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US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

reuters.com

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Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#41

Post by ToucanLoucan »

hedora wrote: post #16

I wish they’d bar companies that have failed to build out their rural service areas for more than a decade from accepting this money, and also that accepting the grant automatically granted you the appropriate right of way via imminent domain. It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in most places (they have little portable boring machines, so you don’t even have to trench), and independent ISPs have…

> It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in most places

I'm sorry what? This part of your comment is so absurd that it calls into question anything else you might be saying here.

I lived through a fiber roll out only a short year or so ago, it was an entire summer of trucks, mostly contractors by the look of them, with trailers, with boring machines, stacks of boxes, and of course, spools upon spools of fiber and conduit. If that cost "essentially nothing" do you really assert that all of those workmen, all of those resources, all of those assets were simply brought forth from the void to perform their work and then sent back?

And that's just the actual work, I'm sure there was months if not years of permitting, working with the city engineers to plan things out, the logistics behind all of that shit, for actual months of work that was barely completed before snow hit the ground.

Holy fuck people. Infrastructure is HARD. It's one of the hardest things you CAN BUILD.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#42

Post by coding123 »

trident5000 wrote: post #28
I_Am_Nous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that letter, and was unconvinced that it's anything more than the FCC not wanting to gamble with nearly 1/16th of the total RDOF grant money (for that round) and would rather give it to a company that can be reasonably expected to hit the obligatory throughput. If Starlink bid for 25/3 they might have made it.

You can arrive at your own conclusion. I think its pretty obvious whats happening here (the commissioners voted along party lines right down the middle). And theres no other company thats even close to Starlink now or in the medium term future. So I dont know who would practically fill this spot. For below comment: This is for "rural" connection. You're not laying wire for that regardless of what Comcast wants you to…

That's what I read too: you're not democratic enough elon

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#43

Post by cmrdporcupine »

The moment Starlink started rolling out here (barely rural southern Ontario, just 5km-10km from town) -- along with more and more point to point wireless towers going up from indie ISPs -- the local telco (Bell Canada) suddenly found it in their heart to run fiber optic up and down the road. Which I'm sure promptly put all that out of business.

So now I have 3gbps fiber to the house, after 10 years of surviving on low bandwidth capped expensive Internet despite being proximous to the suburbs of the biggest city in Canada.

It may be in the end something like Starlink ends up being like Google's Fiber was in the cities it went into -- a fire lit under the bigger providers, forcing them to actually do something.

Seems like a shitty way to get society's infrastructure built though, doesn't it? Imagine if the power grid had developed this way.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#45

Post by rpmisms »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #37
willcipriano wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Instead of a simple comment about historical grants, you perhaps could educate yourself on current state grants and efforts. Trying and failing previously doesn't mean trying something different shouldn't be done, you know? Should we just give up because of previous mistakes? No, absolutely not. That is failure.

You're replying to an accurate comment about how government funding works. I am educated on this, I have worked off of government grant money often, it's 100% who you know, not what you do.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#46

Post by I_Am_Nous »

trident5000 wrote: post #28
I_Am_Nous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that letter, and was unconvinced that it's anything more than the FCC not wanting to gamble with nearly 1/16th of the total RDOF grant money (for that round) and would rather give it to a company that can be reasonably expected to hit the obligatory throughput. If Starlink bid for 25/3 they might have made it.

You can arrive at your own conclusion. I think its pretty obvious whats happening here (the commissioners voted along party lines right down the middle). And theres no other company thats even close to Starlink now or in the medium term future. So I dont know who would practically fill this spot. For below comment: This is for "rural" connection. You're not laying wire for that regardless of what Comcast wants you to…

It's a letter from one FCC commissioner, of which there are currently 5. He dissents from the decision the commission as a whole came to. There are a lot of companies on the ground that could benefit from that ~$900 million so a single company replacing Starlink is not necessary. The main concern is if the FCC give Starlink money to reach 100/20 and they don't do it (because there are legitimate technical issues to solve before it's possible for Starlink to supply over half a million people with 100/20), it's wasted money. The FCC didn't think it was doable on that time scale.

Doing some math, currently each satellite launch sends up 22 satellites at around 2.8 Gbps per satellite. For each launch, Starlink adds ~61.6 Gbps of capacity. If we cut that up into 100/20 slices, each launch supports 616 customers at 100/20. To support 650,000 subscribers at 100/20, it would take about 1055 perfect launches.

I don't think the FCC was wrong when they said Starlink could not reach 650,000 people at 100/20 by 2025. There aren't enough days to launch one rocket a day to even try to catch up.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#47

Post by rpmisms »

hedora wrote: post #16

I wish they’d bar companies that have failed to build out their rural service areas for more than a decade from accepting this money, and also that accepting the grant automatically granted you the appropriate right of way via imminent domain. It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in most places (they have little portable boring machines, so you don’t even have to trench), and independent ISPs have…

I love how the cost of directional drilling is completely discounted here. It's an expensive process that requires a ton of skilled (often union) labor.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#49

Post by toomuchtodo »

rpmisms wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of a simple comment about historical grants, you perhaps could educate yourself on current state grants and efforts. Trying and failing previously doesn't mean trying something different shouldn't be done, you know? Should we just give up because of previous mistakes? No, absolutely not. That is failure.

You're replying to an accurate comment about how government funding works. I am educated on this, I have worked off of government grant money often, it's 100% who you know, not what you do.

Also involved in government procurement, also provide guidance to several Congressional reps gratis as a technologist subject matter expert. Change is possible, to believe otherwise is to give up. If you want to give up, head to the bar and make way for people who give a shit. I give a shit, so I am admittedly biased.

Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

#50

Post by rpmisms »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49
rpmisms wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're replying to an accurate comment about how government funding works. I am educated on this, I have worked off of government grant money often, it's 100% who you know, not what you do.

Also involved in government procurement, also provide guidance to several Congressional reps gratis as a technologist subject matter expert. Change is possible, to believe otherwise is to give up. If you want to give up, head to the bar and make way for people who give a shit. I give a shit, so I am admittedly biased.

You're being incredibly optimistic. Show me a non-greedy person in Congress, with the exception of Thomas Massie, and I'll believe you that change is possible.
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