this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Prior to and including IPO they have been on quite a marketing kick. Referral schemes, equipment rentals, discount plans for low usage etc. Seems like they’re trying hard to make the business make sense. I maintain that LEO (and WISP) ISPs should be limited to more extreme applications yet I see them all over the place in residential areas. Their technical achievements are impressive but if phone systems to remote areas were possible, then so should fibre optics.
Also this should be built by international organisations, not billionaires. A plague on Musk and a plague on Bezos.
they were, for months, literally giving the hardware away. no hardware cost. no recurring fees. just 20 bucks for shipping, then the whatever for the actual internet plan itself. a flat $80/mo i think the lowest cost one was. i have a few users on it that bought into that deal. i think it was just before the ipo where they started tacking-on an extra monthly fee.
Ma Bell had several decades to gain good ROI with POTS, while the rate of technology change today shrinks that outlook to just one to two decades. Plus the most profitable high income areas to be installing fiber now often have local laws requiring much more expensive underground installations so residents don't have to see the ugly poles with wires hanging between them.
We’re still using dot-com fibre. There’s a long ROI.
Which snap a lot more regularly now with the broken weather.
I'm not in a remote area, just a geographically inconvenient one. Two blocks over they have fiber. Not in my neighborhood. I have been complaining about this for well over a decade.
Seems like every other 4x4 has one on the roof, every camper, people even mount them on their motorcycles.
I don’t think that’s really the issue, it’s the streaming that really does them in.
On one hand you have Netflix trying to cram 4k through and the neighbour is trying to have a phone call.
True, I don't know if they already do it, but limiting media streams to 480p like cell providers do on some plans would probably lower congestion a lot. And maybe limiting large file transfers over a certain size to a lower priority and speed.