<story><title>Starlink Direct to Cell</title><url>https://direct.starlink.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sangnoir</author><text>&amp;gt; Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps&lt;p&gt;You should try WhatsApp - there really are not many messenger choices when you have unreliable 2G(!) connectivity. For all the faults of Meta, WhatsApp seems to be the only company that cares about people with bandwidth measured in kbps, sometimes fractions thereof.</text></item><item><author>LeifCarrotson</author><text>But low-bandwidth text is all I need. I guess I won&amp;#x27;t be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t need to be able to stream Netflix when I&amp;#x27;m in the backcountry, it&amp;#x27;s just that my wife insists I need to be able to get a helicopter if I break my leg.&lt;p&gt;Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps, and log into a high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-packet-loss network instead so Messages will actually open instead of whatever it&amp;#x27;s trying to do to upload my location history and download contact pictures...</text></item><item><author>blhack</author><text>This is for very low bandwidth text communications when you&amp;#x27;re out in the country and can see the sky.&lt;p&gt;Stuff like this has existed from companies like garmin for some time.  This is very cool, though.&lt;p&gt;Here is when this was announced: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pretty cool!  Also kindof funny to see the TMobile CEO trying to hype people up and Elon sortof reigning it in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kelnos</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;For all the faults of Meta, WhatsApp seems to be the only company that cares about people with bandwidth measured in kbps, sometimes fractions thereof.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;WhatsApp was built with low-bandwidth&amp;#x2F;high-latency&amp;#x2F;high-packet-loss in mind well before Meta acquired them.&lt;p&gt;I suppose we can give them vague amounts of credit for not making those use cases worse since the acquisition.</text></comment>
<story><title>Starlink Direct to Cell</title><url>https://direct.starlink.com/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sangnoir</author><text>&amp;gt; Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps&lt;p&gt;You should try WhatsApp - there really are not many messenger choices when you have unreliable 2G(!) connectivity. For all the faults of Meta, WhatsApp seems to be the only company that cares about people with bandwidth measured in kbps, sometimes fractions thereof.</text></item><item><author>LeifCarrotson</author><text>But low-bandwidth text is all I need. I guess I won&amp;#x27;t be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice).&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t need to be able to stream Netflix when I&amp;#x27;m in the backcountry, it&amp;#x27;s just that my wife insists I need to be able to get a helicopter if I break my leg.&lt;p&gt;Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps, and log into a high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-packet-loss network instead so Messages will actually open instead of whatever it&amp;#x27;s trying to do to upload my location history and download contact pictures...</text></item><item><author>blhack</author><text>This is for very low bandwidth text communications when you&amp;#x27;re out in the country and can see the sky.&lt;p&gt;Stuff like this has existed from companies like garmin for some time.  This is very cool, though.&lt;p&gt;Here is when this was announced: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=Qzli-Ww26Qs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pretty cool!  Also kindof funny to see the TMobile CEO trying to hype people up and Elon sortof reigning it in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ale42</author><text>Any idea how it compares to Signal? They should be essentially using the same protocol. I also used it with good results with slow connectivity, but never tried on bad 2G...</text></comment>