As a resident of a small pacific country where ISP charges >$100/month for relatively low quality of service, i sure can understand the problem and how interesting Starlink looks like.
But one thing to keep in mind, is that usually ISPs in small countries can't compete on price because they don't have enough scale and enough customers, in the end they just can't compete with a juggernaut like Starlink.
Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and pay less for better quality of service, these local ISPs are important actors of the local economy. If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US, and the local economy taking a hit ...
If the cost of Starlink is half of the local ISP, you now have 50% of that revenue stream going back into the local economy instead of a single company. And the benefit far outweights the cost - 100Mbps+ for thousands of people can be transformative (hoping they all not just start using tiktok), vs a dozen ISP employees. Might not be as bad of a deal as it seems.
Alternatively, 50% of that money that used to go into a local company is now going overseas to a foreigner. I guess it’s a matter of perspective, is it worth killing a particular local company or industry in order to get faster cheaper internet or better service in another industry?
> The radio spectrum is far more limited, so the more people use it, the slower it should get.
As radio hardware gets better able to distinguish frequencies, this won’t be an issue. There’s a lot of bandwidth out there once radios can tune into a band so narrow it needs several decimals to delineate.
The "traditional" free market approach is that starlink gets a monopoly there, while new providers go out of business before they reach the scale to compete. Meanwhile the talent pool with the knowledge to even install local infrastructure in the first place is shrinking.
> these local ISPs are important actors of the local economy. If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US, and the local economy taking a hit
This is a pretty terrible justification for maintaining obsolete infrastructure.
But if more companies can start up locally and succeed in the digital economy because of better and cheaper internet, is it not a net benefit to the country?
But one thing to keep in mind, is that usually ISPs in small countries can't compete on price because they don't have enough scale and enough customers, in the end they just can't compete with a juggernaut like Starlink.
Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and pay less for better quality of service, these local ISPs are important actors of the local economy. If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US, and the local economy taking a hit ...