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<p>Hm. So what would we expect here?</p>
<p>- Service provided from Wola Krobowska in Poland and Kaunas in
Lithuania (if it's operational yet), and in the coming days or
weeks perhaps from other sites in eastern and southeastern Europe
(Romania looks like a good spot for that).<br>
- Ukraine stretches from about 52 degrees north to around 46
degrees north (or 44-something deg if you include Crimea, which
however might have some problems getting dishys right now). That's
prime Starlink latitude.<br>
</p>
<p>But:<br>
</p>
<p>- Ukraine also stretches about 1300 km across, and some of its
parts are almost 1500 km away from the known gateways. That's a
lot by Starlink standards (remember, Tonga gets "spotty" service
at 750 km from the gateway in Fiji).<br>
- If Starlink became a significant player in Ukraine, I would
expect Russia to want to jam them. How difficult is it to jam
Starlink satellites on the uplink from Belarus and Russia itself?
Probably not too difficult. Similarly, the downlinks could
potentially be jammed from the air.<br>
- Where are Ukrainians going to put the dishys so they're not seen
by Russian helicopter patrols? Would you put one on you roof if
you were Ukrainian? Will they come in camouflage colours?<br>
- Ukraine has a pretty long border with the EU/NATO, so plenty of
opportunity to throw a bit of fibre over the fence and
re-establish connectivity. Similarly, it's had a reasonably mature
telecoms and Internet market and a lot of technically savy people
... I'd say Russia would have a hard time shutting the Internet
out of Ukraine completely in a hurry.<br>
- Last but not least: If I look at, e.g., Montana, which is a
similar latitude and has a population of just over a million, and
try to order Starlink there (Kalispell, for example), I get the
message: "Order now to reserve your Starlink. Starlink is
currently at capacity in your area, so your order may not be
fulfilled until 2023 or later. You will receive a notification
once your Starlink is ready to ship." That's with three gateways
in easy range, two of them in under 200 km distance. Now if they
can't even service Montana, how would they provide service to 40
million Ukrainians?<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 27/02/2022 8:15 pm, Mike Puchol
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:cdc83992-a777-43d4-be62-95f2bc922767@Spark">
<title></title>
<div name="messageBodySection">
<div dir="auto">In addition, AS50494 has started announcing two
prefixes, I have only started looking into them, but a
traceroute ends in Ukraine, and host returns e.g.
gw.starlink.ua.<br>
<br>
From my simulation, the current known gateways can provide
very good service to all of Ukraine.</div>
</div>
<div name="messageSignatureSection"><br>
<div class="matchFont">Best,<br>
<br>
Mike</div>
</div>
<div name="messageReplySection">On Feb 27, 2022, 03:14 +0300, Doc
Searls <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:doc@searls.com"><doc@searls.com></a>, wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-color: grey;
border-left-width: thin; border-left-style: solid; margin: 5px
5px;padding-left: 10px;">Item: <a href="https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1497712365923618816" class="" moz-do-not-send="true">https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1497712365923618816</a>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding:
0px;" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="">Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system
providing internet access is now active in Ukraine.</div>
</div>
<div class="">
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
</div>
<div class="">
<div class="">Satellite terminals are on the way to
Ukraine. This could be useful if Russia’s attacks
destabilize Ukraine’s internet.</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div class="">
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>Also, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/starlink-service-ukraine-elon-musk-b2024184.html" class="" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/starlink-service-ukraine-elon-musk-b2024184.html</a></div>
<div><br class="">
</div>
<div>Doc</div>
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Feb 25, 2022, at 10:02 PM, Ulrich
Speidel <<a href="mailto:ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" moz-do-not-send="true">ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div class="">
<p class="">I like that mental model, too, although
the way Internet development has historically
played out in the Pacific has been quite diverse
in comparison.</p>
<p class="">Some place, e.g., Niue, did initially
exactly that - the local geek guru got it going
and things went from there. Other places were
worried that their monopoly telco might get
competition, and kept a lid on it for reasons
political or simply because they genuinely felt
that their island was too small not to pool
resources in a single provider. Some islands don't
have geek gurus. Tonga is a case in point here -
the smaller islands that didn't have cable so far
are, with the exception of 'Eua, very small in
terms of population, a few hundred people at most,
many only have a few dozen.<br class="">
</p>
<p class="">On many of these smaller islands, the
only businesses are small stall-like shops that
will sell bread from the local baker and
necessities such as tooth paste, soap, batteries
and that sort of thing, plus peanuts and other
imported snacks. Whatever the supply ship brings
when it comes, which could be once every few
months in some cases. Most people live off the
land, go fishing or collect shellfish on the reef,
and in some cases will produce crafts like
pandanus mats or tapa cloth, some of which is sent
overseas and can generate a bit of income. There
are a lot of old people in comparison to younger
folk, who have often left for a life overseas to
support those back home. Post offices, coffee
shops and libraries exist only on the larger
islands. The smaller islands will always have more
churches than you can count, and sadly some of
these still see the Internet as something to be
kept out at all cost - something that's by no
means unique to Tonga.<br class="">
</p>
On 26/02/2022 2:27 pm, Dave Taht wrote:<br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAA93jw7Kmq5msgiTBeDO3fOTMcKxt3zjz9j2TqVL0kwsS=0BOA@mail.gmail.com" class="">My mental model for starlink was very
different than what has deployed<br class="">
so far. A local geek guru would get one for the
local library/coffee<br class="">
shop/post office, set up local wifi and computers
cybercafe style, set<br class="">
up a few other p2p wireless links, perhaps a lte
node, etc, and<br class="">
enhance village to village (or island to island)
communications via a<br class="">
starlink node X miles away, as well as
provide/integrate with more<br class="">
local services such as local email,
videoconferencing and telephony<br class="">
without having to traverse the sat at all.<br class="">
<br class="">
As things built out, fiber or other forms of
connectivity would<br class="">
emerge, eventually connecting via land or high
speed p2p fixed<br class="">
wireless links, and starlink reverting to more of
a backup. Existing<br class="">
ISPs (notably wisps), would build out excessively
remote areas this<br class="">
way.<br class="">
<br class="">
This "vision" is highly influenced by efforts such
as the villagetelco<br class="">
and olpc. To some extent the new "premium" service
could go that way,<br class="">
but classic business networking services like BGP,
working ipv6, real<br class="">
ipv4 addresses, etc, are so far, lacking. BYOIP
and dual homing for<br class="">
existing providers has not been spoken of...<br class="">
<br class="">
But anyway, I hope the government of tonga uses
what they got wisely,<br class="">
though my primary use case would be for
multiplexing low bitrate apps<br class="">
for a lot of people (like voip and financial
transactions), over the<br class="">
web for a few.<br class="">
<br class="">
On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 8:12 PM Ulrich Speidel <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true"><ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz></a>
wrote:<br class="">
><br class="">
> Someone from FINTEL mentioned this during my
seminar on Thursday, apparently they started
operations on the 16th and launched officially on
the 23rd.<br class="">
><br class="">
> 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.<br class="">
><br class="">
> 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 class="">
><br class="">
> One of the local satellite(-agnostic) ISPs
did a review of Starlink service in Auckland, at
37 degrees south:<br class="">
><br class="">
> <a href="https://getgravity.nz/blog/starlink-review-new-zealand-test-results-2022" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://getgravity.nz/blog/starlink-review-new-zealand-test-results-2022/</a><br class="">
><br class="">
> 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.<br class="">
><br class="">
> But I guess if it's the alternative to zero
connectivity, it's worth having, so kudos to them
for pushing the envelope here.<br class="">
><br class="">
> On 26/02/2022 7:19 am, Nathan Owens wrote:<br class="">
><br class="">
> <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1497258566347943936</a><br class="">
><br class="">
> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:15 AM Nathan Owens
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nathan@nathan.io" moz-do-not-send="true"><nathan@nathan.io></a>
wrote:<br class="">
>><br class="">
>> Per the Starlink 4-11 Launch webcast just
minutes ago, they have launched service in Tonga.<br class="">
>><br class="">
>> On Fri, Feb 25, 2022 at 9:12 AM Ulrich
Speidel <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true"><u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz></a>
wrote:<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> Matangitonga said that Starlink
wanted to launch this week. But I haven't heard
confirmation from anyone that they actually have.<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> 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.<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> 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 class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> On 22/02/2022 8:45 pm, Daniel AJ
Sokolov @mobile wrote:<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> So the Starlink terminals have
arrived on Tongatapu, but are not operational yet?<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> Cheers<br class="">
>>> Daniel<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> On February 22, 2022 7:31:25 a.m.
UTC, Ulrich Speidel <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true"><ulrich@cs.auckland.ac.nz></a>
wrote:<br class="">
>>> >FWIW... this restores
connectivity to ~80% of Tonga's population.<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >The domestic cable may be up to 9
months off, depending on cable lead<br class="">
>>> >time, apparently it's got to come
from France. In the interim, there's<br class="">
>>> >work on more satellite
connectivity, I heard from a satellite ISP in NZ<br class="">
>>> >today that they were about to
ship a few units for Eutelsat links up. I<br class="">
>>> >haven't heard any further about
operational readiness of Starlink, but<br class="">
>>> >have heard from a well-connected
source that the dishys delivered to<br class="">
>>> >Tonga will remain in Tongan
government service in underconnected places<br class="">
>>> >if and when service becomes
available.<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >I would expect them to hang onto
a couple of units for Tongatapu just in<br class="">
>>> >case there'll be more turbidity
currents messing with the cable, heaven<br class="">
>>> >forbid.<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >--<br class="">
>>>
>****************************************************************<br class="">
>>> >Dr. Ulrich Speidel<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >School of Computer Science<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >Room 303S.594 (City Campus)<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> >The University of Auckland<br class="">
>>> ><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br class="">
>>> ><a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br class="">
>>>
>****************************************************************<br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>> ><br class="">
>>>
>_______________________________________________<br class="">
>>> >Starlink mailing list<br class="">
>>> ><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" moz-do-not-send="true">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br class="">
>>> ><a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> --<br class="">
>>>
****************************************************************<br class="">
>>> Dr. Ulrich Speidel<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> School of Computer Science<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>> The University of Auckland<br class="">
>>> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br class="">
>>> <a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br class="">
>>>
****************************************************************<br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>><br class="">
>>>
_______________________________________________<br class="">
>>> Starlink mailing list<br class="">
>>> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" moz-do-not-send="true">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br class="">
>>> <a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br class="">
><br class="">
> --<br class="">
>
****************************************************************<br class="">
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel<br class="">
><br class="">
> School of Computer Science<br class="">
><br class="">
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)<br class="">
><br class="">
> The University of Auckland<br class="">
> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a><br class="">
> <a href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a><br class="">
>
****************************************************************<br class="">
><br class="">
><br class="">
><br class="">
>
_______________________________________________<br class="">
> Starlink mailing list<br class="">
> <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated
moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" moz-do-not-send="true">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br class="">
> <a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
--<br class="">
I tried to build a better future, a few times:<br class="">
<a href="https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org" moz-do-not-send="true" class="">https://wayforward.archive.org/?site=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icei.org</a><br class="">
<br class="">
Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC<br class="">
</blockquote>
<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 moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz" moz-do-not-send="true">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br class="">
Starlink mailing list<br class="">
<a href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" moz-do-not-send="true">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br class="">
<a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br class="">
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Starlink mailing list<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net">Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink" moz-do-not-send="true">https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<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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