commentsOnPizza t1_j9ieaiw wrote
Reply to comment by AKiss20 in Boston Internet Provider Starry Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy by void_boi
I'd argue that the tech side "sucking" was what made the business side suck. Yes, if you were a customer, the tech side was great.
Starry's tech was based around millimeter-wave radios which basically require line-of-sight to function. That makes the tech expensive since you have to go to each building individually. The "badness" of the tech would limit Starry's reach to select larger buildings. That badness makes it hard to do marketing. How can you market your home internet service when 99% of the people you're advertising to can't get it? You're throwing your marketing dollars away. But if you don't advertise it, the people who can get it might not know about it.
If Starry's tech were better, more people could have been eligible giving them economies of scale, critical mass to make a strong marketing campaign worthwhile, etc.
If the tech were more effective/better, then the business side wouldn't have sucked. The tech might have been good for you if you were able to get it. However, if the tech was "bad" which prevented economies of scale and they had to sell the service to you for less than it cost them to install/run, then it wasn't really good tech. It was just subsidized tech until their money ran out.
I don't want to sound too harsh on Starry. It's just really hard to use millimeter-wave radios in a way that works for consumers. A business might pay hundreds of dollars a month for a wireless backup for their internet and be willing to eat installation costs, but a consumer doesn't want to spend that much.
I mean, Starlink is offering an alternative to Comcast, but I don't think a lot of people would want to pay $700 for a Dishy + $110/mo to get away from Comcast. Starlink is operating off a model where they're going after customers with no real internet option. Yes, you loved Starry and hated Comcast - but you loved Starry because they were willing to give you service at an unsustainably low price. You would have hated Starry if they kept raising your bill like Comcast. You probably wouldn't have signed up for Starry in the first place if their plans started at $100/mo.
I'm not saying that they would need to do crappy things to create a viable business model, but the tech severely limited the business. And, frankly, a lot of the things you hate about Comcast kinda work. You get people with an introductory offer of $30/mo for a couple years. In Boston, a lot of people move out within that timeframe anyway. Even if it becomes $60 in the third year, you're averaging $40/mo over the 3 year period, $45 over a 4 year period. Even if it becomes $80 in the 5th year, you're still averaging $52/mo over a 5 year period. Yea, it feels painful to be paying $80/mo, but you're not actually losing much compared to Starry's standard $50 rate. If you negotiate it back down (or cancel and get a roommate to get a new-customer deal), you can save money - albeit while starting to despise Comcast.
Starry's downfall is really that their tech wasn't good enough. Yes, it was great if you got it, but it wasn't good enough because they couldn't get it to a lot of people in a cost effective way. Using millimeter-wave spectrum has the advantage that you can buy the spectrum for cheap (compared to sub-6GHz spectrum), but comes with the disadvantage that you need to do a ton more work putting up antennas on individual buildings and then serving a small number of people per antenna. Starry was a bit of a moonshot kind of business - could one make mmWave spectrum viable for home internet. Turns out the tech wasn't good enough.
And I don't want to sound too harsh on Starry. Verizon poured so much time and money into mmWave and barely made a dent. They launched 3.5GHz mid-band 5G and made amazing progress fast. Verizon also bought into mmWave big time and it really didn't work out for them - and they had a ton of advantages over Starry, including legal advantages being the Title II Common Carrier in a bunch of the country which gives them cheap access at fixed prices to a lot of infrastructure, already having a huge fiber network, having a wireless network already, and having many $10+ billion to spend every year on their network. And Verizon failed at mmWave. Sure, it does have a tiny bit of coverage and it's cool when you get it, but the tech just didn't have the impact they'd hoped. Starry: cool if you can get it, but the tech just didn't support the kind of broad availability necessary to be viable.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9jpc4h wrote
The fuck are you talking about 30 a month? Last time I had Comcast it was 90 dollars a month for internet only and 5 years later it was raised to 110. I switched to starry to halve my bill. Fuck comcast.
ApolloSimba t1_j9jqvsr wrote
That is what comcast is at now. I've had them for multiple years, am on a premium plan to get extra speed cause I am a dork, and have never paid 90 a month. When they do try and and do the it has been 24 months and we will increase your rate thing, you just call and threaten to go to RCN and they give you a good rate again.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9jrcar wrote
I can't get RCN. My building had no other option until starry and it was 90 dollars that got raised to 110. So I could just not have internet or pay them. It's still 60 dollars to get Comcast here. You are only in a good spot because of RCN and you won't even give them your bussiness.
ApolloSimba t1_j9ju7pi wrote
I had RCN for years and my experience with them was exponentially worse than comcast
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9juomz wrote
Again they are still the only reason you have a cheaper Comcast. If RCN stops existing expect your internet bill to at least triple.
ApolloSimba t1_j9jw98i wrote
Yes, I understand how monopolies work. The solution is making internet a public utility not more internet corporations. RCN and Comcast are both horrible. I happen to be in a place where I have access to both so my experience is slightly less horrible than when someone has access to only one.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9jx5wp wrote
Do you though? Because your solution to me has been well durr durr why don't you just threaten to go to RCN to get a cheaper rate with Comcast, works everytime. Except I can't
We are never getting a public option and based on your unwillingness to support the smaller provider you're probably gonna lose that too.
ApolloSimba t1_j9jzu0l wrote
I have tried RCN. It was terrible on a scale that I have never experienced with Comcast. You keep ignoring me saying that.
Your premise erroneously limits the options available. I gave you another option but since it is not 'realistic' you disregarded it. (FYI there are at least 3 municipally owned and operated ISP's in MA alone and hundreds in the US. It is realistic.)
It's not that I am unwilling to support a smaller provider. It's that I see the smaller provider as no different than the larger one. It's all symptomatic of the same problem.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9k047w wrote
It's not just unrealistic. It's non existent.
It's okay to say hey I'm a selfish asshole who doesn't care that they are supporting the greater of two evils. You don't have to make a lengthy diatribe about why you are justified
ApolloSimba t1_j9k0cqw wrote
As I said before, it literally exists in the commonwealth. It is realistic, it literally exists. I don't think you're a selfish asshole; you're misinformed.
Concord seems to be the closest I can find to the greater boston area with it.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9k0gbd wrote
No I think you're the selfish asshole for supporting Comcast.
Look I've been involved in bringing a communal internet to a town that was eventually tanked because the big isp payed the board members in contract jobs. You try it.
ApolloSimba t1_j9k0kj5 wrote
I'm appreciate you trying that!
I am not trying that because I don't see it as a way individual time and effort can provide value to my community.
I do direct action by giving my time to youth programs in somerville/cambridge. Praxis has many forms.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9k15sr wrote
Like supporting the lesser of two evils.
ApolloSimba t1_j9k38hs wrote
The only moral option is to not support evil. But alas I need internet to work and I need to work to eat.
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9k3nod wrote
People vote for the lesser of two evils all the time. That's why Biden won for instance. You are just being obtuse and selfish in this particular circumstance
ApolloSimba t1_j9k42sx wrote
Correct but that was not a moral decision. The moral decision there is to abstain or to write in.
But we live in a FPTP voting system which essentially only allows two viable candidates. So someone can choose to make the moral decision (abstain or write in) or the make a non-moral decision that's forced upon them because of a system they did not choose. Sound similar?
Organic_Experience69 t1_j9kg29h wrote
You're assuming morality is binary when it is not.
ApolloSimba t1_j9kmvly wrote
No, I am not. But in this case, I can confidently say supporting evil of any sort (even if it is a lesser evil) is not a moral choice.
Is supporting the lesser of two evils an ethical choice - probs
Is supporting the lesser of two evils a practical choice. - Oh yah.
Is supporting the lesser of two evils a moral choice - supporting evil by definition is not moral.
Moomoomoo1 t1_j9kim59 wrote
I tried Starry for a couple of months and as much as I liked the price and customer service, it just was not reliable enough. Lots of latency issues and mini-outages, which were not noticeable 99% of the time, but it was especially a problem if you play online games and sometimes while streaming, in zoom meetings, etc. Had to go back to Comcast which I really did not want to do but at least in my building has been better.
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