SpaceX gets $886M from FCC to subsidize Starlink in 35 states • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by staunch » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #195

staunch wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine what we could do if it was possible to identify and fund a thousand Elon Musks with hundreds of millions each? He's eliminating gas vehicles, improving solar adoption, fixing rural internet, improving space science, making life interplanetary, etc. It may be that Elon Musk types are extremely rare but I doubt they're as nearly as rare as most people think and we only need a thousand out of billions. The thing…

Well, there's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Fellowship but there aren't many of them and the funding is a few orders of magnitude less. Perhaps somewhat made up for in social network/connections. I've wanted to read about what happened if anyone ever decided to apply Asimov's filter at earlier ages. His filter was simply having interest in particular science fiction. https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/1963-asim…

I think the amount makes all the difference. A $200 million windfall is enough for FU money AND and investing. SpaceX and Tesla would not have existed, or would have failed, had Elon Musk not have his own fortune to call upon. He had planned to invest a portion but ended up needing all of his money.

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

#222

Post by asdff » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 12:59 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #166

asdff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts that autonomous cars will do much for traffic. Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways. Everyone taking a self driving car into work isn't going to change the fact that traffic is bad because everyone insists on traveling 20'x5' apart from one another through a dense…

> Traffic doesn't necessarily happen because there are too many cars on the freeway, but too many cars on the much more limited capacity streets which back up onto the freeways That is true in the USA, which has absurdly short on and off ramps, but in my experience, many other countries around the world don't have this problem. Canada, Australia and the UK all have much, MUCH longer on and off ramps, and traffic does…

Major cities in all those countries are just as congested on the streets as American cities. Toronto in particular has some of the worst traffic on the continent.

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

#223

Post by maccam94 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:03 AM UTC

mssundaram wrote: post #196

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.

> Mars .... Compared with the absurd amounts of money wasted on defense contractors Couldn't we spend absurd amounts of money on fixing Earth instead? Surely it's easier than starting from even less resources and livable environment than Mars. There is a cultural myth in New Age communities that humans decimated Mars and came to Earth after, or something like that. We should fix Earth first

There's not much we can do if Earth is hit with another giant asteroid. Or some massive biological or radiological disaster. Or some other type of impossible to predict or mitigate disasters that could render Earth uninhabitable for humans. Musk's goal is to make the human race multi-planetary, not escape to Mars. Just as you should back up your critical data more than one hard drive, or run redundant servers to ensure your service runs reliably, populating multiple planets would ensure the continuity of the human race should some disaster befall us on Earth.

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

#224

Post by maccam94 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:16 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #133

veilrap wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial reaction agrees that does sound quite high. However, I wonder what the alternative strategy costs for rural broadband are. My guess is that laying a lot of cable to remote locations could possibly be even higher than the $1376.52 per customer cost? It seems like something like Satelite internet connections could be less to set up, but it's not clear to me the cost of the equipment, installations and upkeep…

I wonder, what're the costs of providing fixed landline service, even in a city? From burying the lines or stringing them on poles, to wiring up each drop into each dwelling, all the splices and repeaters and what-not, to the central office building and equipment and power and stuff, and maintaining that entire physical plant for years, it's all got to add up. I'd imagine it's well within an order of magnitude.

Don't forget that the poles are usually owned by an existing power or telecom company, and if they even let you use their poles, you have to pay rent on the pole. Same for conduits. Building new poles and conduits can also be legally difficult and expensive.

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

#225

Post by maccam94 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

veilrap wrote: post #3

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

My initial reaction agrees that does sound quite high. However, I wonder what the alternative strategy costs for rural broadband are. My guess is that laying a lot of cable to remote locations could possibly be even higher than the $1376.52 per customer cost? It seems like something like Satelite internet connections could be less to set up, but it's not clear to me the cost of the equipment, installations and upkeep…

The subsidy is spread over 10 years, so they only get $88.5M/year.

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

#226

Post by joecool1029 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

fiftyfifty wrote: post #136

bumby wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if those who would argue against funding SpaceX take the "either traditional defense contractors or SpaceX" bait. I think a major argument is that there are better ways to spend the money here on Earth. I.e., it's nobler and more feasible to protect and improve this planet than settle another one. As a former space industry worker, I don't know if I subscribe to that, but that's the best steelmanning I c…

This money is being spent to improve things here on Earth. This is about providing internet to underserved communities on Earth. Now you could argue that SpaceX has made it clear that they created Starlink to increase their funding for settling Mars (developing Starship etc) but at the same time StarLink stands to be a huge boon for people in communities that don't have access to high speed internet currently and tha…

>This is about providing internet to underserved communities on Earth.

Anytime lines like this get written, be suspect.

>I don't see anyone on here complaining about how Charter chooses to spend the profits from this deal, it's certainly not going to go to settling Mars.

I complain all the time about the cable companies, but this is a thread about SpaceX. As irrelevant as that comment is, it's even less relevant arguing that using funds to build a LEO/VLEO satellite ISP (that will probably get divested at some point) will somehow help them get to Mars. Commercially there's no point in going to Mars so it takes political willpower and nations to finance it on a scale that's many orders of magnitude greater than anything done at the moment (more than even the JWST).

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

#227

Post by throw_a_say » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

Jach wrote: post #184

cma wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His father was a seed investor in Zip2.

"We started Zip2 with ~$2k from me plus my overclocked home-built PC, ~$5k from my bro & ~$8k from Greg Kouri (such a good guy — he is greatly missed). My Dad provided 10% of a ~$200k angel funding round much later, but by then risk was reduced & round would’ve happened anyway." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056 Also relevant in that thread: "He didn’t own an emerald mine & I worked my way throu…

Not a rebuttal of the Zip2 seed investment point, but the ability to leave SA when he was 17 for CA/USA with a suitcase of books is not something most South Africans would be able to do. Kudos to him for doing it, but most of the population of SA wouldn't have even seen that many books.

It's pretty clear that Elon was from a wealthy*N background so the details are kind of irrelevant. Who bought the plain ticket?

There is also security, it's easier to take risks with strong familial support and fallback. Not saying this is a bad thing at all, it just is what it is.

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

#228

Post by tw04 » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

google234123 wrote: post #185

tw04 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you don't have kids stuck at home during covid. I have friends that are burning through 1TB of data a month like it's nothing. Between zoom/webex meetings all day for everyone in the family, and netflix in the evenings because they can't really go play with other friends, 1TB is a joke. Heck, Cyberpunk 2077 is a 70GB download ALONE - that's 7% of your cap gone from you or your kid installing one game.

That game will provide you plenty of content for that data. Anyway, just because a few people use ~1TB of data doesn't mean every LTE plan should provide 10TB. You are asking for a 500x increase in the typical LTE data plan.

I said people receiving the fcc funding. As far as I know, none of the LTE players have been taking funds. If they have been I guess I don’t really care if it’s a 5x or 500x increase, it’s a reasonable requirement in 2029 IMO. The cost of transit bandwidth is nothing.

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

#229

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:45 AM UTC

saberience wrote: post #130

Reedx wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're thinking of someone else? “You get really tired of hot dogs and oranges after awhile,” he said. “And of course pasta and a green pepper and a big thing of sauce. And that can go pretty far, too. “So it’s like, ‘Oh, okay, if I can live for a dollar a day then at least from a food cost standpoint, well it’s pretty easy to earn like $30 in a month anyway, so I’ll probably be okay.’ “ This isn’t the only exa…

This is bollocks and the sort of mythology that CEO's also love to create about their "beginnings." Read up on Elon's family background and father, he didn't grow up on a farm or in an orphanage in darkest Congo... he lived a well-off and privileged childhood.

[deleted]

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

#230

Post by mempko » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #64

mempko wrote: post #59

All of Musk's endeavors are subsidized by public funds. He is the master of getting public money to develop his products.

As a taxpayer, I'm quite pleased with the SpaceX ROI for getting "my" astronauts and satellites up. Especially when you compare what Orion or paying the Russians for a ride to the ISS has cost.

What was the cost we paid to SpaceX to get the Astronauts up? Development + per launch?