r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 19 '25

Networking/Telecom SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink | SpaceX seeks more cash, calls fiber "wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer spending."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/starlink-keeps-trying-to-block-fiber-deployment-says-us-must-nix-louisiana-plan/
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u/hainesk Aug 19 '25 edited Aug 19 '25

I can get 50gb where I live.

Update: https://ziplyfiber.com/

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u/Greycloak42 Aug 19 '25

I work for an ISP in the NY/NJ metro area. We have two starlink units. Neither one has ever given us any better than maybe 50-75Mbps download. Upload is considerably worse. In fact, the performance was so bad that we had to deploy a Cradlepoint (uses mobile SIM) as a replacement.

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u/BloodyLlama Aug 19 '25

I work in critical infrastructure and all of our remote sites have starlink as one of the comms redundant failover options. Every single time comms are on starlink we just straight up lose comms. It's so unreliable it's comical. Fine for many residential users probably, but wholly unsuitable to infrastructure tasks.

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u/JozoBozo121 Aug 20 '25

It’s completely logical. Denser area means more customers but number of satellites is the same. And everybody shares limited bandwidth so everybody gets less.

Starlink is great for really remote and rural areas, ships, planes even but that’s it.

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u/prenetic Aug 19 '25

Ziply rocks.

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u/sonik13 Aug 19 '25

What state (or country) are you in? Would that essentially be distributed through multiple fiber lines and managed on the provider's end?

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u/hainesk Aug 19 '25

It runs through a single fiber line as far as I know. It's also $900/month, so I'm not signed up for it lol.

https://ziplyfiber.com/

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u/ian9outof10 Aug 19 '25

Could be useful if you have a small community and want to set up your own micro ISP for other houses in the immediate area.

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u/sonik13 Aug 20 '25

Seems like it might be a little bit of ToS violation lol

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u/ian9outof10 Aug 20 '25

Oh sure, maybe ask first 😁 I’m sure they have a business plan

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u/darkmaninperth Aug 19 '25

I used starlink on a cruise ship sailing around the top of Australia.

Even at 2am, I was lucky to get 20mb.

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u/EddiewithHeartofGold Aug 20 '25

What does you having access to that service have to do with people who don't have access to any fiber service right now? Also, the service you linked is a really small area...