I appreciate you have had a bad experience, but to then think that's the overall experience is myopic. There are many highly remote areas where people can't speak more highly of Starlink.

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Nursie 7 months ago | parent [-]

And not that remote.

Internet provision not all that far out of major Australian cities can be abysmal. I'm only 30 minutes drive from the centre of Perth and my options are currently 5G (operating at about 4Mbit), Wireless Broadband (performance promise - the download speed will reach 25Mbit at least once in any given 24 hour period!) or Starlink, at a pretty stable 120/20.

I'd love to not have to pay for it, to use what local/national companies can provide, but so far nothing comes close.

I am informed that the wireless system is due to be upgraded to support much higher speeds, but that was supposed to happen this year and there's not a lot of this year left.

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hattmall 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I would think 5G could really improve that situation. In the states we have the 600 MHz spectrum on T-Mobile and can pull down decent speeds 30-150mb through trees 15 miles from the tower. Upload is not great.

	▲	Nursie 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		It could, if there was decent signal here. At least in part that's been delayed because of someone in the area raising a band of nutters and giving the council hell about 5G killing her grandchildren. Sigh. Might happen before too much longer - she managed to get the project to build the new antenna on private land killed (I'm sure much to the annoyance of the landowner, who was going to pocket a nice chunk of ground-rent). But now the local authority have given the go-ahead for one to be built on their land, and they're going to get the rent. She is apoplectic, which brings me great joy.

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immibis 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It may or may not be relevant to your case, but every time a story like this comes up I will remind people in general that fiber-optic cable is 50 cents per meter (probably $1 per meter Australian), wireless links cost equipment and a regulatory approval fee and are easier in less densely populated areas, and there are tons and tons of stories of people dissatisfied with their ISP creating a better competitor, your neighbours are likely as frustrated as you if they use the Internet, and there is no minimum size to an ISP.

	▲	Nursie 7 months ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm not sure there are tons of stories about people creating their own ISPs in Australia are there? I know of companies that set up competing wireless infrastructure, and even one suburb around here that is served by a private network rather than the national network, so I guess they did it, but they have (at minimum) hundreds of customers. At that price I might be looking at $1k-$2k just in fibre-optic cable, before we talk about any of the necessary equipment or the price of actually installing that cable underground. That covers starlink for quite a while.
	▲	bigfatkitten 7 months ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If you set up a wireless ISP, you become a carrier and that is expensive. TIO membership, the carrier licence fee, telecommunications interception and data retention obligations create recurring costs in the thousands of dollars a year before you serve a single customer.

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7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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NoPicklez 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Absolutely, I've had 5G modems within the metro area of an Aussie city and it was horrible.