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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

I'm of mixed feelings about this. Yes, it's great for the people of Saint Helena. But it would be nice if we could have a few remote places on Earth stay remote.

AT&T is lobbying the federal government for permission to put cell towers in Death Valley. Death Valley is fine without them. It doesn't need more tourist conveniences. It has"Death" in its name for a reason.

On the other hand, if this is something the people of Saint Helena voted for and approved, then it's up to them. I just hope it wasn't pushed on them by a bureaucrat.

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You don't have to go to Saint Helena for radio silience; you can find this in the Owyhee Desert of southern Idaho/northern Nevada/eastern Idaho. There are thousands of square miles out there with no service. It's glorious.

My trip there in 2015: https://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/albums/721576543876...

No service is easy, I know of several apartments in the bay area which can meet your needs. No need to travel at all.

Lovey! Nice Tithonus.

Sometimes you have to drive through Death Valley to get to other places and cell reception is kind of important in a place like that. Imagine having a baby in your car, it breaks down with no cell reception and it's 130F temperatures outside

If you plan to go somewhere that leaving the main highway, and mechanical failure of your vehicle means there is a high likelihood of death, you should be going in groups of more than one vehicle and taking an Iridium satellite phone with you.

Expecting cellular coverage in places that are literally "the middle of fucking nowhere" is not reasonable. Remote parts of the western US states are too sparsely populated for this to make economic sense for cellular carriers.

People spend a thousand bucks on all sorts of frivolous stuff. For way less than that you can buy a gently used Iridium 9555 on eBay and a few new batteries for it, and a 20W folding solar panel.

Who said anything about leaving the main highway? Is AT&T trying to provide signal where they know nobody will ever go? That sounds odd. I assumed we were talking about places humans go

All of the death valley fatalities I'm aware of are from people who left the main highway. I've driven through there. As long as you stick to the main, paved roads, there is sufficient car traffic that it is highly unlikely you're going to die from a car breakdown.

Maybe so but cell service would still be nice.

If it doesn't make economic sense then why is AT&T asking the Feds to be allowed to build the towers there?

If this is of concern to you, don't take your baby there when it's 130F outside

Yeah that’s one way to deal with it. Another is if there is cell reception then it’s not such a big deal because you can call someone if it happens. Definitely two possible solutions.

Then I guess my last thought would be "Gee, it was pretty dumb to drive through Death Valley with no spares, supplies, or an emergency beacon."

So when people inevitably do it, they should just die?

It's a tough question. Nobody "should" die. But maybe improving cellular coverage in Death Valley would actually increase fatalities. Because it'd feel safer.

Or at least, it'd probably increase rescue costs. And there are arguably better uses for resources than trying to make Death Valley a safe vacation venue.

They are very likely to and can hardly claim to have been uninformed of the risk. It isn't called 'Life Valley'.

edit - doesn't mean putting up some radio cover is a bad idea, however I suspect it is not some panacea against badly planned road adventures. If you are capable of venturing forth into Death Valley without much preparation, you are more than capable of managing to forget a phone.

I'm not in favor of making the world perfectly safe for idiots.

There's a line.

You step over the line, you're responsible for yourself.

Driving to inhospitable and/or remote wilderness areas without preparation is over that line.

Plus, a sat beacon is $120. So people don't really have an excuse.

Yes.

If you know there is no cell reception and you do it anyways you might have a point but I thought we were just talking about reasons why cell service could be a good thing. Wanting cell reception doesn’t really make someone dumb.

How did San Francisco get the internet? Was it voted on and approved or was it pushed on it by some bureaucrat?

missing the point though...remote places staying remote.

Is that a universally agreed-upon goal?

It is for people living in SF craving a zen holiday.

I think they may be doing zen holidays wrong. You don't even have to get out of bed to have a zen holiday.

SpaceX and Amazon will provide global low latency internet pretty much everywhere. But don’t worry, each customer will vote with their wallet by buying it (or not)

I would be surprised if even half of earth’s landmass has cell coverage. There will be plenty of remote places for the forceable future.

It was remarkable how at peace I felt when I took a liveaboard to Darwin and Wolf islands in Galapagos. Yes, there was an emergency satellite phone as total backup, but it was great knowing that there was generally no way to contact me. Didn’t feel nearly as strange as I thought it would.

Given that they have an international airport (albiet with horrific underutilization) I think the remoteness ship sailed long ago.

Doesn’t it by its nature _have_ to be an international airport? It’s about the same size as the city of San Francisco. It’s not going to be regional so people can fly from seven miles east back to seven miles west.

As a British territory, I suppose they could have a domestic airport flying to London, Gibraltar and Port Stanley :)

Flights to/from overseas territories with separate immigration laws are typically considered "international" anyway, so even in that case they would still effectively have an international airport.

Do you live on Saint Helena or in Death Valley?

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