@bud_t Starlink is limited by physics: You can only shove so much bandwidth through one of those satellites. As such it can never be a service that supports a large number of users in a dense area. Where you can get to a cell tower, the cell tower is going to be superior because it is supporting far fewer users for the same available bandwidth.
@ncweaver exactly right. And that is why it should not be relied upon for mission critical communciations when there are other options.
@bud_t One thing someone should do is combine a miniature celltower with a point to point 802.11 relay setup and a solar panel. Have a central downlink on the 802.11 and just pop up celltowers on the top of every peak around the area...
@ncweaver That's kind of what we do on wildfires with these cellular deployables
@bud_t Oh very cool. Are they written up someplace?
@ncweaver no we build the comms networks ad hoc. Our VHF and UHF radio networks are standardized in terms of equipment, procedures, etc and then once in the field the techs (like me) design and install the system.
For the internet access, we build out as we can and it is different on every fire. Sometimes we have cellular sat-linked deployables, sometimes starlink, sometiems terrestrial cell network. Then we build local 802.11 networks out from the pipe.