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<p>Someone from FINTEL mentioned this during my seminar on Thursday,
apparently they started operations on the 16th and launched
officially on the 23rd. <br>
</p>
<p>That said, if you try to order Starlink for an address in, say,
Neiafu on Vava'u, which has 15k people on it and lost its domestic
cable connection, you'll be able to pay a US$99 deposit to reserve
Starlink for ... 2023.</p>
<p>The 50 or so Dishys they have delivered will remain under
government control and will probably go all over the place, as
there are many smaller island that have no connectivity at all
right now. So I doubt that we'll see end user reviews any time
soon. I may be able to get some informal feedback in a while.<br>
</p>
<p>One of the local satellite(-agnostic) ISPs did a review of
Starlink service in Auckland, at 37 degrees south:<br>
</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://getgravity.nz/blog/starlink-review-new-zealand-test-results-2022/">https://getgravity.nz/blog/starlink-review-new-zealand-test-results-2022/</a></p>
<p>Now that's with a gateway in cycling distance (Clevedon) and two
more within less than 200 km, in a region that is probably not too
overloaded with users right. They still see frequent outages, and
I guess it would be worse in Tonga for the time being.</p>
<p>But I guess if it's the alternative to zero connectivity, it's
worth having, so kudos to them for pushing the envelope here.</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 26/02/2022 7:19 am, Nathan Owens
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CALjsLJsUmF-MFd2EFi0r53+e=GRWrbBj26edNprks6oESpR51g@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936</a></div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:15
AM Nathan Owens <<a href="mailto:nathan@nathan.io" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">nathan@nathan.io</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Per the Starlink 4-11 Launch webcast just
minutes ago, they have launched service in Tonga. <br>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at
9:12 AM Ulrich Speidel <<a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Matangitonga said that Starlink wanted to launch this
week. But I haven't heard confirmation from anyone
that they actually have.</p>
<p>I guess a dishy without a link might still make a
nice coffee table if nothing else & might even
keep your coffee at temperature for a bit longer, but
seriously: I suppose they must think in earnest that
they'll be able to deliver at least some service some
percentage of the time, which is more than some of the
smaller places have right now. And I don't really want
to dump on them - at least they tried, as did with
varying levels of success almost everybody else in the
satellite business, and that's really all you can ask
for.</p>
<p>Tongans are also an incredibly patient and grateful
people, whatever they have they make do with. I first
had plenty of opportunity to witness this when we went
there on our honeymoon in 2003. One of the island
villages we stayed on in the Ha'apai group had piped
water to the beachfront properties installed yonks
ago, before they got electricity. Then the Australians
brought electricity around 2002 & used a trench
digger to put the cable in along the main drag,
unaware that there were water pipes in the ground. The
locals were too grateful for the electricity to
complain that they now needed to walk to the cistern
to get their water, and the problem remained unsolved
a year later - we had to wash from big barrels and a
bit of rainwater off the roof. As we left Ha'apai
after a hair-raising boat passage in a 4 m boat in 6 m
swells, we didn't have a flight booked, so went to the
Ha'apai office of the long since defunct Royal Tongan
Airlines to book ourselves on the next flight out. The
two ladies in the office gave us their most welcoming
smiles, along with the regret that they couldn't book
us a ticket as the computer were down. We asked how
long such outages typically lasted and were told that
they didn't know but this one had lasted three months
already. We then made our way to the airport with the
help of a few bored Mormon missionaries. We were the
only people there until the station manager turned up.
He reckoned there would be seats and told us that he
was the local baker as well and had been trying out
artisan bread recipes, which the locals liked, but was
finding it difficult to get the right flour. Nice
chat! Eventually the plane arrived early without any
passengers. Pilots and station manager spent ten
seconds bitching about their employer (rightfully so,
a long story I shan't repeat - but neither the
employees' nor the management's fault, though), then
the pilots decided that they wanted lunch in Vava'u
and off we took 15 minutes ahead of schedule... <br>
</p>
<div>On 22/02/2022 8:45 pm, Daniel AJ Sokolov @mobile
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"> So the Starlink terminals have
arrived on Tongatapu, but are not operational yet?<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Daniel<br>
<br>
<br>
On February 22, 2022 7:31:25 a.m. UTC, Ulrich Speidel
<a href="mailto:ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz></a>
wrote:<br>
>FWIW... this restores connectivity to ~80% of
Tonga's population.<br>
><br>
>The domestic cable may be up to 9 months off,
depending on cable lead <br>
>time, apparently it's got to come from France. In
the interim, there's <br>
>work on more satellite connectivity, I heard from
a satellite ISP in NZ <br>
>today that they were about to ship a few units for
Eutelsat links up. I <br>
>haven't heard any further about operational
readiness of Starlink, but <br>
>have heard from a well-connected source that the
dishys delivered to <br>
>Tonga will remain in Tongan government service in
underconnected places <br>
>if and when service becomes available.<br>
><br>
>I would expect them to hang onto a couple of units
for Tongatapu just in <br>
>case there'll be more turbidity currents messing
with the cable, heaven <br>
>forbid.<br>
><br>
>-- <br>
>****************************************************************<br>
>Dr. Ulrich Speidel<br>
><br>
>School of Computer Science<br>
><br>
>Room 303S.594 (City Campus)<br>
><br>
>The University of Auckland<br>
><a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br>
><a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br>
>****************************************************************<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
>_______________________________________________<br>
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</blockquote>
<pre cols="72">--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
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