Starlink was offered for free to those hit by Hurricane Helene. It is not entirely free The free Starlink service Elon Musk and SpaceX so graciously promised for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene in the US is not actually entirely free, according to those living in the aftermath - and the internet satellite operator's own signup page. There is a significant caveat: You are still expected to foot the bill …
Are we honestly surprised given that full autonomy for Autopilot/FSD/FSD (Supervised)/whatever it's called this week has been announced as just around the corner now for the past 10 years and customers can pay now to ensure they get a discount compared to the release price.
He needs a distraction after analysts have calculated that Tesla's October 10th event can only be bad news for Tesla owners. It's either new unfulfilled promises or breaking old unfulfilled promises.
Because you're trying to find holes in the piece but it's pretty simple. Starlink boasted it was offering free service in the area. Everyone got excited. It was a PR coup. That was nice of SpaceX.
When people on the ground, struggling to recover from the storm, looked at the offer in hope of using it, though, they found they had to shell out $400 to get going with it.
And then they got mad, and then they told us, and then we told you.
C.
Argumentum ad Muskium...to be soon wikipedied next to argumentum ad nazium.
If you can't argue - tell them they are blindly following the object of critic and highroad away - possibly with the nose so vertical it catches flies and mosquitoes at speed :)
If you can't side with a bad person when they are right, you can't be a good person.
If they really meant it, they'd drive down there with a truck full of dishes and hand them out for the one month, then collect them back from those that don't want/don't need it after the month. They could put a hold on the people's credit cards as surety for the loan of the dish.
That would be a real PR coup, as opposed to half arsed idea that will cause a backlash almost as big as the original coup...
You're allowed to have an opinion on the news. That's fine. That doesn't make it wrong.
The AC also has an opinion on Elon Musk. The story seems to be at odds with that opinion, and the AC believes that is wrong. The truth is that you are not wrong, they are just butt-hurt that someone has said something negative about Elon.
I was just saying this, but from the other side, this could easily come back to hurt him and Trump, if the mainstream news carries the bait-and-switch story.
If they really wanted to capitalize this for the election, Musk and Trump would have sent a truck with dishes down there and started handing them out, not conning desperate people into paying through the nose.
I was completely unaware that Walmart, Best Buy, Costco and Home Depot stores were completely immune to hurricanes and all the staff that are needed to run the stores live in hurricane proof houses with transport links to work which are, wait for it, hurricane proof. On top of that you would need people to be able to get to the stores and buy them in the aftermath of a hurricane and hope that the internet and power lines aren't down and I almost forgot a spare $400 dollars available for this "free" service.
Do you not realise how silly you sound? Is there not a point where you are typing a comment and think to yourself "I'm going to look stupid here" and decide against it? The mind boggles.
I think you underestimate the US capitalist culture and exploitation of employees... If there's a possibility of opening a store... they'll be demanding employees turn up for work regardless of their situation... A hurricane is no excuse for employees shirking their responsibilities to their corporate overlords.
Yes, and? Only now is Starlink sheepishly saying you need to already have a dish before you get this free service.
It's cool to offer 30 days free. Just be upfront that this applies primarily to those already with Starlink. Otherwise it's just seemingly a sly way to draw people into a subscription.
C.
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Elon SKUM clearly wants his cut of the $750 that FEMA are giving people in the affected area.
Grift Central is working normally.
One question....
How much will he give to Trump and more importantly, where is Trump's contribution to the GofundMe that he (or his staff) started?
I see sagebuush blowing down main st in the wind from Trump's mouth. His wallet will remain shut.
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You do realise that you're just trying to explain ration reasons to the Musketards... and unlike the Musketeers, there's more than 3 (or 4) of them and they will continue to troll and down vote anything and anyone who dares to do anything other than worship their lord and saviour.
Some of us have eyes and ears, and we notice some time back that he is an obvious charlatan. Probably round about the time where he got in a huff when some cave rescuers said "no thanks" to his ill-though-out offer of a submarine, and started mouthing off and called someone "pedo guy". That was, at least, the point where we noticed he's an absolute c**t. We already had questions about his business acumen and extreme wealth. Hint: extreme wealth (and I really mean extremely, extremely, extreme, more than you could spend in a thousand lifetimes wealth here) is never acquired through fair dealing and being a decent person. At best, it is done by finding a loophole somewhere and ruthlessly exploiting it to the expense and detriment of others. I utterly fail to understand why anyone would be on the side of any billionaire, because they'd all kill you and sell your organs without even thinking about it, if they thought they could get away with it.
"... Given that criminals often band together I'm now wondering what Musk has managed to get away with so far."
Well when he was running Paypal he stole money from me - closed my account with credit in it, but didn't return the funds - but I guess that doesn't count as it wasn't enough to be worth suing him for.
If I'm up a mountain in NC with the way things are at the moment there's no way that I'm going to be able to make it to my nearest Best Buy to buy a Starlink terminal, even if it was free. People are having a lot of problems with just the basics at the moment. There are a lot of terminals around but they tend to be in peoples' RVs and the like (around here, anyway) so being able to just turn it on and use it without having a current subscription is really useful. Being able to share the link with a community -- acting as a communications hub for that community -- would be invaluable.*
Post-disaster communications can be a problem. VHF and HF radio (amateur, CB and even FRS) are useful but have limited bandwidth. (In our county emergency communications is well organized using the resources of both the county and the local radio amateurs.)
(*I'd guess that buried in the terms of service somewhere is a prohibition against sharing the terminal's bandwidth which would obviously be waived during this type of emergency.)
Really, for situations like this, Google's Loons might be a better idea, configured to provide 4G/5G just like any cell tower sharing.
Or Amazon's drone deliveries, or a competitor. Order terminal, drone drops it off. Which could be an interesting DR scenario for drone technology. Then a need for heavier lift drones to deliver Honda generators, jerry cans of fuel, or just slabs of drinking water. But usual challenges in disasters like this are roads being washed out, utilities following roads and being washed out as well or flooded and caternary cabling being damaged by falling trees. Or just the scale, especially with another storm rolling in and the limitations on the number of gensets or porta-PoPs that can be deployed to restore services.
I wonder how you expect those drones to work in an area where the communications infrastructure has gone down.
I was making a suggestion for a fairly flexible communication infrastructure, which would also be useful for emergency services, while they do the real work of clearing up, supplying, rebuilding. Mesh of drone/balloons providing services with limited bandwidth (TikTok, Netflix, YouTube not really needed in emergencies…) but near uninversal coverage for existing mobile devices.
I wonder how you expect those drones to work in an area where the communications infrastructure has gone down.
The same way they're working in Ukraine?
Mesh of drone/balloons providing services with limited bandwidth (TikTok, Netflix, YouTube not really needed in emergencies…) but near uninversal coverage for existing mobile devices.
Sure, meshed networks could make sense, or just risk revinventing the wheel. Working with existing devices limits the frequencies, as would the terrain..Especially as frequencies have increased, reducing device range. So you'd end up needing a dense mesh to provide what might be no more than basic telephony. Alternatively, broadband satellite services exist, there are plans to enable mobile phone connectivity and there are competiting services already. So buy 100,000 Starlink terminals and call it good.. For Starlink anyway, which is probably what Musk is angling for.
SpaceX isn't just saying now, sheepishly or otherwise that you'll need to get a dish. This is an offer meant to help people who have activation issues.
They were always clear it's service only.
If you buy a dish at retail just put it on at you'll have Internet for 30 days.
There's no need to pretend something underhanded is going on. You don't need to sign up and many of these retailers offer longer than 30 day returns.
Starlink is doing a run-of-the mill "first month free when you sign up" deal, which excludes the cost of the equipment, and requires you to sign up to s $120 a month plan (probably with a minimum term).
That's what I see. Absolutely bog-standard marketing ploy, and fuck all to do with disaster-relief.
Not even the half-price-for-12-months sort of deal ISPs here in the UK throw out like free biros at a marketing convention.
I have no use for anything that's "free" for a period of time if I cancel before the trial period has expired otherwise my credit card will be billed. Since I changed cell phone service providers, I have nothing on auto-pay and plan to keep it that way. Just like taxes, once permission is given, revoking said permission will be very difficult. That sort of thing isn't unknown so the the first step in avoiding a *trap* - is knowing of its existence. Hmmm, where have I heard that before?
Yeah, anything that claims to be "free", but requires you to enter your card details.
Nope.
The corollary to this is where you can sign up easily for a subscription, online, in seconds, but if you want to cancel that subscription? Twenty minutes on hold to a cancellation line, where the "retentions team" tries to offer discounts and upsell you related products, through an unskippable script, for another ten minutes. Some of us (many, I suspect, in the business of IT, which tends to over-represent those with ASD characteristics) really hate having tot talk to people on the phone in the first place.
I don't see why it can't be law that if you can sign up for something by whatever method you choose (online, phone, email, post, in person visit to a shop, whatever), then you must be able to cancel via the same method.
See also: anything that requires your phone number to sign up. I had to supply one for a fucking DBS check the other day. Mandatory, unskippable field for mobile number. Why do they need that to do a periodic re-check for a job I've been in for the best part of two decades?
I specifically acquired a SIM for that with a separate number (abroad, in this country they want ID).
It's only active when idiots ask me such questions and they want to confirm. Good luck calling or texting me on that for the 10 minutes a month max it's live.
The better tactic is to get a friend that has a boat and work on getting invited to go out with them with bribes made from beer and pizza. In this case, find somebody that has Starlink or another sat internet service and pay them to use some when you need it (obviously, don't suck it all up watching movies on Netflix).
"later the guy said, “thanks, you changed my mind, I was thinking about buying one.”
It CAN make sense to buy a boat, but not unless you are going to use it, a lot. The trick then is to have a lot of friends to go out with you that will chip in for fuel, beer and pizza. I didn't go scuba diving every weekend so it was better to know another few divers with boats.
There is a significant caveat: You are still expected to foot the bill for the hardware.
when I heard of the offer I assumed the hardware was not gratis, just 1 months sub.
UK phone operators often provide free calls to areas affected by disasters, but you need to obviously have a phone and sim with them & likely be in the UK when making the call.
I suspect phone operators in the US are offering free calls to & within affected areas too, but I don't suspect they are handing out free handsets even cheap ones.
Not sure why people would expect to get free Starlink terminals.
I do agree the process of obtaining free service seems cack handed, but perhaps publicly making the offer and then honouring it later is quicker than rolling out updates to billing systems that could take weeks.
As I understand things, there may be people who have dormant star link terminals that could be encouraged to use, share or donate via this offer of free service.
with lots of infrastructure & power down, it can take weeks or likely many months to restore 'cell' and fixed broadband when starlink could be being used now.
I fully expect journalists to hold Starlink to account on the offer, and look forward to follow up articles about how they make good on their offer or not. I'm sure there will be many who will face billing issues etc.
Spectrum Internet is setting up 90,000 WiFi access points. No extra hardware needed, free connectivity now.
Startink could do something similar but they aren't. You either a) find your own hardware in a disaster zone, in which case you pay for the hardware and $120/month onwards from month 2 or b) buy hardware from Starlink which takes 2-3 weeks to arrive and you've get 30 days free trial anyway if you return it at the end of the month.
Also, get this: Put "NC, USA" as your address on Starlink.com and be greeted with this:
There is a congestion charge in your area.
Due to network congestion in your area, there is an additional one-time charge to purchase Starlink Residential services. Our intention is to no longer charge this fee to new customers as soon as network capacity improves. To be notified when this charge is removed, enter your email here.
The free offer is just yet more of Musk's and his toxic business's empty grandstanding bullshit.
Spectrum Internet is setting up 90,000 WiFi access points. No extra hardware needed, free connectivity now.
great how do I access those access points? are they giving out free tablets and phones or do I need to purchase that?
great how do I access those access points? are they giving out free tablets and phones or do I need to purchase that?
So, when you bought your Starlink kit, you assumed that you'd just plug your face into the internet or something?
People generally want internet access because they already have kit that uses the internet, not just because they love Elon Musk so much that they want to crawl up inside his anus and tickle his prostate.
SpaceX is also offering exactly what you're claiming.. Completely free WiFi hotspots.
1000 of them so far, with generators, some delivered via helicopter.
But they aren't offering computers or phones to connect to it
When I first read about this, it was his helicopters not getting permission to land, so I presumed the choppers were full of StarLink terminals to hand out to deserving plebs, just like traditional mobile service providers (in Japan anyway) have emergency hardware that provides a bridge from mobile services to satellites.
Thinking a bit further, a free terminal and free 30 day service, then pay later for the continued service (basically a free terminal) would also be fair, but - it is Leon we're talking about after all - the reality is as the article points out, more free publicity for his "generosity".
With the emphasis on other organisations. I can't find any news of Starlink donating dishes. I can find news of FEMA paying for them.
https://x.com/SawyerMerritt/status/1843039646235635868
Here you go
I did find news, 1000 so far.
That's more than FEMA
Its an interview with one of the SpaceX/Starlink people on the ground and he gave that number
This was an offer originally for people on the ground who bought hardware at retail (as opposed to direct) and had issues activating..
Nothing other than free service was ever hinted at
You'll notice you can only really get a dish available at retail
When you get a new retail dish and turn it on you have an hour of free Internet to sign up an account out of the box. The starlink hurricane offer makes it 30 days..
Starlink's regular 30 day offer is only available direct and is different from the description in the article. It doesn't give you a month free period. It's an offer to refund your dish and service if you don't like it after a month. You always pay for service upfront..
There's also at least 2000 free dishes in the area, at least half of them provided by SpaceX itself. You can get free WiFi there but you have to bring your phone
There is a lot of various information going around about this issue--is the Starlinks free, do you have to buy them, etc. It is a combination of both. Hundreds of Starlink terminals were donated by SpaceX and bought by various organizations for Helene efforts. They were placed in libraries, rescue centers, fire stations, etc. Set up and ready for use by anyone who comes within range. Then there is an option for people to buy their own for their own residence. That can be done via the Starlink website. https://www.starlink.com/support/article/58126733-e4d2-db62-b919-9da261a4e096 Buying Starlink for yourself does involve buying a terminal and yearly plan, which gives you one month free in the beginning. Now, Starlink tech is a wonder. The only issue arising with it is that it has already dominates the market, with it constituting 2/3s as of yet of all active Earth's satellites. This is pushing fast, if it hasn't already, into monopoly territory. Plus, it's in the hands of a private individual. Recall that Musk disabled Starlinks for the Ukrainians when they were attacking a Russian position. That is something to be a bit worried about. Toss in that Musk pretty much has the monopoly on space launches and a social media platform that is capable of influencing a millions upon millions of people--that gives him an immense amount of control over US interests. Just saying.
Where is is written that ANY company has an obligation to provide their products for free in the event of a disaster? One company stands up to help out and they get blasted in the press for not giving enough help.
Starlink kit is not cheap, and I will wager it is sold with a thin margin, expecting it to pay off over time with service activation. Therefore the hardware has a very real cost to it. It is unreasonable to expect it to be given away for free.
"Hey, Home Depot! Lots of people got their houses trashed. You should give everyone free building materials to repair their homes. Don't be a greedy corporation, okay?"
What incentive is there for Starlink to do anything again in the future (Hellloooo Hurricane Milton!)??? With such positive press coverage like this, it wouldn't surprise me if Starlink shrugs the next time and tells everyone to go pound sand.
>>>>> Where is is written that ANY company has an obligation to provide their products for free in the event of a disaster?
Nowhere. However, a company offering "Starlink is now free for 30 days" without mentioning the expensive caveats is fair game to be given plenty of shit about it.
If Musk had simply said "Starlink customers in the affected area will not be charged for service for 1 month" there wouldn't be any confusion about it. Also offering a discount on new service for those affected would have went a long way towards showing goodwill.
I wish good luck to those in the path of Milton!
if home depot said "we're giving away free building materials" and then said "actually no we're just offering a free bag of cement if you buy hundreds of dollars of bricks", you'd be pretty annoyed too.
It probably would be better for everyone concerned for Musk to stop inserting himself into every crisis unless he's going to *actually* help, yes. When you're at the level of demanding a federal government official gives you special access to the affected area (ie taking up airspace that actual emergency responders were using) then I'd say you're a net negative.
Meanwhile the local cable/telco companies have instantly turned on free wifi (where infrastructure is not damaged). That's free to everyone, immediately, with whatever devices they have evacuated with. They don't get the press coverage though because they are not owned by that weirdo.
Why is anyone surprised that there is a huge difference between what the Muskrat says and what he (or his companies) is actually doing?
Business as usual, big promises.with arm thick ropes (rather than strings) attached...
It's not only the case with StarLink, but also applies to Tesla and X. Only SpaceX seems to kind of on track, but then that is primarily run by others anyway and Elon is just providing the mouthpiece...
"Why is anyone surprised that there is a huge difference between what the Muskrat says and what he (or his companies) is actually doing?"
There's a lot of effort that has to go into parsing what he says in the first place. With that, it's like translating so there is a bunch of interpretation and summarizing. Demumbled another way or four and company reps can make it appear that the Supreme Grand Master said something else entirely. I believe that it's the way he slithers out of all of those lawsuits.
The people can thank the media for their part in the Elon propaganda train, of constantly praising him and presenting him as everyones benevolent money giving friend.
At least in a democracy you can vote out shitty politicians, in America your masters propaganda machine is the media, and nobody admits they have a problem they are too busy repeating they are freedom and nobody else is.
I was actually serious in trying to understand what would have been a decent solution, but thanks for confirming that in this case it has never been about the offer, but about who's behind it :)
So let's rephrase - anyone BUT elon shows up with a request to define what would be an offer that wouldn't offend. What should the offer be ?
"So let's rephrase - anyone BUT elon shows up with a request to define what would be an offer that wouldn't offend. What should the offer be ?"
The offer can be anything, but worded in a very clear way. It's disingenuous to come along and say "free food" and in mouse type add "with purchase of $30 carrying bag".
To say "free satellite internet" and add "with purchase of hardware kit and sign up including credit card details.", is the sign of a complete tosser.
I bet nothing else than giving free dishes and service forever to everyone would satisfy them and maybe not even that.
Personally indicating the batteries not included is enough. Free service (dish purchase required) seems to do it.
https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/free-internet-hurricane-helene/ although I don't see how the companies offering https://winknews.com/2024/10/09/att-verizon-wireless-companies-waiving-overage-fees-hurricane-milton/ free mobile service aren't asked why they aren't given free phones to keep things equal
So let's rephrase - anyone BUT elon shows up with a request to define what would be an offer that wouldn't offend. What should the offer be ?
Okay, I got some down-votes for taking the piss, fair enough, but your question, if I am reading it right (and it really isn't well structured), of, "what should someone who isn't Elon do?" is a bit of a nonsequitur. I'll explain why.
What Elon has done here is to take a natural disaster, and use it as an opportunity to make a sales promotion. What he has "offered" in the guise of disaster relief appears to be a month's free trial subscription, to an otherwise expensive service. What should he have done? Not that. Honestly, not trying to use a loss-leader sales technique to ensnare new customers on teh back of a human tragedy.
What should people who aren't Elon have done? What they are already doing. Offering genuine disaster relief. Also, at this point, I should point out that the rhetorical device of "if you think that is wrong, what should be done instead" is a logical fallacy that blames the observer. The format for this is, "Oh, X did Y wrong did he/she/t? What would you do instead?" This presupposes that someone criticising the actions of another for being incorrect in some way is responsible for putting those actions right. This is a form of the tu quoque fallacy.
As it happens, Elon didn't "show up with a request to define what would be an offer that didn't offend," he "showed up" with a well known high-pressure sales tactic, with no sort of consultation on what was required, or how he could actually help people.
"Richest man in the world or not, he is not obligated to give everyone any hand-outs."
Ok, that's reasonable, but..... when said richest man is trying to capitalize on free PR by giving things away, it needs to be as advertised (or inferred). He did the same thing in Puerto Rico with solar panels. He donated a bunch of panels with the promise of helping the island recover after getting hit by two big hurricanes but didn't follow through with setting them up so they work and later said that they would need to be paid for once things were back up and running. Err, it's one thing to "donate" and other to extend credit. A lot of those panels are still sitting in piles due to the uncertainty of payment and one installation at a hospital causing a bunch of electrical damage. If Elon had sent people to see what could be done at a given cost, he could have picked a project and did what it would take to get it to work. After the initial adulation for all of his philanthropy, he just dropped the ball and moved on to the next disaster for another PR infusion.
Like beggars all hands are stretched 6ft long.
None of your business he is richest man or not.
No one is obligated help unless they choose to, like all other legal Americans, he pays taxes to government to handle such things.
If Biden-Harris don't waste FEMA funds on illegal immigrants, there will be millions and billions help with disasters.
".... If Biden-Harris don't waste FEMA funds on illegal immigrants, there will be millions and billions help with disasters."
Before you repackage and regurgitate falsehoods spread by people who will apparently stop at nothing to get ahead, why not read what FEMA is, and what it actually does?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency
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