[lowkey_]

Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant.

Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and, given the government, staying out for quite a while.

It's a fair point that those in poorer places will have less money, but for instance, Mexico's Starlink pricing is pretty standard, it's like 50-100 EUR per month. They pay it anyways because they need it, and because it's the best option.

Starlink is a great decentralization for anyone living under corrupt dysfunctional governments, where they can't rely on that centralized system.

[wolvoleo]

Who digs up fibres to sell? It's worthless material. Copper yes but nobody lays that anymore. If it even has to be metal it's usually mostly aluminium.

[dylan604]

You'd be amazed at how unintelligent about things tweakers are. They don't know it is fibre when they are taking it. It doesn't keep all of the users on the other end of those lines from losing signal.

[garbagewoman]

What are you basing this view on, sounds like you have personally seen this happen?

[dylan604]

On multiple occasions I have had my fibre service go down because of this.

[rjsw]

They dig up the fibre to check that it isn't copper.

[arpinum]

Starlink is popular in rural England. Trenching fibre to farmland isn't economical and poor DSL is often the only other option.

[joe_mamba]

>Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant.

Except there's rich parts like Germany or Austria where internet infra is poorly run due to monopolistic telco capture and regulations keeping infra upgrades costs high, and so have slower and more expensive internet than Starlink in some areas. Poorer nations of EU often have faster internet than the richer ones so poverty is not a reason.

So Starlink is definitely still relevant. I've seen several small/medium businesses here in Austria that have a starlink terminal as a backup.

[christina97]

Yes and just to add, the infra itself is pretty cheap. The cost comes from the labor and regulatory complexity. Budapest for instance has dirt cheap fibre just about everywhere.