[Starlink] Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Starlink] Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Ulrich Speidel]

Last week, I found myself driving into a disaster area - I was on leave 
and the southern North Island of NZ got hit by the worst weather in 
three years (since Cyclone Gabrielle, basically). We were booked to stay 
for a few nights at a Department of Conservation (DOC) lodge in a remote 
valley north of Palmerston North.

Access roads to the area are all precarious - potential for slips, 
flooding, washouts, bridge damage are ubiquitous there.

My initial fears that we might have to flee the place overnight were 
assuaged the moment I saw that the lodge was well above river level. To 
our surprise, there was 4G terrestrial coverage also. The lodge has 
mains power, too. On site: My wife, me, a Kiwi tramper, and two French 
cyclists.

Forecast was for 140-180 mm (~6-7 inches) of rain overnight. So we 
weren't overly surprised to find that the lodge had no power when we 
woke up in the morning. We also soon found out that the 4G coverage had 
gone. We had a mains+battery-operated fridge for food with us and a bit 
of battery lighting, and there was a woodfire for warmth and cooking, 
alas it initially appeared that we would have no water - the rainwater 
tanks only release their treasure via pump... until we discovered a 
hidden tap later in the day.

After breakfast, the local farmer from up the road turned up to let us 
know that all roads out were blocked. He is also a radio ham and had 
limited UHF comms out. At that point, I discovered that my phone now 
showed One NZ SpaceX as the network - even though I don't have a 
compatible plan. So it appears that One NZ turned the service on in the 
disaster area (which is very sparsely populated).

The service appeared to be text only (no WhatsApp or anything IP-based 
worked). My phone (Samsung A56) was the only one of five in the lodge 
that worked with the service, similarly, among three phones in the 
farmer's household, only one - a recent iPhone - worked. Sending a text 
message took around a minute each. I only sent a few - to our emergency 
contact, a friend who we'd said we'd go visit the next day, and one on 
behalf of one of the other lodge guests. So it's a small data set.

As expected, coverage was much better outdoors, although it seemed to 
occasionally manage to pick up the network through a window as well. 
Sending text from indoors didn't work for me at all. But having that 
option was nice.

One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later 
that day, along with the 4G coverage.

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[J Pan]

oh, take care. you could help us do some more in-depth tests on dtc as
well. safety first!
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 7:43 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Last week, I found myself driving into a disaster area - I was on leave
> and the southern North Island of NZ got hit by the worst weather in
> three years (since Cyclone Gabrielle, basically). We were booked to stay
> for a few nights at a Department of Conservation (DOC) lodge in a remote
> valley north of Palmerston North.
>
> Access roads to the area are all precarious - potential for slips,
> flooding, washouts, bridge damage are ubiquitous there.
>
> My initial fears that we might have to flee the place overnight were
> assuaged the moment I saw that the lodge was well above river level. To
> our surprise, there was 4G terrestrial coverage also. The lodge has
> mains power, too. On site: My wife, me, a Kiwi tramper, and two French
> cyclists.
>
> Forecast was for 140-180 mm (~6-7 inches) of rain overnight. So we
> weren't overly surprised to find that the lodge had no power when we
> woke up in the morning. We also soon found out that the 4G coverage had
> gone. We had a mains+battery-operated fridge for food with us and a bit
> of battery lighting, and there was a woodfire for warmth and cooking,
> alas it initially appeared that we would have no water - the rainwater
> tanks only release their treasure via pump... until we discovered a
> hidden tap later in the day.
>
> After breakfast, the local farmer from up the road turned up to let us
> know that all roads out were blocked. He is also a radio ham and had
> limited UHF comms out. At that point, I discovered that my phone now
> showed One NZ SpaceX as the network - even though I don't have a
> compatible plan. So it appears that One NZ turned the service on in the
> disaster area (which is very sparsely populated).
>
> The service appeared to be text only (no WhatsApp or anything IP-based
> worked). My phone (Samsung A56) was the only one of five in the lodge
> that worked with the service, similarly, among three phones in the
> farmer's household, only one - a recent iPhone - worked. Sending a text
> message took around a minute each. I only sent a few - to our emergency
> contact, a friend who we'd said we'd go visit the next day, and one on
> behalf of one of the other lodge guests. So it's a small data set.
>
> As expected, coverage was much better outdoors, although it seemed to
> occasionally manage to pick up the network through a window as well.
> Sending text from indoors didn't work for me at all. But having that
> option was nice.
>
> One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later
> that day, along with the 4G coverage.
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list -- starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> To unsubscribe send an email to starlink-leave@lists.bufferbloat.net

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Ulrich Speidel]

Would love to, but the emergency is over and I've been out of the area 
for a few days now.

Finding a sufficiently remote area near Auckland for D2C/D2D test is 
kind of difficult. Here is what 4G coverage looks like around here:

The white spots on the map are near inaccessible - either off limits to 
the public, on private land, or pretty hard to get to. Plus some I know 
actually have coverage even though the map suggests otherwise, e.g. the 
coast south of Piha. Where I was last week, uncovered spots are easier 
to find - the landscape there has few cell sites but a lot of deep gorges.

On 26/02/2026 4:54 pm, J Pan wrote:
> oh, take care. you could help us do some more in-depth tests on dtc as
> well. safety first!
> --
> J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM),Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 7:43 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> Last week, I found myself driving into a disaster area - I was on leave
>> and the southern North Island of NZ got hit by the worst weather in
>> three years (since Cyclone Gabrielle, basically). We were booked to stay
>> for a few nights at a Department of Conservation (DOC) lodge in a remote
>> valley north of Palmerston North.
>>
>> Access roads to the area are all precarious - potential for slips,
>> flooding, washouts, bridge damage are ubiquitous there.
>>
>> My initial fears that we might have to flee the place overnight were
>> assuaged the moment I saw that the lodge was well above river level. To
>> our surprise, there was 4G terrestrial coverage also. The lodge has
>> mains power, too. On site: My wife, me, a Kiwi tramper, and two French
>> cyclists.
>>
>> Forecast was for 140-180 mm (~6-7 inches) of rain overnight. So we
>> weren't overly surprised to find that the lodge had no power when we
>> woke up in the morning. We also soon found out that the 4G coverage had
>> gone. We had a mains+battery-operated fridge for food with us and a bit
>> of battery lighting, and there was a woodfire for warmth and cooking,
>> alas it initially appeared that we would have no water - the rainwater
>> tanks only release their treasure via pump... until we discovered a
>> hidden tap later in the day.
>>
>> After breakfast, the local farmer from up the road turned up to let us
>> know that all roads out were blocked. He is also a radio ham and had
>> limited UHF comms out. At that point, I discovered that my phone now
>> showed One NZ SpaceX as the network - even though I don't have a
>> compatible plan. So it appears that One NZ turned the service on in the
>> disaster area (which is very sparsely populated).
>>
>> The service appeared to be text only (no WhatsApp or anything IP-based
>> worked). My phone (Samsung A56) was the only one of five in the lodge
>> that worked with the service, similarly, among three phones in the
>> farmer's household, only one - a recent iPhone - worked. Sending a text
>> message took around a minute each. I only sent a few - to our emergency
>> contact, a friend who we'd said we'd go visit the next day, and one on
>> behalf of one of the other lodge guests. So it's a small data set.
>>
>> As expected, coverage was much better outdoors, although it seemed to
>> occasionally manage to pick up the network through a window as well.
>> Sending text from indoors didn't work for me at all. But having that
>> option was nice.
>>
>> One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later
>> that day, along with the 4G coverage.
>>
>> --
>> ****************************************************************
>> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>>
>> School of Computer Science
>>
>> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>>
>> The University of Auckland
>> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
>> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>> ****************************************************************
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list --starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> To unsubscribe send an email tostarlink-leave@lists.bufferbloat.net

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz 
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Ulrich Speidel]

On 27/02/2026 12:07 pm, Michael Richardson wrote:
> Ulrich Speidel via Starlink<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>      > As expected, coverage was much better outdoors, although it seemed to
>      > occasionally manage to pick up the network through a window as well. Sending
>      > text from indoors didn't work for me at all. But having that option was nice.
>
> In the 2G days, there were actually useful passive reflectors/antenna that
> one could put in a window to "boost" the signal.  (It always seemed like total
> black magic to me)
> I had one, it improved things for reception in my basement office, then 3G
> was no problem for awhile, and then it became a problem again.
> (My did-not-answer call forward goes to a voip service that relays to my
> * and Cisco desktop phone via IP...)
>
> I wonder if such a thing could exist for the satellite link.  If so, such
> remote cabins could just have some.
> As you said, it took some minutes to work, and I wonder how much of that is
> waiting for the right coverage window with the overhead things.
All good questions. With 4G and 5G, there's a lot more to a signal than 
in 2G, and anything that meddles with phase and direction is potentially 
problematic.
> Glad you found the tap on the water tanks.
It wasn't actually on any of the tanks - just below the top of one in 
terms of level, and the pump it was connected through must have stopped 
in a state in which it permitted flow of a couple of litres a minute.
> After August 2003 blackout, multiple buildings in Ottawa discovered that
> one needed electricity in order to pump the diesel to the backup generator's
> tanks, which were often located on the roof.  Nobody had considered that
> power might be out longer than the tanks had fuel for.
Secondary issues like these are common unfortunately.
>      > One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later that
>      > day, along with the 4G coverage.
>
> In the interlude between the storm and the roads opening, was it sunny?
It became sunny, yes, but in terms of using something solar PV that day 
you would have had a hard time on the first day after the storm. I run 
my house (including a granny flat) on grid-connected PV with battery 
backup, and this is what the weather system looked like on our PV system 
monitor two days earlier when it passed over Auckland:

Basically it spent a lot of time re-charging the battery (green solid 
area). That was before the weather system went out into the Pacific 
southeast of NZ and "refueled". So what you see above is an optimistic view.

In comparison, this is what this Tuesday looked like, when it was mostly 
nice and sunny here (note the different kW scale on the left):

It's still summer here, and only a small part of the yield went into 
battery re-charge - the rest mostly powered our neighbours. Note the 
steep drop after the battery reaches maximum SOC isn't weather related, 
it's regulatory: We're only allowed 5 kW of AC generation per phase. 
That's meant to change but our local lines company is not quite there yet.

> Was the hiking good?

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz 
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Ulrich Speidel]

On 28/02/2026 5:56 am, Michael Richardson wrote:
> Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>      >> One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later that
>      >> day, along with the 4G coverage.
>
>      mcr> In the interlude between the storm and the roads opening, was it sunny?
>
>      > It became sunny, yes, but in terms of using something solar PV that day
>      > you would have had a hard time on the first day after the  storm. I run
>      > my house (including a granny flat) on grid-connected PV with battery
>      > backup, and this is what the weather system
>      > looked like on our PV system monitor two days earlier when it passed over Auckland:
>
> I wasn't thinking PV... I was thinking about that you were there to enjoy the
> outdoors, and when the sun comes out after a storm, it's kinda extra sunny.
> At least, that's how the emotions feel.
>
> In 2003, I was in Halifax a week after a Hurricane took out 100K trees.
> Cdn Thanksgiving weekend (first weekend of Oct), it was super-bright, warm, dry,
> with... destruction everywhere.  The contrast startled. Like a dozen clowns wandering
> through WWI trenches or something.
It abated slowly and turned to cloudy with a bit of sun overnight and 
then again a bit better the next day. Destruction wasn't immediately 
obvious apart from a few smaller slips (common here) and the occasional 
tree damage from wind - we escaped the worst of that, unlike the people 
on the other side of the range. It wasn't until we started on a few 
walks when we saw just how badly the river and some of the small creeks 
had swollen and how much damage that did to the surrounding bush in 
terms of sediment deposited and mature trees felled. Some of them would 
have carried over 100 times the amount of water that they usually carry 
- I'd never seen anything like it.
> I would be interesting to learn about the satellite service turn on process.
> Did they just do it?  Could a government have asked them explicitely?
> Maybe there is fine print that either expects this or demands it.

I think they just did it without being asked, because it was in their 
interest. Essentially they oversold the service somewhat (they're in 
court for false advertising because of this) by making it look like it 
was a 1:1 replacement for normal cell service. During normal times, 
they're covering 99%+ of people here with terrestrial service anyway. 
Rural areas are covered via a single physical network provider, the 
Rural Connectivity Group (RCG), a jointly-owned subsidiary of the three 
mobile network providers in NZ who all tenant together on the RCG sites. 
So when an RCG site goes down, no terrestrial network works.

This made the telcos here look really bad after Cyclone Gabrielle, and 
obviously some work's gone on to strengthen infrastructure a bit, but I 
guess much of that would have gone into shoring up service to towns and 
cities rather than remote valleys with a few farms.

So this storm would have been an opportunity to show the rural folk that 
One NZ has their backs in such situations, distinguish themselves from 
their competitors, gather brownie points to use in court and curry 
favour with the government. Likewise, it would have been fairly easy to 
do for them because of the low user density and usage profile in the area.

For where we were, I'd estimate maybe 10-15 mobile phones per square 
kilometre (if that much), with maybe 3-4 of them being eligible models. 
Given that the locals there generally have work to do that doesn't 
involve using apps or texting for much of the day, maybe one active 
phone per sq km for most of the time?

Forgot to mention that my phone indicated that it was roaming, despite 
me being a One NZ customer.

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[J Pan]

that's why people say, when look for the next phone, if it does not
support sat sos/comms, don't buy it, but after buying it, one hopes
not to use the function, otherwise, likely in disasters
--
J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 6:25 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> On 28/02/2026 5:56 am, Michael Richardson wrote:
> > Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
> >      >> One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later that
> >      >> day, along with the 4G coverage.
> >
> >      mcr> In the interlude between the storm and the roads opening, was it sunny?
> >
> >      > It became sunny, yes, but in terms of using something solar PV that day
> >      > you would have had a hard time on the first day after the  storm. I run
> >      > my house (including a granny flat) on grid-connected PV with battery
> >      > backup, and this is what the weather system
> >      > looked like on our PV system monitor two days earlier when it passed over Auckland:
> >
> > I wasn't thinking PV... I was thinking about that you were there to enjoy the
> > outdoors, and when the sun comes out after a storm, it's kinda extra sunny.
> > At least, that's how the emotions feel.
> >
> > In 2003, I was in Halifax a week after a Hurricane took out 100K trees.
> > Cdn Thanksgiving weekend (first weekend of Oct), it was super-bright, warm, dry,
> > with... destruction everywhere.  The contrast startled. Like a dozen clowns wandering
> > through WWI trenches or something.
> It abated slowly and turned to cloudy with a bit of sun overnight and
> then again a bit better the next day. Destruction wasn't immediately
> obvious apart from a few smaller slips (common here) and the occasional
> tree damage from wind - we escaped the worst of that, unlike the people
> on the other side of the range. It wasn't until we started on a few
> walks when we saw just how badly the river and some of the small creeks
> had swollen and how much damage that did to the surrounding bush in
> terms of sediment deposited and mature trees felled. Some of them would
> have carried over 100 times the amount of water that they usually carry
> - I'd never seen anything like it.
> > I would be interesting to learn about the satellite service turn on process.
> > Did they just do it?  Could a government have asked them explicitely?
> > Maybe there is fine print that either expects this or demands it.
>
> I think they just did it without being asked, because it was in their
> interest. Essentially they oversold the service somewhat (they're in
> court for false advertising because of this) by making it look like it
> was a 1:1 replacement for normal cell service. During normal times,
> they're covering 99%+ of people here with terrestrial service anyway.
> Rural areas are covered via a single physical network provider, the
> Rural Connectivity Group (RCG), a jointly-owned subsidiary of the three
> mobile network providers in NZ who all tenant together on the RCG sites.
> So when an RCG site goes down, no terrestrial network works.
>
> This made the telcos here look really bad after Cyclone Gabrielle, and
> obviously some work's gone on to strengthen infrastructure a bit, but I
> guess much of that would have gone into shoring up service to towns and
> cities rather than remote valleys with a few farms.
>
> So this storm would have been an opportunity to show the rural folk that
> One NZ has their backs in such situations, distinguish themselves from
> their competitors, gather brownie points to use in court and curry
> favour with the government. Likewise, it would have been fairly easy to
> do for them because of the low user density and usage profile in the area.
>
> For where we were, I'd estimate maybe 10-15 mobile phones per square
> kilometre (if that much), with maybe 3-4 of them being eligible models.
> Given that the locals there generally have work to do that doesn't
> involve using apps or texting for much of the day, maybe one active
> phone per sq km for most of the time?
>
> Forgot to mention that my phone indicated that it was roaming, despite
> me being a One NZ customer.
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list -- starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> To unsubscribe send an email to starlink-leave@lists.bufferbloat.net

[Starlink] Re: Starlink D2D observation - fwiw

[Ulrich Speidel]

Well that's the strange bit. I didn't buy my phone with sat comms 
capability in mind - I would have been quite happy with the local farmer 
helping us out on 70 cm UHF. We did have a PLB with us for emergencies.

But whether your phone is sat comms capable here depends largely on 
SpaceX, not so much on your phone. When One NZ first offered satellite 
service, it was restricted to only a handful of top-of-the-line Apple, 
Samsung and Oppo phones. In early February 2025, Samsung's only One NZ 
sat capable phones were the S25, the S25+, the Z Flip 6 and the Z Fold 
6, as well as the S24 FE, the S24 Ultra, and strangely enough the S24 
and S24+, which they didn't sell in-store at the time. The others had 
very, very little stock then.

Fast forward to today, and anything from an iPhone 13 upwards will do 
(released in late 2021), among the Samsungs now compatible are older 
models like the Z Fold/Flip 5 and 4, the S22 series, and quite a few 
more. Some Motorola and the Smart V26 are now also deemed compatible.

Now, the iPhones and the expensive top of the line Flip/Fold 7 models of 
Samsung have been OK'd for data on select apps - with quite a few of the 
others tagged as "TBC".

Sure looks like good old user density management to me.

On 28/02/2026 7:17 pm, J Pan wrote:
> that's why people say, when look for the next phone, if it does not
> support sat sos/comms, don't buy it, but after buying it, one hopes
> not to use the function, otherwise, likely in disasters
> --
> J Pan, UVic CSc, ECS566, 250-472-5796 (NO VM), Pan@UVic.CA, Web.UVic.CA/~pan
>
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 6:25 PM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> On 28/02/2026 5:56 am, Michael Richardson wrote:
>>> Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>>>       >> One road opened again the next morning, and the power came back on later that
>>>       >> day, along with the 4G coverage.
>>>
>>>       mcr> In the interlude between the storm and the roads opening, was it sunny?
>>>
>>>       > It became sunny, yes, but in terms of using something solar PV that day
>>>       > you would have had a hard time on the first day after the  storm. I run
>>>       > my house (including a granny flat) on grid-connected PV with battery
>>>       > backup, and this is what the weather system
>>>       > looked like on our PV system monitor two days earlier when it passed over Auckland:
>>>
>>> I wasn't thinking PV... I was thinking about that you were there to enjoy the
>>> outdoors, and when the sun comes out after a storm, it's kinda extra sunny.
>>> At least, that's how the emotions feel.
>>>
>>> In 2003, I was in Halifax a week after a Hurricane took out 100K trees.
>>> Cdn Thanksgiving weekend (first weekend of Oct), it was super-bright, warm, dry,
>>> with... destruction everywhere.  The contrast startled. Like a dozen clowns wandering
>>> through WWI trenches or something.
>> It abated slowly and turned to cloudy with a bit of sun overnight and
>> then again a bit better the next day. Destruction wasn't immediately
>> obvious apart from a few smaller slips (common here) and the occasional
>> tree damage from wind - we escaped the worst of that, unlike the people
>> on the other side of the range. It wasn't until we started on a few
>> walks when we saw just how badly the river and some of the small creeks
>> had swollen and how much damage that did to the surrounding bush in
>> terms of sediment deposited and mature trees felled. Some of them would
>> have carried over 100 times the amount of water that they usually carry
>> - I'd never seen anything like it.
>>> I would be interesting to learn about the satellite service turn on process.
>>> Did they just do it?  Could a government have asked them explicitely?
>>> Maybe there is fine print that either expects this or demands it.
>> I think they just did it without being asked, because it was in their
>> interest. Essentially they oversold the service somewhat (they're in
>> court for false advertising because of this) by making it look like it
>> was a 1:1 replacement for normal cell service. During normal times,
>> they're covering 99%+ of people here with terrestrial service anyway.
>> Rural areas are covered via a single physical network provider, the
>> Rural Connectivity Group (RCG), a jointly-owned subsidiary of the three
>> mobile network providers in NZ who all tenant together on the RCG sites.
>> So when an RCG site goes down, no terrestrial network works.
>>
>> This made the telcos here look really bad after Cyclone Gabrielle, and
>> obviously some work's gone on to strengthen infrastructure a bit, but I
>> guess much of that would have gone into shoring up service to towns and
>> cities rather than remote valleys with a few farms.
>>
>> So this storm would have been an opportunity to show the rural folk that
>> One NZ has their backs in such situations, distinguish themselves from
>> their competitors, gather brownie points to use in court and curry
>> favour with the government. Likewise, it would have been fairly easy to
>> do for them because of the low user density and usage profile in the area.
>>
>> For where we were, I'd estimate maybe 10-15 mobile phones per square
>> kilometre (if that much), with maybe 3-4 of them being eligible models.
>> Given that the locals there generally have work to do that doesn't
>> involve using apps or texting for much of the day, maybe one active
>> phone per sq km for most of the time?
>>
>> Forgot to mention that my phone indicated that it was roaming, despite
>> me being a One NZ customer.
>>
>> --
>> ****************************************************************
>> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>>
>> School of Computer Science
>>
>> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>>
>> The University of Auckland
>> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
>> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
>> ****************************************************************
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list -- starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> To unsubscribe send an email to starlink-leave@lists.bufferbloat.net

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************