beezer wrote
nuclearcat wrote Some "others" got severe fines, and some spent time in jail. Be careful what you are advising for other people to do.
You advise people to commit a crime.
There are many ways to detect illegal satellite modem. From RF emissions, to ip leaks.
I had a whole thing written out but I'll summarize that if this shit hole doesn't give you the minimal respect to have something like clean tap water, electricity, proper roads, health and safety, and you have a way to get your own internet because god knows how much it'll end up costing and how crappy it'll be by 2022. Then yeah...I'd do it and be proud to do it. Because whatever money I can keep from giving their filthy disgusting hands I would. And for them to catch it through RF frequencies would be pretty damn impossible unless they have some damn expensive equipment to pinpoint exactly where it's coming from. The only way he would be caught is if someone rats him out.

I'm telling you I know someone who had a 3 meter dish two way satellite internet for years connecting to a European internet provider back in around 2008 and he was never caught.
And they have that damn expensive equipment and it is even better than you expect. Because they are catching 20Ghz range P2P links. And i saw this equipment by my own eyes several years ago.
At 2008 it was sort of legal, ISPs was allowed to have satellite downlink. Knowing cost of 3m antenna and feasibility of such setup, i'm quite sure it was for ISP. And that is not most important.
Important, that you might be lucky and run 3m TX/RX antenna for 10 years, because nobody around give a shit. And you might be unlucky, if you have jealous neighbour who report you to police, when he spot your Starlink on first week using it.
In addition, Starlink clearly requires an open sky. Therefore, for example, if you live on the second floor, between dense buildings - you are out of luck.
So, it is extremely irresponsible to tell a person "go for it".
In my opinion, it is much more correct to explain all the pros and cons, and to help as much as possible so that a person does not get into trouble.
They can easily legislate a law against it and SpaceX can easily blacklist Lebanon as a potential client. Then you would have a pretty expensive and useless equipment. You may get lucky for a year but when it becomes popular and start showing in headlines eyes will be opened and politicians here will give users hard times. FYI many countries are beginning to revolt against it already and it is still in beta.
They are planning to release 60000 satellites. Astronomers are complaining already that it is heavily messing with their observations.

I don't like it too much.

If someone is living in a place with bad internet or in the middle of nowhere and they need fast internet then they should just move to a city.
rolf wroteThey are planning to release 60000 satellites. Astronomers are complaining already that it is heavily messing with their observations.

I don't like it too much.

If someone is living in a place with bad internet or in the middle of nowhere and they need fast internet then they should just move to a city.
I'm more frightened that if these satellites will start colliding with something, it will create such enormous space debris, that will lock humanity for many years on earth.
nuclearcat wrote I'm more frightened that if these satellites will start colliding with something, it will create such enormous space debris, that will lock humanity for many years on earth.
Yes, true. Debris is going to be more and more of a concern for future launches.

Check this out, the live position map:

https://satellitemap.space/
nuclearcat wrote
rolf wroteThey are planning to release 60000 satellites. Astronomers are complaining already that it is heavily messing with their observations.

I don't like it too much.

If someone is living in a place with bad internet or in the middle of nowhere and they need fast internet then they should just move to a city.
I'm more frightened that if these satellites will start colliding with something, it will create such enormous space debris, that will lock humanity for many years on earth.
It is not as bad as you think actually 60000 sats are nothing even if some broke appart chances you collide with one randomly is so slim, imagine you have 60000 cars roaming earth but everywhere is a road what is the chances 2 cars collide i mean that is 0.0001 car/km2 how about you have multiple layers chances decrease dramatically and being higher up the area is much larger so even with random debris that won't ever lock humanity in earth.
rolf wrote
nuclearcat wrote I'm more frightened that if these satellites will start colliding with something, it will create such enormous space debris, that will lock humanity for many years on earth.
Yes, true. Debris is going to be more and more of a concern for future launches.

Check this out, the live position map:

https://satellitemap.space/
this map exaggerates things a LOT it is not that bad
nuclearcat wrote And they have that damn expensive equipment and it is even better than you expect. Because they are catching 20Ghz range P2P links. And i saw this equipment by my own eyes several years ago.
At 2008 it was sort of legal, ISPs was allowed to have satellite downlink. Knowing cost of 3m antenna and feasibility of such setup, i'm quite sure it was for ISP. And that is not most important.
Important, that you might be lucky and run 3m TX/RX antenna for 10 years, because nobody around give a shit. And you might be unlucky, if you have jealous neighbour who report you to police, when he spot your Starlink on first week using it.
In addition, Starlink clearly requires an open sky. Therefore, for example, if you live on the second floor, between dense buildings - you are out of luck.
So, it is extremely irresponsible to tell a person "go for it".
In my opinion, it is much more correct to explain all the pros and cons, and to help as much as possible so that a person does not get into trouble.
At 2008 his system was installed, for his own personal usage. He was paying hundreds for a few mbps, but it was for his own use and he kept it until he left in 2017. I don't know how much he was paying at that time or what his speed was, but he didn't rely on the government for anything actually. He had his own water system, his own garden and farm, he tried to setup wind power but the police came and stopped him in the process. Anyways.

Yes, Starlink needs clear sky, and yes they could abide by lebanese laws and block it, but I don't think they would do that. If you remember whatsapp at first blocked voice calling depending on your registered number origin, but then they changed it so you could use it behind a VPN. I think (or at least hope) most corporations care about users more than the shit laws of Lebanon that lower its usage numbers. Also satellite internet was supposedly blocked in Saudi Arabia but I know people who had it running there without any problems.

Don't forget that it's "illegal" to broadcast 5ghz in Lebanon because of being a "spy" so all those unlicensed ISP that link their towers through 5ghz and some microwave are way more illegal than your tiny little dish that the average person wouldn't know the difference.
6 days later
DNA wrote
this map exaggerates things a LOT it is not that bad
It's a factual map, how does it exaggerate anything?
rolf wrote
DNA wrote
this map exaggerates things a LOT it is not that bad
It's a factual map, how does it exaggerate anything?
it is factual in the location and count of the sats but the size of the dots relative to earth size in the website is like thousands of times larger than they should if it was scaled correctly so it appears crowded when in fact you shouldn't even see the dots from that distance, so it is exaggerated by a lot.
If they have Lebanon on the list of actually supported countries where it will be rolled out to in 2022 then I don't think there will be an issue. If there is, they'd refund your money. I can't imagine them being crooks like Lebanese companies.

I'm thinking of getting it just for the hell of it even though I'm very happy with Ogero. I mean by the time it'll be available it will cost 4,000,000lbp a month at the real exchange rate.
a month later
More research into this, there will be a link on the ground that is required from Starlink. Lebanon will definitely not allow this.
3 months later
beezer wroteMore research into this, there will be a link on the ground that is required from Starlink. Lebanon will definitely not allow this.
Technically it can be in Cyprus or... ehm, country at south.