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SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

arstechnica.com

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Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#31

Post by smithza »

sneak wrote: post #12
juanbyrge wrote: post #9

If there is any corporate entity I'd happy giving public funding, it would be SpaceX. Their end goal is to settle Mars and potentially other bodies in the solar system. Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors, I am perfectly happy with funding SpaceX in every way possible.

SpaceX is also a defense contractor. https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/10/05/nro-reveals-plans-for-...

SpaceX is a defense contractor that is disrupting the market considerably. While much of the existing industry is slowly adopting modern development strategies (design, manufacturing, etc. in SW and HW), SpaceX is leading the agile front here.

More distinctly, SpaceX has the corporate intention of interplanetary exploration and settling. SpaceX's integration into the established defense/NASA business table will help this end come to fruition.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#32

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vsareto wrote: post #19
remarkEon wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. They seem to be the first defense contractor in a long time, maybe ever, with a specific eye on controlling costs. It may not be this way forever, but for now the taxpayers should get the savings where they can.

Maybe they can relax the work/life balance now

> Maybe they can relax the work/life balance now

Nobody should feel forced to work more than they want to. (The abjectly lazy aside.) But we should also be free to work as hard as we want. And to freely associate with those with similar preferences.

I used to love burning both ends of the candle. It was invigorating. I didn't ruin my health for it. And it gave me life lessons I could not have learned any other way. The fruits of those years, as well as finding other interests, nudged me to a different preference. Which involved new (or changed) colleagues. I don't see why, to be satisfied with one arrangement, we must denigrate the other--they're just different solutions.

Work and life don't balance on a scale. The dynamic is more like homeostasis. One's stable ratio depends on a variety factors, extrinsic and from within, and what makes one person happy will be ruinous or lethargic for another.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#33

Post by aaronblohowiak »

rictic wrote: post #26
iptrans wrote: post #15

Riddle me this, would SpaceX not have built out Starlink if they didn't get this subsidy? Since they already put Starlink satellites in orbit without any guarantees of subsidies, was this good use of government funds?

Two more questions: Can the subsidy be used to accelerate making the service available to more users sooner, and at higher quality? Most likely yes, because with the design of Starlink, more satellites gives better service. A related question: Were early subsidies into solar power a big help in climbing the learning curve while solar power had uncompetitive performance/$, or did advancements in related disciplines li…

Why should rural lifestyle be subsidized ?

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#34

Post by simonh »

iptrans wrote: post #15

Riddle me this, would SpaceX not have built out Starlink if they didn't get this subsidy? Since they already put Starlink satellites in orbit without any guarantees of subsidies, was this good use of government funds?

The objective of the government is not just to ensure that one or even two companies have infrastructure reaching most or all rural areas, but to ensure enough players in this field to establish a genuinely competitive market for pervasive rural internet access. The FCC has decided that without this subsidy there would not be enough companies offering enough access to enough areas to meet their mandate.

Given this goal, it’s simply unreasonable to deny funds to a company that has already set up that access, but only grant funds to new entrants. That clearly screws over the existing companies, which now can’t afford to compete on price with the new government funded entrants.

The only way to establish a level playing field and not penalise companies that already invested heavily is to give the grants regardless of past investment. Then you can genuinely allow the competitive market to establish fair and competitive prices for these customers. Free market principles should in theory ensure that this price competition should recoup a significant proportion of the subsidy costs for consumers and tax payers.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#35

Post by btilly »

rictic wrote: post #26
iptrans wrote: post #15

Riddle me this, would SpaceX not have built out Starlink if they didn't get this subsidy? Since they already put Starlink satellites in orbit without any guarantees of subsidies, was this good use of government funds?

Two more questions: Can the subsidy be used to accelerate making the service available to more users sooner, and at higher quality? Most likely yes, because with the design of Starlink, more satellites gives better service. A related question: Were early subsidies into solar power a big help in climbing the learning curve while solar power had uncompetitive performance/$, or did advancements in related disciplines li…

To answer your related question, I believe that the answer is yes.

As https://rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/solars-future-is-insanely-c... explains, Wright's law says that while a technology is improving, we generally get a fixed percentage drop in cost every time we double production. Therefore the production increases thanks to subsidies caused those cost drops to come much sooner than they would have otherwise.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#36

Post by baq »

iptrans wrote: post #15

Riddle me this, would SpaceX not have built out Starlink if they didn't get this subsidy? Since they already put Starlink satellites in orbit without any guarantees of subsidies, was this good use of government funds?

You can provide high bandwidth low latency access to the internet in places where not even 1.3B fiber subsidy’s won’t reach or you can build few hundred miles more fiber to mostly nowhere for the same price.

The fact is, starlink is the absolute best option in quite a few places - sparsely populated, far from dense urban areas. This is actually the best way to spend government money for that purpose even if it ends up in subsidizing terminal purchases.

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#38

Post by baq »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #33
rictic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two more questions: Can the subsidy be used to accelerate making the service available to more users sooner, and at higher quality? Most likely yes, because with the design of Starlink, more satellites gives better service. A related question: Were early subsidies into solar power a big help in climbing the learning curve while solar power had uncompetitive performance/$, or did advancements in related disciplines li…

Why should rural lifestyle be subsidized ?

Because dense urban is unsustainable without sparse rural providing food?

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#39

Post by adventured »

iptrans wrote: post #15

Riddle me this, would SpaceX not have built out Starlink if they didn't get this subsidy? Since they already put Starlink satellites in orbit without any guarantees of subsidies, was this good use of government funds?

If it helps ensure the diversity of ISP competition in the US market, then yes. $886m is a bargain if it helps meaningfully with that (assuming it's not a frequent subsidy).

There is a large difference between putting up a few percent of their constellation to reach initial minimum viability and putting up enough satellites to properly cover the rest of the world (a very expensive endeavor that will take years).

Plus, the US Government may directly benefit in a very big way from utilizing Starlink and that may make it a bargain compared to the alternatives. If US defense contractors were building that constellation, they'd be spending ten times what SpaceX is.

And that's before we get to the potential for intelligence gathering globally. The powers that be will be all over that, no matter what SpaceX claims to the contrary (SpaceX will have a gun to their head and will not have a choice, just as the Prism gang had no choice).

Re: SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states

#40

Post by asdfaoeu »

xoa wrote: post #10
lgats wrote: post #2

SpaceX has been awarded $885.51 million by the Federal Communications Commission to provide Starlink broadband to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. That's $1376.52 in subsidies per customer

The beta terminal cost is $500, and beta service is $100/month (at up to ~150 Mbps or so right now?). So the money would cover the terminal cost to those customers and then full freight 8 months of service at current pricing. Alternatively/in addition, and more similarly to traditional in-ground service, it may also simply help fun actual infrastructure in the form of more/faster deployment of ground stations and sat…

According to some leaked info SpaceX is paying $2400 per terminal.
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