Best Of

Buying Starlink when Musk can turn it off if he does not like you is not a smart move. In fact, buying any US-made or owned defence/security related product is probably not a great idea if there is any residual after-sale reliance on the manufacturer. Buying a Tesla is different because there are no real post-purchase dependency concerns but there is the association with Musk and that will clearly affect the choices a lot of people make.

I'm one consumer. My business bought Starlink a couple of years ago and despite claims to the contrary it is consistently faster than any other option available.

Lets assume that Musk switches it off tomorrow. I revert back to an alternative. Same if he turns it off next month. Next year. If that happens then we revert back to the slower laggier alternatives, but have had the benefit of the superior faster product.

I'm unclear where the downsides are.

In politics there is a real problem with dismissing real world lived experience because actually I know more than you and actually the stats show that what you have in the real world you actually don't actually.

I think Horse is a great poster but repeatedly he has told me that my lived experience of using Starlink isn't real. Translate that into politics and we have the Tories putting up taxes and trying to tell people that the big tax rise eating into their net pay on their payslip is actually a cut actually, or one of a myriad of Labour topics where they are right and the voters are wrong. I can still picture the Momentum activist literally finger jabbing at a guy on his doorstep berating him about how he was wrong about the stuff he was saying about his life.

The header is about Reform - and they're doing very well by not falling into this trap of telling people they are wrong when they describe their lives. We can disagree with a political or philosophical perspective, but when that translates into insisting that lived experience is wrong then you've lost.

I think that’s unfair. I am very glad Starlink works for you. My point was simply that the latency is not reliable and not comparable to other solutions. If it works for you then great.

I am not trying to deny your lived experience, what I am denying is that it is a solution that can work for the vast majority. That is all.

Once again, this is purely a technical argument. I’d make the same arguments about OneWeb.

As I’ve said repeatedly: use Starlink as you wish. The fact you’re being told not to by a bunch of virtue signallers is becoming very boring.

There is a problem though. Your industry take is pro cellular. Great - we all want faster and more reliable service.

You went way beyond that. You've insisted that Starlink's latency is so horrible as to ask "How do you use Starlink for meetings"

I'm not sure what industrial uses you are considering it unsuitable for. For small business and consumer?

Again again. It is Fast. It is reliable. It has low latency. It does the things you say it can't do.

Whereas the things you are advocating cannot. But you've repeatedly and stridently insisted you're right on this subject. Yes - from your perspective with your chosen bias and your chosen selective usage model.

This is precisely the point I am making about politics. You cannot tell someone they are wrong when they're describing how things in their lives work for them - with the exception of someone insisting we're all controlled by aliens or something. For the rest, its qui bono?

I’ve already explained to you. It’s not usable at scale. It cannot in any way replace a mast with a 10Gb fibre running to it.

I don’t think you are wrong to use it. I am happy it works for you. I think you are wrong to advocate for it as something that can replace 4G/5G or FTTP for more than a few hundred people.

That's not what you said. I am not using it at scale. I am using a single terminal. "How do you use Starlink for meetings" because "the latency is horrible"

But it isn't. If you are suggesting that it *might* be horrible and usable in the future if it scaled to millions of UK users then ok. But you didn't say that. You said it isn't usable today and proceeded to sell 4G/5G which as you just said it can't replace.

But it can replace. I have no 5G to replace, only 4G. And Starlink is waaaaay faster and more reliable.

Can it replace a mast with 10Gb fibre? No! Am I ever likely to get a mast with 10Gb fibre? No!

Starlink is not supposed to be a replacement for other systems. It's a supplement to those systems where they don't exist. And at no point have I suggested that someone like my Lincolnshire mate bin his 5G router for Starlink - that would be stupid.

Do you get it yet? "FTTP will cover 99% of households by 2030". OK, lets assume that's true. I can't wait until 2030. And neither can most people without it. And the alternatives you prefer don't exist here, and in all likelihood won't come here.

You are literally denying lived reality today to sell a future that is vapourware.

Can you hold this discussion for about 20 minutes lads. I don't want to miss any of it but I've found something more important and interesting that I just need to do.

Talking of Musk acting like an autocrat, this is a fascinating insight into how he's recently been acting as a dictator deputy.

Trump introduced Musk, who took control of the meeting, declaring the country would “go bankrupt” if he were not allowed to destroy the government untrammeled. He stood above the cabinet secretaries, wearing all black, a T-shirt reading “Tech Support”, a black Maga cap, and condescended: “And President Trump has put together, I think, the best cabinet ever, literally.” The questions came from the reporters in the room. The nervous cabinet members sat silently, worried about not one but two overlords. Musk was asked questions about his demand that federal employees justify their work every week and wondered how many “you’re looking to cut, total”. Musk gave no answer. Trump intervened: “We’re bloated, we’re sloppy."

'Trump intervened: “We’re bloated, we’re sloppy."'

Unusually honest self assessment there.

Interesting discussion. Personally I wouldn’t buy a Tesla now, or install Starlink, but I might have done a couple of years ago. But I am not in the very awkward position of being deep into a money-making business marketing Teslas on YouTube. The incentives are different and I understand why Rochdale Pioneers would be keen to draw a distinction between the product and the person.

I was rather more compromised back in 2014, and I say this with a large degree of shame. For sometime one of my largest clients was Rosneft. There’s an engagement letter out there in the ether signed by me and countersigned by Igor Sechin. So I was visiting Moscow and giving advice as the little green men marched into Crimea and the sanctions landed. And I didn’t stop straightaway because it would have been tricky, there was lots of money at stake and I was making mental distinctions between the project and The Project.

I even went back to Moscow in 2018 to do a seminar, just before the World Cup.

All of that makes me in hindsight complicit in the normalising and trade-washing that Putin’s government played on the West, and indeed complicit (ok in a tiny, immaterial way) in the hydrocarbon economy that they established to fund their rearming and blackmail the West.

We tell ourselves all sorts of stories to protect our own sense of morality.

At one point in my chequered career I specialised in 'shaping' the numbers on PFI contracts to make them appear value for money when they weren't.

PB having its truth and reconciliation/"Are we the bad guys" moment.

Interesting discussion. Personally I wouldn’t buy a Tesla now, or install Starlink, but I might have done a couple of years ago. But I am not in the very awkward position of being deep into a money-making business marketing Teslas on YouTube. The incentives are different and I understand why Rochdale Pioneers would be keen to draw a distinction between the product and the person.

I was rather more compromised back in 2014, and I say this with a large degree of shame. For sometime one of my largest clients was Rosneft. There’s an engagement letter out there in the ether signed by me and countersigned by Igor Sechin. So I was visiting Moscow and giving advice as the little green men marched into Crimea and the sanctions landed. And I didn’t stop straightaway because it would have been tricky, there was lots of money at stake and I was making mental distinctions between the project and The Project.

I even went back to Moscow in 2018 to do a seminar, just before the World Cup.

All of that makes me in hindsight complicit in the normalising and trade-washing that Putin’s government played on the West, and indeed complicit (ok in a tiny, immaterial way) in the hydrocarbon economy that they established to fund their rearming and blackmail the West.

We tell ourselves all sorts of stories to protect our own sense of morality.

There is a lesson here for the triangulators.

https://x.com/SpencerFernando/status/1898775415444975848
Poland is massively pro-America. They spend nearly 5% of GDP on national defence. They buy vast amounts of U.S. weapons. They even thought about naming a military base after Donald Trump.

Yet, the U.S. is now picking a fight with Poland and treating Polish officials with contempt.

This is a lesson for those who still foolishly say that Canada should just ‘give Trump what he wants.’

Our disgraceful treatment by the U.S. isn’t Canada’s fault, or Poland’s fault, or Ukraine’s fault, or the EU’s fault.

This is happening because the U.S. is led by someone who admires dictators and has contempt for democratic nations.

We must stop trying to appease the insanity currently overtaking our southern neighbour.