UK to test Starlink satellite broadband for those hard to reach areas The UK government is the latest to test out the Starlink satellite broadband service amid efforts to connect homes and businesses in poorly served areas of the country. A trial was officially launched this week by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to examine how satellite broadband could be used to …
We had the whole street (~300m) tarmacked just a couple of years ago... it was immediately dug up to add speed humps... then Virgin dug a trench the whole length to add their fibre... then Thames Water laid a new water main... now another fibre company is currently just a few streets away and approaching fast
The trouble is that the Elongated Muskrat is totally unstable and unreliable. He is just as likely to cut off the service citing "ideological differences between the way the UK is run and the way he would run it if he was emperor of the UK" as to randomly drop the speed on purpose on a whim, or double the price "to annoy us".
Genuinely don't see why this is creating such headlines. Starlink is (now) a proven way of accessing high speed internet more or less anywhere that falls within their global coverage and is relied on by 1000's of customers worldwide.
It's simple to setup, largely consisting of positioning the dish/receiver somewhere with a clear view of the sky and plugging things in. Instant high speed connectivity.
It's usually much quicker than 4G or older FTTC broadband and unless you can get proper fibre, which of course is better, will indeed provide high speed connectivity without needing to run cables.
Good way to burn cash I suppose.
As for selecting Starlink over OneWeb etc, suppose that's probably got a lot to do with Starlink being commercially available off the shelf - and available to buy and use right now.
It's a shame El Reg decided to go for a cheap shot at OneWeb rather than actually look into the issue and answer the question.
If they had bothered, they would have found that OneWeb still have to put more satellites up (they lost their launch slots and a bunch of satellites when the Russia-Ukraine conflict kicked off - Russia refused to launch them and also refused to return the satellites that had already been sent to the launch site).
Moreover OneWeb never said they would provide a consumer service (not at first, anyway) - their service is designed to be wholesale. Think a mobile phone operator who wants to put a base station out in the boonies but can't trench the fibre to get to it, or a shipping company wanting to provide connectivity to their fleet.
Just been reading an article on the BBC about 5G. It seems that in most cases, it's only 5G between the phone and the mast. After that, it's 4G. The backhaul has to be upgraded too, and so far, no one is doing that. The only real improvement over 4G is if you are really quite close to a 5G mast. It appears, shock! horror!, that the marketing wonks have been over-promising the current capabilities, ie it's a 10 year roll-out that's only three years on and, apparently, only about 10% of the population actually own 5G capable phones. It may well, likely will, be a wonderful system when it's all rolled out in 20-30 years of the 10 year roll out plan, but we're still a long way from that. (Delays already included due to having to pull Huawei kit out of the networks)
“The government also said it has now signed a £108 million ($131 million) contract with Northern Ireland-based provider Fibrus to connect up to 60,000 rural homes and businesses in Cumbria in northwest England that might otherwise have missed out on upgrades to install high-speed broadband services.”
B-b-but how could anywhere be ‘missed out’.
BoJo *everywhere* would get fibre broadband by 2025.
Not a liar is he ??
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2019/07/17/boris_johnsons_promise_of_fullfibre_by_2025_is_pie_in_the_sky/
Here in the shadow of Beetham Tower a small community of Miles Platting just a (large) stones throw from the centre of Manchester (UK) await for speed (not that sort) - here in my humble abode we (as in my pussy) receive the mouth watering 10 meg download and 1 meg upload. No FTTC at the cab and 1.4Km from Collyhurst exchange. No cable either.
So if your getting better speeds, stop moaning and be fucking thankful.
Oh no, not notspots again ...
What happened to the UKGovt. negotiations to force mobile service providers to allow roaming in rural areas, as all our phones can do if we go to Europe?
A business solution that would obviate using satellite except to sites with truly zero cover?
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