> A search on Google™ for ‘Saint Helena’ will bring up many sites that are in California, which has a town called ‘Saint Helena’, or South Carolina, which has an area known as ‘Saint Helena Island’. For this reason it is best when using Google™ to append to your search ‘-napa -carolina -california’, which will remove many of these irrelevant results.<p>Not any more! Since google "enhanced" their search to remove such operators. I just tried searching in this way for eg some restaurants and there was indeed a bunch of irrelevant results even with the exclusions. I wonder what they do now.
Under Telephone History it says:<p>> The current PABX-based system went live over the weekend of 27-29th July 1990<p>A PBX serving a whole country, even a small one, is wild. From what I could find [1] the system used was a UXD5 exchange [2] which is technically a PSTN exchange intended for rural areas and based off the Monarch 120 PBX [3].<p>The architecture of the UXD5 is common to a lot of telephone exchanges of the time (possibly modern ones as well?) with actor based message passing, actors running on different levels (more real time vs less real time) and a combination of assembly and a high level language (in this case, Coral [4]). Fascinating stuff.<p>[1] <a href="https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cable_wireless_has_contract_with_the_island_of_st_helena" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cable_wireless_has_contrac...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/uxd5-a-public-exchange-based-on-monarch-technology" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/uxd5-...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/monarch-120-a-new-digital-pabx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://sites.google.com/site/monarchcallconnectsystem/monar...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORAL" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORAL</a>
> In July 2019 the Government of St Helena announced that it has issued a letter of intent to connect the island to Equiano. The 1,140Km branch to Saint Helena was completed in 2021 so this cable will provide the first fibre optic connectivity from St Helena to the outside world through both Europe and South Africa.<p>> Compared to the current satellite link the cable will bring almost incredible amounts of capacity. The Government of St Helena estimates that it will deliver several hundred gigabits per second - far more than the island’s population of around 4,400 people{16} could possibly use. The plan is therefore to turn the island into a communications hub<p>> [...]<p>> A route survey was conducted in August 2019 and at the end of the year the Government of St Helena announced that it had signed an agreement with Google™ to land the cable at St Helena, aiming to commence service in 2022.<p>> On 6th February 2020 Sure announced that it had no plans to upgrade domestic and small-business Internet connections to Fibre-Optic when the Equiano Cable arrives in 2022, meaning ordinary users would not see the full benefits of the new system.<p>Screw this ISP, man.
The fact there is an internet monopoly barring residents to use other internet providers is sad, especially given the impact on the GDP of the island if proper high speed internet and technological resources are available.<p>I have a feeling the government is doing the cease and desist as a hand wavy thing to make the internet company happy, but will put little if any effort in actually enforcing it (if there is even something that could be done legally). From what I understand, the Saints are an incredibly kind and chill group of people, just living life without much worry. I can't imagine the government giving a shit
> It has come to the attention of the St Helena Government that members of the public may have acquired, imported and be currently using terminals, such as Starlink, for the purposes of internet connectivity. Using such terminals is in contravention of the exclusivity of current telecommunications licencing arrangements made under section 3(4) of the Telecommunications Ordinance 1989. From 1 November 2023 anyone using such a terminal will be liable to be subject to a ‘ceaseand desist’ order issued on behalf of the Government. A cease and desist order is an instruction to stop using terminals, and continue to refrain from using terminals, whilst the exclusivity of the current telecommunications licencing arrangements remain in force. Any breach of such a cease and desist order may result in the confiscation of the equipment.<p>Starlink seems to be illegal to protect the government’s investment in a monopoly on the main satellite.
Yikes! Internet is expensive! And there is only a single provider legally allowed to operate.<p>18£: 30GB. 5Mbps down, 1Mbps up<p>36£: 60GB. 5Mbps down, 1Mbps up<p>67£: unlimited. 10Mbps down, 1Mbps up<p>120£: unlimited. 20Mbps down, 1Mbps up<p><a href="https://www.sure.co.sh/assets/Banner-Links/Residential-Broadband-Plans-2023-120923.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.sure.co.sh/assets/Banner-Links/Residential-Broad...</a>
The most interesting part (to me) is buried in the middle:<p>"Compared to the current satellite link the [undersea, Google owned fiber-optic] cable will bring almost incredible amounts of capacity. The Government of St Helena estimates that it will deliver several hundred gigabits per second - far more than the island’s population of around 4,400 people could possibly use. The plan is therefore to turn the island into a communications hub, with satellites in space linking via groundstations on the island to the world via the cable. The Government of St Helena believes St Helena’s position in the South Atlantic and its political and physical stability make it an ideal and almost unique location for this use."
There is something to be learned from the simplicity and quaintness of this site - the information density is much higher than 90% of modern web sites. In a single page, by simply scrolling I learned so much about the communication infrastructure of a British island outpost.
> Note that the postcode (‘zip code’) ‘STHL 1ZZ’ applies to the entire island, and also that the ‘South Atlantic Ocean’, while strictly unnecessary, does seem to help prevent letters being routed to California, South Carolina or Australia!<p>Took me several paragraphs to realize this wasn’t invoking my beloved Beaufort County
Looking forward to the new cloud region!<p>> In July 2019 the Government of St Helena announced that it has issued a letter of intent to connect the island to Equiano. The 1,140Km branch to Saint Helena was completed in 2021 so this cable will provide the first fibre optic connectivity from St Helena to the outside world through both Europe and South Africa.<p>Compared to the current satellite link the cable will bring almost incredible amounts of capacity. The Government of St Helena estimates that it will deliver several hundred gigabits per second - far more than the island’s population of around 4,400 people{16} could possibly use. The plan is therefore to turn the island into a communications hub, with satellites in space linking via groundstations on the island to the world via the cable. The Government of St Helena believes St Helena’s position in the South Atlantic and its political and physical stability make it an ideal and almost unique location for this use.
If you want to learn more about life on St. Helena, I recommend a blog called What The Saints Did Next: <a href="https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://whatthesaintsdidnext.com/</a><p>My favorite posts are the trip reports... They have hiked to every corner of the island. Great photos, and lots of history.
relevant documentary video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QejUTDCWw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-QejUTDCWw</a>
<i>On 6th February 2020 Sure announced that it had no plans to upgrade domestic and small-business Internet connections to Fibre-Optic when the Equiano Cable arrives in 2022, meaning ordinary users would not see the full benefits of the new system.</i><p>Having their ISP refusing to connect customers to the long awaited fiber is the most Telco thing ever.
For those of you interested in reading about work being done to start a new city (1) or new semi-autonomous country (2) where people can plan something new, St Helena Island sounds like a good candidate- remote but can still in the middle of several trade routes.<p>(1) <a href="https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-tech-investors-new-city-housing-35f91416dd7d84ecb03ed08199d87dd5" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-tech-investors-new...</a><p>(2) <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/itana-binance-charter-cities-institute-africa-tech-startup/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wired.com/story/itana-binance-charter-cities-ins...</a>
I (sorta) know the author of a self-published book, <i>Finding Napoleon</i> which I think covers his time on St. Helena.<p>It's funny that they don't much mention the main reason anyone's heard of it.