Starlink in the Falkland Islands – A national emergency situation?

https://www.openfalklands.com/february-2025-starlink-in-the-falkland-islands-a-national-emergency-situation/

180 217 1 year ago

paulkrush• 1 year ago

If I moved to the middle of nowhere because of Starlink and them... "The sudden shutdown of Starlink services clearly qualifies as a National Emergency due to the widespread and unforeseen consequences such an action would have."

edoceo• 1 year ago

Is a third part of your comment missing or ...? I think this puts a focus on how much Internet connectivity is nearly necessary

nosioptar2• 1 year ago

I worked for a satellite provider's customer service years ago.

I'd get tons of calls from people upset that the service was only available in the US. About 40% were people trying to use it outside the US.

(The other 60% were all from the same American state.)

It's amazing what shit people expect sometimes.

adastra22• 1 year ago

Alaska?

Dylan16807• 1 year ago

Were a lot of those 40% near the US and with a good view of the satellite? If so I don't see why it's amazing they want to purchase services from your company.

usef-• 1 year ago

I didn't read the article deeply, but my impression is that it's mostly people that already live there - one firm has an exclusive license to provide internet. I think it's ok to complain about such a situation as internet is not the exclusive reason someone might choose a place to live.

I often hear people complain about milder internet monopolies -for instance, one cable provider in their town. But this sounds higher stakes because that internet provider has a single satellite for the island, so one malfunction could cut (most? All?) access completely.

madaxe_again4• 1 year ago

They seem to have outages quite frequently, and only recently started offering speeds above 5mbps (and price cuts) as a result of competition from starlink.

ascorbic4• 1 year ago

What makes you think they moved to the middle of nowhere because of Starlink? These are people who've lived there for hundreds of years.

pessimizer• 1 year ago

The first permanent settlement in the Falklands was by a German in 1826. So hundred of years.

benatkin2• 1 year ago

Regardless of differing opinions

Those opinions seem to be relevant here.

jeffgreco• 1 year ago

Strong FAFO vibes.

decimalenough2• 1 year ago

By who? Are you blaming locals who want to use Starlink, or the incumbent monopoly that's likely twisting arms behind the scenes to ensure it retains the stranglehold on communications to the islands?

roenxi3• 1 year ago

...twisting arms behind the scenes...

Falkland Islands, pop 3,600 [0] - can they sustain a "behind the scenes"?

The Chinese National People's Congress is around 3,000 members. A bit of net emigration and the Falklands would be smaller than a legislative body.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands

benatkin2• 1 year ago

This monopoly seems to be preventing unexpected changes. Maybe better Internet would cause it to turn into a digital nomad paradise, which would cause more demand for visiting or living there, and that in turn would cause greater tension in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands_sovereignty_d...

roenxi3• 1 year ago

Because Sure International holds an exclusive monopoly telecommunications licence, Starlink’s use in the islands is currently illegal.

The national emergency seems to be that they want to do something that is explicitly illegal. The article seems to be missing important context on why they expect to be able to do what they are doing.

wmf• 1 year ago

The article also says the law was changed but it will take two months to take effect.

sneak• 1 year ago

Is it insensitive to say “move somewhere less corrupt”? It doesn’t seem to be anything to do with Starlink as it seems they can’t legally offer service there.

hirokio123• 1 year ago

Mobile technology is promoted for use under the law of the universe. When human laws contradict the law of the universe, human laws are in violation of universal law.

aetherspawn• 1 year ago

Well an island like this is basically a big strata where dividing the cost of infrastructure between everyone makes things livable. Don’t be surprised there’s a monopoly telco, because it probably doesn’t make economic sense any other way.

And keep in mind they probably insisted on a monopoly contract because they probably spent an absolute bomb setting it up, only to get max 1500 or so subscribers.

Say: 1500 subscribers @ $100/pm and you’d be running a telco on only $1.8M per year. That’s about enough money to pay for compliance, infra upkeep, and hire maybe 2-3 staff who wear many hats.

petesergeant3• 1 year ago

Yeah, the only real solution here feels like paying off the monopoly, a cost which in the end is likely going to need a handout from the UK. It’s tough to identify anyone who’s done anything explicitly wrong in this story, or a solution that doesn’t end up shafting someone. Perhaps a negotiated tax on non-monopoly users there that goes to the monopoly to help defray their investment is the only sensible solution.

Closi4• 1 year ago

Or just allow competitors in?

Why does the monopoly need paying off? It’s risk/reward for them, if they end up loosing money on their venture why should the taxpayer foot the bill?

toast02• 1 year ago

Waiting for the exclusive contract to end would also work. Unless they really weren't thinking ahead when they contracted this out, there must be a way to choose a different provider, but it may be a lengthy wait.

143• 1 year ago

And this might be the big issue with solar power and also EV's. If enough people switch to solar and are no longer paying into the grid at a certain point it will become unprofitable to maintain a large grid. The same is true at this point for EV's. Buying gas we pay road tax. So not buying gas is going to reduce that tax collected. At a certain point they will need to change the way that tax is collected. Probably some sort of tax on the distance an EV drives or perhaps some other method.

fjjjrjj• 1 year ago

Already happening. I paid an EV fee on my car tabs this week.

loeg3• 1 year ago

(For some context: gas taxes are already a subset of road expense. Significant road funding comes from other revenue sources that EV drivers also pay.)

crummy• 1 year ago

In NZ, EVs pay road user charges.

gibolt• 1 year ago

Even worse, many states are more than double charging EVs for the comparable average mileage that determines gas tax.

iforgotpassword2• 1 year ago

I never really got these arguments. It doesn't have to be that way, does it? I already pay a monthly base fee for electricity and then per kwh on top of that. So I consider the base fee as what is being used to maintain the grid. It's not like my actual consumption influences the wear of the grid in a meaningful way

That argument would actually make more sense for roads so I see how you'd want to tax gas instead of car ownership, but even there I think it could still be acceptable to spread it out like that.

unmole• 1 year ago

It's already happening in Pakistan: https://www.ft.com/content/69e4cb33-3615-4424-996d-5aee9d1af...

rich_sasha• 1 year ago

Consumer electricity is also taxed, although it's not explicitly linked to roads. But then that's not really how governments work anyway, all the money goes into a ~black hole~ big pot and is spent around.

Roads are notionally supported from general taxes in the UK anyway, not fuel duty.

dzhiurgis• 1 year ago

no longer paying into the grid at a certain point it will become unprofitable to maintain a large grid.

1. IDK where you live, but most people pay quite a bit for grid itself, often more than for actual power.

2. With batteries the grid can be about 10x smaller.

mbreese• 1 year ago

In my state, I pay a special tax on my EV when I renew my license plates. It is based on fuel source. The point is to offset the lack of gas taxes I would be paying. Or it might just be a disincentive to buy an EV, it’s hard to tell sometimes.

devwastaken• 1 year ago

oil and gas subsidies repay it back. the true cost of gas is 2-3x current price.

filoleg• 1 year ago

The same is true at this point for EV's. Buying gas we pay road tax. So not buying gas is going to reduce that tax collected. At a certain point they will need to change the way that tax is collected.

WA state had a “genius” workaround for it. I remember being shocked the first time I got my annual car registration slip for my (then) new EV. It was a flat $150 fee + $75 “transportation electrification” fee, on top of all the normal annual registration fees. For more expensive cars like Teslas, proportionally it is not that ridiculous (it “only” raises the fees by about 30-40%). But for something more affordable like Nissan Leaf, it essentially doubles the registration fees (aka increases by almost 100%).

Luckily, they seem to be experimenting with it still. Just saw that starting this upcoming July, they are rolling out a voluntary program where those fees above get waived, if you opt-in and pay 2.5 cents per mile. No idea how they would track it (on a technical level; e.g., using what device? how the data is processed? does it count only in-state miles or just in general?), and that’s the part that I am honestly worried about the most.

But that seems at least like an interesting try.

madaxe_again4• 1 year ago

It’s $4-600/month for 10mbps. And that’s before line rental, equipment deposit, installation charges, and the various other surprise fees they hit you with. I know Falklanders and to say that they hate Sure would be an understatement.

https://www.sure.co.fk/broadband/broadband-packages/?utm_sou...

devilbunny6• 1 year ago

So let the UK eat the cost of making the ISP whole. Nobody needs or especially wants the islands except for national dick-waving; the British gov was making a point that they would and could still fight and win wars. Fine, you want to play at the big dollar table, ante up.

madaxe_again4• 1 year ago

Their revenue is north of £100M p.a., and they are owned by batelco. They are not hurting for cash.

SECProto2• 1 year ago

Their revenue is north of £100M p.a., and they are owned by batelco.

Looking at the wiki page for Sure, they serve many island jurisdictions with a total pop of ~265k, and the falkland islands is only ~3500. That's a ratio of 1:75, 100/75=1.3 million lines up pretty well with OPs comment of the budget for the falkland islands.

krsdcbl• 1 year ago

Honestly with those numbers, I'm pretty surprised it's even an independent company. Wouldn't such a community of 3-4k people in a very remote location be a prime example where providing internet could just be a gov/municipal service, subsided by an extraordinary tax if needed?

Symbiote4• 1 year ago

Nowadays in Britain, even if the government provides the service they would typically contract a private company to set up and operate it.

It looks like the Falkland are similar. Here's a Facebook post from the Falkland government announcing a deal with this ISP.

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=50310531517584...

bpodgursky3• 1 year ago

The high level of Starlink usage sparked a successful petition backed by 70% of the island’s population. This petition demanded both a reduction of the £5,400 FIG VSAT licence fee and formal approval for Starlink’s operation in the Falkland Islands.

Kind of incredible that anglo trend towards governmental gridlock extends to an island of 3,600 people. A blanket majority of the population endorsed the petition... why was it necessary that "proposal was subsequently forwarded to the Falkland Islands Government (FIG) for implementation... However, the effective date for this approval has now been delayed until April."?

Just call the law passed and let Starlink know it's legal now. Why do the islanders put up with this bureaucratic molasses. What am I missing.

moshun• 1 year ago

Interestingly Frank Herbert wrote about the hidden value of slow and measured bureaucratic processes. His essential argument was that a slow bureaucracy has time to review not just the letter of laws and policies, but the impact that they will have after enacted which may not be part of the conversation to get them passed. The story he writes on this is borderline satirical with a government agent called a saboteur, whose sole job is to slow down and muck up an incredibly efficient future government which is able to pass laws which have sweeping impact across the nation in hours, and in some cases seconds.

While most of us corporate drones often laugh at the speed of government, considering the lightning fast decision-making often made in the world’s top companies, that book always made me think about the fact that government operations often have far more riding on them than any private enterprise ever will. So maybe that time is being spent more effectively than you assume.

Personally, this whole scenario makes me very wary. Though I understand the complexities of the infrastructure we’re discussing here, I’d be super nervous to have my Internet lifeline to the rest of the world governed directly by Elon Musk.

bpodgursky3• 1 year ago

OK but they aren't deliberating. They're just delaying implementation until April for no particular reason.

radu_floricica• 1 year ago

That's an argument for a small government. Private entities are both much faster than current governments, and more careful with their money. And when they fail, you basically get free infrastructure (as part of the bankruptcy process) instead of a black hole in which public money keeps getting sunk.

Reading the rest of the comments in this thread it seems like the original decision was at the very least sane: you need major investment in telecom infrastructure, and to facilitate this the government offered a monopoly to incentivize said investment. Makes sense, at face value. Problem is that technology advanced, and now a centralized solution is worse than the state of the art (Starlink). So instead of the infrastructure provider living or dying on merit, you have regulations sustaining it artificially, and no incentive to have them upgrade or become more efficient.

rightbyte• 1 year ago

The proposal could be the other way around. You'd ideally want some time to protest a proposal.

ggm2• 1 year ago

Ask one of the large nation states nearby to supply service.

egl2020• 1 year ago

Argentina would be a good candidate. Islas Malvinas and all that.

ggm2• 1 year ago

Or Uruguay. Lots of IPv6 in Uruguay

sureIy2• 1 year ago

using Starlink in the islands continues to be illegal and is considered a criminal offence

What is wrong with this place? A criminal offense?

protecting Sure International’s telecommunications monopoly

Ahh, that explains it. Mafia in power, essentially.

helsinkiandrew2• 1 year ago

Just about all radio communication is illegal until licensed. Starlink had to get approval from the FCC in the US even before the first satellites went up, to provide fixed broadband service, and before allowing it to be used on mobile vehicles.

Starlink gets licensed in different countries to use specific frequencies to avoid congestion/interference with other services

sureIy2• 1 year ago

Illegal sure, but criminal?

jajko2• 1 year ago

The problem is more musk, to anybody outside US he is potentially an enemy, a self-made one but thats irrelevant.

Internet access is a strategic resource to certain extent, you dont want to pay your enemy for such service. Europe also doesnt want puttin's gas and oil

inemesitaffia3• 1 year ago

That's not relevant here.

quickthrowman3• 1 year ago

Prior to Starlink, the Falklands had two choices when it came to internet service: no internet at all, or sign a monopoly agreement that allows a private ISP to make a profit. The UK government could’ve provided internet as well, but that’s unlikely, leaving the two options on the table.

It’s not mafia in power, it’s simply the economics of providing internet service to a tiny population of ~3,500 living on an island that is almost a thousand miles away from friendly allied nations.

karlgkk• 1 year ago

Ahh, that explains it. Mafia in power, essentially.

It's not so cut and dry, really. Imagine you're an ISP - and you want to set up infrastructure to about 3600 people. Really, it's actually 1200 - many people live in a single household.

Now, you want to get internet TO the island. How do you do that? Easy! Point to point from the nearest terrestrial base. Oops! That's too far! Also, that's Argentina and they hate you (long history).

Okay so, that leaves satellite - famously historically affordable. That requires a lot of bandwidth from satellite and this requires some pretty expensive infrastructure. By the way, it's a lot cheaper if you set up multiple "streams" and distribute them - versus everyone having their own dish.

And we haven't even gotten to the cost of laying out the cable, cell service, etc.

So if this sounds all really expensive - and it is - you better have an agreement from the government that your huge up front investment won't be ruined by some competitor which causes a collapse of both parties. That sounds unreasonable, but honestly, it isn't - this stuff is expensive!

Anyways, they got completely wrecked on the math by Starlink, and so it's probably time for them to go away. But honestly, considering how remote they are, it wasn't really that bad of a deal for quite a long time!

ccamrobertson• 1 year ago

Huh, an arbitrary tax from a remote sovereign. Sounds familiar.

ascorbic4• 1 year ago

This tax is entirely local

ww520• 1 year ago

It's similar to using Starlink in a cruise ship. The cruise companies hate it and prohibit it for good. They want you to buy their expensive wifi plans. Some people still sneak them in and run them on the balconies.

decimalenough2• 1 year ago

Some cruise lines like Oceania use Starlink for their own wifi.

floydnoel• 1 year ago

most of them do now. it's massively cheaper and faster than what they had available before.

GJim7• 1 year ago

The cruise companies hate it and prohibit it

The prohibition on all and sundry on using their own radio trancevers (yes, that includes satellite transceivers) is to prevent the risk of causing RF/electrical interference with the ships systems. The use of low power Wi-Fi and cellular phones is fine, but poorly set up directional VSAT terminals can play havoc with ships navigation and comms kit. This is historically the reason for banning their use without explicit permission in writing from the ships master.

Source: Marine engineer.

ocschwar8• 1 year ago

Never ceases to amaze me that glibertarians think they can do their thing on board a ship more than on land.

15155• 1 year ago

Ah yes, the old "interference on the tenth harmonic" explanation.

Really? Which bands are in use that are interfering? Why are the downlinks not wreaking havoc today?

sponaugle3• 1 year ago

I'm an electrical engineer - I don't understand how what you said can be true at a wide and effective scale. Of course any device can interfere with something else - But what kind of evidence exists that starlink terminals, and in particular the pattern steering and bands use, actually cause interference in a meaningful way to activly used marine system used on these kinds of crafts.

Starlink used Ku and Ka bands, so we are talking about 10-12Ghz and 37-42Ghz downlinks, and 14Ghz and 47-51Ghz uplink. This is highly directional radiation, and even with beam forming and reflections is not likely to have any specific high interference risk. Clearly the downlink transmission from the satellite is exceptionally low power at the ground, even with the beamforming used in the satellites.

I would love to learn that this is a real problem with actual tested data.

Klonoar4• 1 year ago

No, they don’t. They’re just going to charge you an insane price to use it, other than that they all know the service is better.

perihelions• 1 year ago

Saint Helena is another example of an island with an internet monopoly which outlaws satellite terminals,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945 ("Saint Helena Island Communications" (2023), 145 comments)

lxgr4• 1 year ago

At least Saint Helena recently got a submarine cable. I wonder if part of that deal was exclusivity for the operator(s) funding it (hopefully for a limited time).

It would obviously better to make that happen without government restrictions on individual usage, but I can see how recouping a significant private investment for a few thousand people is harder than Starlink just providing services using the satellites that are overflying all of Earth anyway, whether they get used in a given region or not.

razakel• 1 year ago

I wonder if part of that deal was exclusivity for the operator(s) funding it (hopefully for a limited time).

Google is the owner. The EU funded the connection.

throwpoaster• 1 year ago

Telco monopoly got lapped. Shut it down.

FooBarBizBazz• 1 year ago

This monopoly right is roughly equivalent to a bond (it is a bond in the archaic sense of "law"), given by the Falklands government to the satellite company, in exchange for the satellite infrastructure. The Bond's "coupon" isn't precisely fixed; it's the revenue that the company makes from its customers. To dissolve the monopoly would be roughly to default on this bond.

You can imagine an alternate timeline in which the Falklands literally sold bonds to finance this infrastructure. They would have sold bonds; the proceeds would have paid for the satellites; tax dollars (rather than subscription dollars) would then go to service the bond.

The core problem is that the infrastructure just isn't as valuable as people thought it would be, as a result of technological disruption.

There is probably value in the Falklands maintaining some infrastructure of its own for reasons of national autonomy. If they destroy this national monopoly, they'll be left dependent on a Starlink monopoly, over which they have even less control.

They should probably split the difference: Remove the monopoly, subsidize the company with tax revenue to keep it alive, and allow people to use Starlink if they want. This is a "partial default", but it doesn't totally screw anyone, and it looks out for their own autonomy.

throwaway290• 1 year ago

This is the most sensible comment in this dumpster fire of a thread.

neom2• 1 year ago

I was hoping starlink would shake things up in Canada a bit, and then I read... rogers is involved, so I presume more of the same for us then? (for those unaware Canada may as well be Falkland Islands when it comes to our telco monopolies, although ours are marginally, (marginally I said), justifiable because of the size of our country)

barbazoo• 1 year ago

I pay a hundred bucks for 1GBit/s and unlimited data, how is that comparable to Falkland Islands where it’s more expensive, much slower and has data caps?

neom2• 1 year ago

monopolies can exist in various markets causing different effects within their markets, that doesn't negate relative monopolistic effects, my comment was more about the former than the latter.

jajko2• 1 year ago

Any other company, sure lets have a discussion of pros and cons and weight cost in. With musk, you have no idea where his emotional imbalance and childish pettiness will carry him next day, he already feels entitled to mess with other (friendly!) countries' internal affairs and politics. He (in)famously turned off starling for Ukraine military mid attack.

I would lightyears and beyond to avoid having all internet dependent on such person.

Musk-free is good these days unfortunately, especially for non-US, meaning >95% of the world

iknowstuff• 1 year ago

He did not turn it off FYI

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrain...

inemesitaffia3• 1 year ago

This is just lobbying.

artyom5• 1 year ago

Why don't they just bury and undersea cable from the closest mainland? 300 miles from the coast doesn't sound like much for that kind of project.

Oh wait.

swarnie• 1 year ago

Good idea, where's HMS Invincible these days?

lxgr4• 1 year ago

There's some history here, so that particular coast might not be very amenable to any such project.

pelagicAustral• 1 year ago

This is not a case of regulation/deregulation, is a case of a government being fully capable of changing the tide and repeatedly choosing not do so, in spite of a vocal majority of the population wanting to be able to provide their own internet service via Starlink.

Before, we did not had an alternative. Sure only ever gave tiny concesions when pressed to do so, or paid to do so. They are still highly subsidized by the local government.

The horrendous de-facto ISP (Sure) charges £110 a month for 100 GB [0] of data usage at a top download speed of 5 (five, literal five [V in roman]) MBPS, while Starlink offers unlimited usage for £60 per month at an average download speed of 130 MBPS.

[0] Sure is a company with a long record of predatory conduct (more on a previous comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42657692

https://guernseypress.com/news/2024/10/02/sure-ordered-to-pa...

mppm• 1 year ago

£110 a month for 100 GB is actually less than I would have expected for a really remote place like the Falklands. As a point of comparison, I used to pay something like 10 USD per GB on flexiroam while traveling, though I think it's a bit less nowadays. Now that's what I call extortion. And it's still 100 times less than the roaming data rate on my standard mobile subscription.

As for Starlink, keep in mind that you are piggybacking on a humongous satellite network that has tons of unused capacity in remote areas. Now that it's available, it's cool to have it, but the previous provider had an exclusive contract for a reason. And presumably it's still binding, so I imagine the Falklands government is in a bit of a bind over this.

And by the way, Starlink itself is not above price gouging where they have no cheaper alternatives. Look at Starlink Marine pricing for example, which is I think 2500 USD / mo, down from 10000. So there is no actual guarantee that £60 per month unlimited usage will still be be there if Starlink is allowed to operate officially.

_bin_2• 1 year ago

price gouging

this is a crazy way of describing a lack of competitive pressure leaving prices high. compare this to the other alternatives that existed. it's not gouging.

quickthrowman3• 1 year ago

It’s only 110 pounds a month? I figured it would be much more, given that ~3,500 people live there. That gives a customer base of ~1,500 or so.

There aren’t exactly many places to run a fiber connection to, Uruguay being the closest friendly neighbor (aside from the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego), I assume the current internet connection is a satellite link?

Before starlink, the only way to get a private company to offer internet service to a tiny island with less people than my neighborhood is a monopoly, the economics simply don’t work if there is competition.

schiffern2• 1 year ago

If this is the caliber of internet people are dealing with, I really hope some kind local techies are helping to set people up with uBlock Origin (ideally on Firefox), ClearURLs to skip unnecessary redirects (I'm assume GEO latencies here), and LocalCDN or DecentralEyes to avoid re-downloading the same libraries and assets over and over. Probably good to add something that defaults Youtube to 360p, and use Pihole for mobile/smart devices.

There are many addons, but I find these are the minimal "set it and forget it" set that makes the most difference.

Personally I would run uBO in at least Medium Mode[1], but I expect that's probably too much for most non-technical users.

Source: I suffered through metered satellite internet for many years.

[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock

kcb• 1 year ago

Or you know...just use that worldwide broadband speed satellite network.

pabs3• 1 year ago

Folks should probably use all those things even on less terrible internet.

numpad0• 1 year ago

pure nitpick:

  - lowercase b implies bits, which is (0|1).
  - uppercase B implies Bytes, which is* 8 bits(1100 1001). 
  - "ps" stands for "per second" and is typically used for bits.  
  - "/s" stands for "per second" and is typically used for bytes. 
  - realistically, context suggests 5120 bit per seconds, which is rather slow.
  - 5MB/s is 40Mbps, 8 times over 5Mbps, enough* for couple 4K H.265 streams.

oskarkk2• 1 year ago

realistically, context suggests 5120 bit per seconds, which is rather slow.

How? "5 MBPS" must mean 5 Mb/s (megabits/s) or 5 MB/s (megabytes/s), and for internet speeds megabits are much more common, so it's rather 5 Mb/s ~ 5,242,880 bits per second, equal to ~0.6 megabytes per second or 5120 kilobits (not just bits) per second.

Starlink can achieve speeds around 130 Mb/s (megabits/s), but (normal) Starlink surely doesn't achieve 130 MB/s (megabytes/s), so that would check out.

sixothree• 1 year ago

Isn’t that how Uber came to exist? Undercut pricing until you amass users then return to profit once the competition is extinct. I would love to believe the starlink price is real but history says otherwise.

metalman• 1 year ago

It looks a lot like the people of the Faulklands demoraticaly elected a bunch of monopololists to run the place, and will have to use the same means to get things sorted out. Or to put it bluntly, not bieng up to speed on todays internet is litteraly shackling the population to decling incomes and standards of living, plus no one in there right mind would emigrate there.A business?, startup? It sounds like its a lot like rural Argentina.

ascorbic4• 1 year ago

Starlink is amazing, but if I were the Falkland Islanders I'd be quite nervous about relying on a service from a company owned by someone who is so openly hostile to the UK.

dmix• 1 year ago

This is what everyone said he’d do in Ukraine (after he spoke against expanding the service into Russian controlled Crimea) yet the service continues to be a critical part of their military and Russia is still excluded from using it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...

lesuorac• 1 year ago

Russia is allowed to use Starlink namely because apparently Starlink only geo-fences so in order to let Ukraine use Starlink in an area you have to allow anybody else to use it.

Presumably over the past 12 years they could've implemented some of linking accounts to a region and ban the use outside of the region. (Although wait, didn't they do that to counter-act people using them with RVs/Boats in the US!?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russo-Ukrainia...

_bin_2• 1 year ago

stupid question: isn't starlink effectively beyond the reach of tiny countries' governments? why comply? they can't do a thing about satellites, physically can't touch them, and America owns the payment rails the company uses. why pretend that these countries have the ability or right to regulate this?

EMIRELADERO• 1 year ago

I'm guessing they deal with it at the citizen level. Just investigate, raid the property and confiscate all the equipment.

Klonoar4• 1 year ago

It’s only ~3500 people on the islands, it’s not exactly a difficult to find if someone brings it in.

mromanuk3• 1 year ago

The use of the name Falklands is problematic because the Islas Malvinas are a disputed territory between Argentina and the UK. The UN has recognized this dispute and has urged the UK to negotiate their return, something the UK has ignored so far. Using the name imposed by the occupying power contributes to erasing Argentina’s legitimate claim and disregards the international legal stance on the issue. The proper approach would be to refer to them as Islas Malvinas or at least acknowledge the dispute in any discussion about them.

Klonoar4• 1 year ago

The history is pretty well documented and the islanders overwhelmingly voted to align with the UK.

mromanuk3• 1 year ago

Self-determination does not apply here because the current population is not indigenous but was implanted after the UK forcibly took the islands in 1833, displacing the original Argentine population. The UN considers this a decolonization issue, not a matter of self-determination.

The argument that the islanders “chose” to remain under UK control ignores that democracy cannot legitimize colonial occupation. A referendum by settlers cannot override international law, just as a vote by European colonists in Africa in the 19th century wouldn’t justify occupation. The UK has consistently refused to negotiate, violating UN resolutions and international norms.

GJim7• 1 year ago

the Islas Malvinas are a disputed territory between Argentina and the UK

Not according to the Islanders who live there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Falkland_Islands_sovereig...

Please understand the word democracy.

mromanuk3• 1 year ago

The 2013 referendum is not a valid argument in sovereignty disputes. The UN has repeatedly recognized the Islas Malvinas as a disputed territory and has urged the UK to negotiate with Argentina (Resolution 2065 and subsequent resolutions).

massive-fail• 1 year ago

Are we all pretending starlink is financially viable and discussing it on that basis or from a different angle?

lxgr4• 1 year ago

I find it quite interesting that roaming is available at all, even if just for a limited time period. As far as I understand, satellite operators need a local license to offer any kind of service in a country's territory (and I believe even in its airspace).

For older systems, especially those with relatively large beam sizes, there's an argument to be made that provider-side regional limitations are technically infeasible, but that obviously does not apply to Starlink.

Starlink in the Falkland Islands – A national emergency situation?

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