Barefoot Children

The shoemaker's children go barefoot. And so they do in the AI era.

I plan to spend a week on Cabo Verde, most of the days working remotely from there. Quick survey of internet forums and cellular coverage maps hint at poor internet access there, so it seemed like a good excuse to try Starlink. Especially as the prices have fallen and the Starlink Mini Kit sells now for under $200. And then you can suspend the subscription at any time (so they say). There is also the 30-day free return period in case I don't like it. So I tried to more or less precisely time ordering the kit, so it arrives about a week before my trip. 

The Starlink website was saying that I needed 1 to 2 weeks for the kit to be delivered. So I pulled the trigger on September 15. Then they sent me an email with the "updated" delivery estimate, which was between September 28 and October 6. So rather 2-3 weeks, not 1-2. Which would be a bummer as we leave for Cabo Verde on October 3. But there was nothing I could do about this.

To my surprise on September 22 they sent me another email, stating my order was sent. From Germany to Poland it should be like 2-3 days, not a week. But no delivery estimates were available on Starlink.com nor in the Starlink app. But the email had a tracking link to DHL DHL web page was confirming the order was sent and it would be delivered "soon" (no date). I took the screenshot of the DHL tracking page and pasted it into Gemini.

Gemini said it would be delivered on September 25. And so it was.

DHL would not give any delivery estimates up until the package was delivered. Starlink still says it was shipped.

Of course this is nothing major, but you would expect the companies participating in the transaction (Starlink as the seller and DHL as the carrier) should have known better. But they did not.