Whether conventional infrastructure can compete depends a lot on the remoteness and the number of customers that can share the costs. While the cost for starlink is independent of the location or number of neighbors.

1

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

I understand the benefits of satellite internet.

It doesn’t change the fact that the overall narrative is being led by pundits advocating for abandoning fiber infrastructure to rural Americans due to the availability of starlink.

0

u/unwantedaccount56 Aug 20 '26

I wasn't talking specifically about Americans, since up the comment chain, Norway was given as an example, and Starlink is offered in many countries globally. But for the US, you are probably right.

2

u/Cosmicswashbuckler Aug 20 '26

Infrastructure costs increase with size, im not sure Norway is a great comparison to rural America.

1

u/pkfighter343 5900x 3090 Aug 20 '26

I do wonder if the cost comparison would say that it was worth it, though? Creating and maintaining that network can’t be cheap

2

u/decmcc Aug 20 '26

but they will be stuck with no alternatives, after getting addicted to cheap connection, and when the price jumps 100% they will have no option but be squeezed

1

u/sociofobs Aug 20 '26

Cheaper in the short term, and it's far from cheap for the end customer. How much does that thing cost, $150 a month? In some developing countries, a monthly full-time paycheck can be less than that.

1

u/longlivenewsomflesh Aug 20 '26

But this is fucking terrible for those countries because it disincentivizes political will to build infrastructure, while also locking them in to the whims of starlink...

It's basically the uber model -- even if you assume they won't just enshittify down the road (make service worse and raise prices to increase profit once there's no alternative), just the fact that this grinds to a halt any progress on infrastructure the same way cities stopped investing in public transit for a decade while uber was still taking a loss with cheap fares... doesn't bode well

1

u/TotalChaosRush Aug 20 '26

Or people who just happen to be on the wrong side of the railroad tracks.

1

u/OcotilloWells Aug 20 '26

Even then it can be ad. Apparently you need it to be visible to a very wide swath of sky. I knew someone that said it didn't work at their cabin due to all the tall trees around, and they couldn't put it on a pole high enough.

1

u/Opi-Fex Aug 20 '26

"A whole lot cheaper" - Only for a short while, only if you don't plan on everyone having access to internet, and only if you're okay with all of your connectivity having a single shutdown button controlled by a psychopath.

40

u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 Aug 20 '26

Cmon man, now that no one can afford houses, Starlink is going to be great when we are all able to save up enough to maybe buy a used RV to live in!

26

u/cheesynougats Aug 20 '26

Surely you meant "rent a used RV." None of us are going to have buying money.

3

u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 Aug 20 '26

Subscribe to RV plus for only $699 per month.

Or maybe you are interested in our RV plus max ultra? It includes running water

2

u/ChewsOnBricks 3080 Ti | i9 12900K | 80 GB RAM Aug 21 '26

*Running water subject to limitations, only available from 10pm to 3am on days divisible by 7

1

u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 Aug 21 '26

**flow rate may be restricted during high usage times or after meeting or exceeding 5 gallons weekly

8

u/Separate-Spot-8910 Aug 20 '26

By RV, you mean a tent and a bicycle, right?

3

u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 Aug 20 '26

The new “starter home”

13

u/snap802 PC Master Race | Pentium 90 | Riva TNT graphics Aug 20 '26

It's way better than Hughes net ever was. I have a friend who lives way out and only had Hughes for the longest time. Going from Hughes to Starlink was a big step forward.

Lucky for him the dropped fiber out there finally (a co-op formed with the power company before those rural Internet grants got cut) and now he's got a gig up and down. No cell service though...

80

u/ThePupnasty PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

The wife travels for her work (I'm talking global scale) with chances of being in bum fuck no where. She has Google fi and hotspots off her phone, and so far that's been super freaking reliable wherever she's gone (Madagascar, other parts of Africa, South Korea, cambodia, poland, most of the EU, Mexico, Canada... But in the off chance she is out of cell service area, starlink portable would come in clutch. Trust me, I hate that dipshit Elon, I really fucking do, but it's hard to deny that starlink can be a good, capable solution in some situations.

55

u/Useful_Radish_117 Aug 20 '26

When you handle an international drug cartel but you also want to insta pretty dinner plates.

23

u/ThePupnasty PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

Shshsh!

4

u/AnimalRescueGuy Aug 20 '26

I love digging deep into a convo thread and finding gold like this. There’s my sensible chuckle for the day, thanks.

5

u/xxademasoulxx Aug 20 '26

The DEA’s toughest competitor is apparently the Google Fi coverage map.

3

u/Ok_Cow9652 Aug 20 '26

South Korea has the best internet in the world.

2

u/RyujiCM Mac mini M4 24/512GB Aug 21 '26

Thailand too

1

u/ThePupnasty PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

I have no doubt about that. She was just there for a layover. Would love to go there myself sometime.

1

u/icedlemons Aug 20 '26

I like to think he’s just in the way of hard working smart people, like every CEO in a corporation… However it’s still hard to reconcile he’s such a public facing embarrassment.

1

u/eagle6705 Aug 20 '26

Yea my friend is in that position doing his cross country trip

0

u/serious_sarcasm Aug 20 '26

Really moving those goalposts.

4

u/Named_after_color Aug 20 '26

Yeah it's actually a great tech for the mountain folk around me.

Not joking. Surrounded by mountains.

1

u/spyboy70 R9 9950X | 4080 Super | 96GB DDR5 Aug 20 '26

Surrounded by mountains? Lucky you, I'm just surrounded by assholes.

1

u/LordoftheCorgis Aug 20 '26

I live in a town big enough to have a walmart along a major highway an starlink is literally my only option for home internet.

1

u/moistiest_dangles Aug 20 '26

Yeah I think it's a really cool technology for mobile or hard to reach areas but to make that the ceiling is fucking stupid.

1

u/icedlemons Aug 20 '26

Great now all the Teds can just upload their frustrations to Facebook or Truth Social… 🙄

1

u/SgathTriallair Ryzen 7 3700X; 2060 Super; 16GB RAM Aug 20 '26

Or travel to remote locations frequently. It's great for accessing areas without real civilization but it absolutely isn't a total replacement for other forms of connection (like fiber).

1

u/BJYeti Aug 20 '26

Before a isp started installing fiber near my dad in bum fuck nowhere I suggested starlink since the local is was lucky to get like 3mb down but now that fiber is being installed he is switching to that

1

u/Pack_Your_Trash Aug 20 '26

So... The Republican base.

1

u/BicFleetwood Aug 20 '26

As someone who aspires to one day live in a Unabomber cabin in the fuckin' deep-wood, I still wouldn't use Starlink.

-1

u/PiccoloAwkward465 Aug 20 '26

Pretty convenient for remote construction sites. We had cell hotspots but they sucked dong.

I still remember my HS friend crying about his HughesNet satellite internet because it would take him literal days to download a World of Warcraft patch and would often fail halfway through lol. So he'd try to download patches in the school computer lab and we'd try to shut off the computer midway.

129

u/Lemonsqueeze321 Aug 20 '26

Starlink isn't meant for people who can get fiber to the house. Starlink is made for the people who can only get shitty dsl and where ISPs refuse to run cable.

68

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Aug 20 '26

The problem is our goal should be to get fiber to all the places possible and then leave starlink or other satellites for the rest. The trump admin just nixed that.

42

u/eaglecnt Aug 20 '26

Next up, kneecapping Olympic sprinters because it’s not fair that they can run faster than other people.

2

u/lavapig_love Aug 20 '26

Given how many Olympic gold-medal sprinters are black, it would not surprise me to see your sarcasm become reality under this administration.

19

u/AJsRealms Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

Lots of rural communities whose only viable hope for their economic future is in attracting cyber-service jobs or work-from-home types have just had their fates sealed.

0

u/Lemonsqueeze321 Aug 20 '26

In my rural community that's all the pull now. I've got places literally on top of mountains that have fiber and I don't. It's not an administration problem, they can't force ISPs to change to fiber or extend it out to places that they won't make money. I don't agree with it but it's just the reality of it.

11

u/jamesdukeiv Ryzen 7 7800X3D | RTX 5070 | 32GB Aug 20 '26

I mean, they could force it, that’s literally what standard are for and ISPs were given grants to do it that they just blew on stock buybacks instead.

9

u/under_psychoanalyzer Aug 20 '26

We literally subsidize the shit out of them to do just that.

8

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Aug 20 '26

There are places in Norfolk Virginia that don't have fiber simply because the city is negotiating with Verizon and Verizon says their subsidy isn't big enough.

2

u/lavapig_love Aug 20 '26

Then Norfolk can say we'll go to a competitor, you can get nothing, good day.

Time to remember you have balls and hit them back hard.

2

u/Apprehensive-Pin518 Aug 20 '26

There are no good competitors for fiber around here. the cosest we get is cox cable and there was a reason why I jumped ship the moment FIOS was available in my area of virginia beach.

7

u/DeepSea_Diverticulit Aug 20 '26

Look at the incentive programs. Look at the amount of taxpayer dollars that have been thrown at ISPs. Look at your damn internet bill. For once do the smallest amount of research. WE LITERALLY PAID FOR IT. The government has given billions to internet companies to expand their service to remote areas that are not profitable. But thanks to a lack of accountability, they still haven't done a great job at that. And now you want to come in here and let them off the hook again? What ever the fuck happened to the concept of better service through competition? We all just throwing that old chestnut out the window because someone in power that you agree with told you to give it up? For once look beyond your blind admiration and have a conscious critical thought.

1

u/kaplanfx Aug 20 '26

According to the SpaceX prospectus all internet users will use Starlink by the 2030s…

80

u/Sefren1510 Aug 20 '26

Starlink is a fantastic, game changing technology. It can service people in rural and remote areas with speeds high enough that you can't tell a difference for 99% of uses. That being said, it cannot compete with fiber Internet in either speed or cost. It isn't meant to. Starlink does it's niche role better than anyone else, but it shouldn't be used as an alternative to fiber networks, that's just silly.

29

u/Deadeye313 14700K | 9070XT | 64GB RAM Aug 20 '26

Yes. You're paying for the ability to have internet across the entire planet wirelessly but wires always beat wireless.

It's like trucks vs railroads. Trucks can go anywhere but they can't haul as much as efficiently as a train. Electrons and photons like having physical wires or plastic/glass tubes to run along and be focused by versus just being sprayed at a target like a garden hose.

7

u/jangxx 7950X3D - RTX4090 - 64GB - Linux Mint 21/Win 10 Aug 20 '26

Electrons and photons like having physical wires or plastic/glass tubes to run along and be focused by versus just being sprayed at a target like a garden hose.

The main thing is that the "airwaves" are a medium shared by everyone, from FM radio, to WiFi, to Starlink, to rays coming from the sun, so it's super congested. A strand of glass fibers or even a copper cable on the other hand is basically exclusive between the sender and receiver so you can use stronger signals, wider frequency bands and need less overhead to guarantee signal integrity.

2

u/frakking_you Aug 20 '26

You're also likely paying to be MItM data harvested.

1

u/PeaceLoveMicroPenis Aug 20 '26

Isn't wireless in your scenario an airplane?

11

u/Dpek1234 Aug 20 '26

It is an alternative to shitty ISPs and a completely independant system too

2

u/Ok-Employer-3051 Aug 20 '26

It's a shitty ISP as well as being overpriced. Next thing people like you will be claiming it's a floor wax too.

1

u/Deadeye313 14700K | 9070XT | 64GB RAM Aug 20 '26

You just have to deal with a shitty guy who has no problem bribing and corrupting our government to get what he wants, and he'll tell you that to your face.

-2

u/Dpek1234 Aug 20 '26

As oposed to companies doing the same but trying to keep it a secret?

Choice is choice, the more the better

-3

u/Deadeye313 14700K | 9070XT | 64GB RAM Aug 20 '26

I think some people, including people I know, are waiting until Amazon or someone else comes in so they aren't forced to buy starlink from Elon.

2

u/Dpek1234 Aug 20 '26

Ok

Just know that you wont be buying it as a equivelant to todays starlink for quite a while 

50

u/ElectricalChaos Aug 20 '26

Fiber is 100% better. Hell even cable is better than Starlink. I'm stuck using Starlink because my location has cellular as the only terrestrial service option.

-9

u/GeoBro3649 Aug 20 '26

For now. Check out ASTSpacemobile and what they are doing.

5

u/spyboy70 R9 9950X | 4080 Super | 96GB DDR5 Aug 20 '26

Cool, so I can get shitty Verizon speeds from space that are not as unlimited as they say (throttled down after X amount of bandwidth consumed).

Not great for a house, but totally fine when just traveling.

-1

u/GeoBro3649 Aug 20 '26

A comparable service for a fraction of the price. You'll pay a few bucks more on your phone bill since they work with the mobile network operator. Youd be able to ditch Musk products.

3

u/spyboy70 R9 9950X | 4080 Super | 96GB DDR5 Aug 20 '26

Everything I've seen in the past about cellular internet to a house seems awful and expensive. But if the total cost per month is less than Starlink and has comparable bandwidth usage, I agree, ditching Musk products would be awesome.

I don't know how cell internet for a house is now, I don't need it, I have 2 gigabit fiber.

Good internet and cell coverage were top of list when I was looking to buy a place 10 years ago.

-1

u/GeoBro3649 Aug 20 '26

Well in your case this wont apply, but AST will be utilizing lowband spectrum which has greater penetration into buildings.You wont be limited by needing a clear view of the sky either. For those really off-grid types, it could be a game changer. You won't need to spend $400 minimum on a terminal and another $150+ a month on a subscription. A price that has been raised, idk how many times even just this past year.

2

u/ElectricalChaos Aug 20 '26

Kinda. There are some locations where Starlink is your only option due to cell coverage. I'm in one of those boundary areas where I kinda have cell coverage, but it's one of those areas where your phone is going to be flipping between 5G/LTE constantly. I can hotspot from my phone as an emergency measure, but I'm not getting enough bandwidth to make it a sole-source solution. So Musk it is until the local cable company decides to care enough to come out to the boonies.

7

u/RandoCommentGuy Aug 20 '26

I got my parents signed up during the beta, it tested around ~300 to ~400 symmetrical back then, haven't tested it since, but price has gone up from $100 originally. Before they had LTE (before 5g) which they kept running out of halfway through the month so the data would slow down, I should probably look into 5G now for them.

1

u/PeaceLoveMicroPenis Aug 20 '26

I should probably look into 5G now for them

Why? To downgrade them?

12

u/Dangermouse454 Aug 20 '26

I am currently demoing Starlink, until my fiber is installed next Wednesday. Starlink is by far better than Hughesnet and other satellite services. It’s fast, but I wouldn’t consider it blinding fast. It is not, however, what I would call stable. The fluctuations in download speeds and latency are a problem, especially if you’re trying to gain with it. It’s not a fast as my old cable service was.

30

u/Aran1989 PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

So thankful for my fiber lol! Fucking ridiculous it’s not the standard, but our infrastructure is ass in the US (and we sell out everytime, when it comes to doing things for our people).

19

u/ThePupnasty PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

Sir, this is America, not a country that isn't a global super power, you can't have it your way.

7

u/Aran1989 PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

:(

6

u/carnoworky Aug 20 '26

Ah, don't worry. We're rapidly headed in the direction of being a fallen empire. Maybe we can get infrastructure then!

5

u/survivorr123_ Aug 20 '26

that's the price of being an early adopter, there is no incentive to modernize existing infrastructure once it was built

4

u/_murb 5800x3d/TitanRTX/64gb/nr200 Aug 20 '26

If you don’t have access to fiber it’s fantastic

2

u/Darth_Boggle Aug 20 '26

Reminds me of my friend who always preferred Apple to Windows computers. His parents bought him a $2k computer that he would kinda use for school and otherwise play video games.

At the time it performed worse than any $800 Windows PC you could find anywhere. It struggled with a lot of games. But he still loved it.

2

u/Livecrazyjoe Aug 20 '26

Stupid is as Stupid does.

2

u/ChillinLikeAPanda Aug 20 '26

He's not a gamer for sure, those latency will have me hammer the damn thing.

2

u/RyujiCM Mac mini M4 24/512GB Aug 21 '26

Some Thais who dislike the current Thai government want Elon Musk to invest 100% in Starlink, but this is illegal in Thailand. According to Thai law, foreigners investing in Thailand must register in Thailand and hold only 49% of the shares. Elon Musk refuses to accept this and wants to invest 100%. Some Thais who are extremely supportive of Elon Musk even support him (because most of them dislike the shady Chinese investors who engage in illegal activities, yet they allow Elon to enter the market). However, the Thai government is not cooperating.

1

u/Krunkfuninja Aug 21 '26

Interesting

2

u/Vento_of_the_Front Aug 21 '26

Starlink is better because of how it's not linked to a particular location, which is the primary selling point. The only downside is delay - as in, it should be about 100ms or so JUST from modem to node, while in fiber it's nonexistent. And delay is going to be a dealbreaker for some people, much more than speed which is not used like 95% of the time.

4

u/RealLateToast Aug 20 '26

Great - now show me the fiber bill for someone in an extremely rural part of the country. Oh they don’t have one, because up until Starlink, the only two options were POTS/DSL, or really really crappy EarthLink satellite.

Yes, it turns out that not every person in US lives in suburban Westchester.

1

u/iamflame Aug 20 '26

How rural is extremely rural? Lowering the bar will only lead to everything outside of a major city being labelled rural and starlink sufficient.

Our rural MN cabin got fiber before my home because there was less red tape from the jurisdiction. There are some places in the mountains or in a pit where the buildout is unreasonable, but we are going to need some italics on that extremely.

3

u/zerofailure Aug 20 '26

Starlink is a game changer for rural America (which much of reddit forgets that exists)

2

u/Goldarr85 Aug 20 '26

Sounds like you need new friends if they do basic math and lack critical thinking skills.

1

u/dinglebarryb0nds Aug 20 '26

If you live out in the country, starlink is pretty awesome. There’s zero reason to use it in most populated areas

I have gig speed for 65 I think from att so it would be really dumb of us to use it, but for some it’s a pretty huge advancement

1

u/Diaza_Kinutz Aug 20 '26

Damn how do you get fiber so cheap? AT&T charges $100 per month where I live.

1

u/Fantastic-Buddy2069 Aug 20 '26

I mean tbh, Starlink IS a pretty solid service for what it is, outside of the fact it’s CGNAT (gross). But, assuming you have a clear sky view, you have access near instantaneous to it.

What is really impressive to me the most is their Starlink mini/roam product really. That’s a game changer imo.

I have spectrum and also tested a run with Starlink as well. Starlink was actually lower latency on avaerage, web pages often loaded much snappier, nothing ever buffered or felt slow. I can’t say the same for Spectrum at all.

Even with faster speeds, Spectrum still “felt” slower.

Even during rainstorms and snowstorms, Starlink held up very reliably.

So yeah, Starlink isn’t the end all be all product, but it’s fantastic service for those who can’t get anything else. It’s a pretty tried and proven reliable service.

1

u/KimJongEen Aug 20 '26

You’ll have a hell of a hard time beating Starlink’s speed to price ratio in almost all rural areas. You’re just proving that urban areas have better internet options than rural.

1

u/SupernovaGamezYT Aug 20 '26

I’m no musk fan, but for places where there isn’t fiber or are just straight up in the middle of nowhere, starlink is a game changer

1

u/jeremiah15165 Aug 20 '26

It’s good for developing countries and rural areas that don’t have modern infrastructure.

1

u/Fomentatore Aug 20 '26

My 2gb per second fiber connection at euro 21,99 per month is very jealous of your friend starlink.

This was possibile because Iliad entered the Italian market and took no prisoners. Before that every company was basically a legal cartel.

1

u/CompSolstice Aug 20 '26

Starlink is only useful on planes, honestly. Being able to chat with my pilot dad is great. But damn, I'm getting 2 and 5 Gbps in my two countries for 50 and 120 USD respectively

1

u/AngelosOne Aug 20 '26

Well, not everyone has fiber available to them. Some people don’t even have cable - so Starlink is pretty good for what it is- an option for people.

1

u/anitawasright Intel i9 9900k/RTX 4070 ti super /32gig ram Aug 20 '26

I mean if I lived in the middle of no where yeah that's fantastic... but if you live even in a place where you can get even just cable tv that's horribe.

1

u/TheCivilizedBigDog Aug 20 '26

The only people who seem to like it are those who live in the middle of nowhere (obviously) and those with lots of money who don't care about the value proposition of the speeds offered for the price. At that point it all becomes paying for convenience.

1

u/less_unique_username Aug 20 '26

It’s diminishing returns past a certain point, which is definitely well under 100 Mbps. Streaming H.265 4K video takes 20ish Mbps. It’s not easy to saturate a 100 Mbps channel with anything but torrents.

1

u/HenryKushinger 9800X3D | 4070 Ti | Bazzite | 64 GB RAM | 14 TB of SSD space Aug 20 '26

Starlink is a cool idea if you live in the middle of fucking nowhere. If you're Eustace and Muriel living in Nowhere with your dog Courage, Starlink's great. If you live somewhere with civilization, not so much

1

u/_vkboss_ Aug 20 '26

totally different usecases though, my garmin inreach can text, and so can my iphone (with images and video too!), but if im stuck in the wilderness, id much rather be left with an inreach than an iphone

1

u/amazing-haves-34 Aug 20 '26

You should compare lag.

1

u/Guardian_of_theBlind Ryzen 7 5800x3d, 4070 super, 32GB Ram Aug 20 '26

your dude probably also cropped the image in a way so, that you don't see the terrible ping.

1

u/hatesnack Aug 20 '26

Man when I was in high school, circa 2008, we had Hughesnet satellite internet and it was the worst. Id have cried for joy to see 138mb down. In the best of times, we'd get like 5mb down, but most of the time it was barely better than dialup.

We lived in the middle of the woods, and the ISP basically said my parents would need to drop 20k to get phone poles removed and lines run for us to have internet.

1

u/Cromagmadon A8-7600 ֎ R7-360 ֍ 16G DDR3-1600 Aug 20 '26

I always ask about if they had used Hughesnet, Viasat, or Cellular before. I always get picachu face.

1

u/ParanoidalRaindrop Aug 20 '26

I think you mean Gb, not GB.

1

u/berniestness Aug 20 '26

It’s clearly better in that it’s accessible to everyone. Other than that If you can get fiber, get it.

1

u/22Sharpe Aug 20 '26

Starling can be an amazing service for people in remote areas that otherwise would only have satellite internet. For example we stayed at an AirBnB recently that had no cell service so definitely no good internet and the starlink gave a stable 150Mbps down and 50 up. That’s a far cry from my 1.5Gbps each way at home BUT for where it was it offered very usable performance.

To say it’s better than a dedicated fibre line though is just absolutely ludicrous.

1

u/Physmatik Aug 20 '26

Obviously fiber is faster if you have it, but it's not covering every square meter on the planet.

1

u/StormMedia Aug 20 '26

Starlink has legitimately great uses but of course it’s almost never better than a traditional wired connection and definitely not fiber

1

u/NosillaWilla 3770k @ 4.6ghz, 16gb DDR3 2400mhz, 780gtx 3gb Aug 20 '26

i regretfully have starlink cuz it's that or 1bar of 4g LTE or 20k to run a cable to my house by the ISP which also includes full monthly payments and convincing any neighbor along the way to also buy their service. The FCC is a joke.

1

u/Actionbrener Aug 20 '26

Imagine being that far up musks ass

1

u/aethyrium Aug 20 '26

I absolutely love Starlink because I live quite literally in the middle of a forest in the mountains and the only pre-Starlink internet was that shitty satellite internet with 1 second ping and super strict data limits.

I'd love fiber and would go with it if I could get it, but not all of the world lives in cities, and Starlink's speed with sub 100 ping is basically black magic for us forest hermits.

I hate Musk as much as the next fella, but Starlink for its prescribed use case is fucking awesome.

1

u/869066 PC Master Race Aug 20 '26

Starlink is only good if your only options are DSL or other satelite services, fiber and even fible are much better and cheaper

1

u/syphon3980 Desktop Aug 21 '26

Really? A friend of mine in rural canada got it because the internet where he lived was horrible. He paid like $130 and was getting well over 40 MB/s. He also got a “little” portable receiver for free maybe Canada gets better reception

1

u/offensiveDick Aug 20 '26

Yeah because it comes from space wich is cool /s

1

u/ClownEmoji-U1F921 R5 9600X | 1060 6GB | 64GB DDR5 | 4TB NVME | 1440p Aug 20 '26

Now, try living someplace with no fiber or cable access. Your options would be mobile tower, GEO sat or LEO sat internet.

1

u/DedRonin Aug 20 '26

This is basically why I've cut off all contact with anyone that is a Republican or Republican adjacent, like you'll happily get ass fucked and then call yourself an Alpha lol

1

u/WanderingSimpleFish Aug 20 '26

Added the link to the news article, sky news so 🤷‍♂️

1

u/Cave_TP GPD Win 4 7840U | RX 9070XT eGPU Aug 20 '26

No, why would be true.

It's not like we're talking about a company owned by the same guy who pulled that Hyperloop shit out of his ass just to take founds away from californian high speed rail.