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.