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US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

reuters.com

271–280 of 773 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon “over promise and under deliver” Musk FSD is coming any day now right?

you can try it out in any post-2018 Tesla with the option package.

Beta test it, if you're eligible, and if you paid for it.

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

#272
post #38

When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the…

Starlink (and Musk in general) have been over-promising and under-delivering for years now. Starlink claimed 150Mbps back in 2020 and that speeds would double to 300Mbps by the end of 2021.[1] Instead, speeds have halved.[2] At this point, T-Mobile is likely serving more rural high speed internet customers with greater speeds (T-Mobile has 4.2M home internet customers and Ookla's stats show 34% to be rural for 1.4M;…

I get 300/30 on starlink. I’m not sure why ookla’s data says otherwise.

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

#273
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument is a red herring. The RDOF program is concentrated in specific geographic areas. Starlink onboarding subscribers in other areas doesn't really have a bearing on this program if they can't prove they can extend that to the areas in scope and hit the service levels they bid at. It might even hurt their argument if performance degrades as they focus on areas outside the RDOF locations. More traditional off…

Your counterargument hides a major flaw. It is true that more traditional offerings have an easier time demonstrating that they should be able to do that. But decades of traditional telecoms failing to hit promised targets demonstrates that they are unlikely to perform as promised. That said, regulatory capture has let them regularly get away with the argument that you describe. Regulators motivated by politics and c…

Can't disagree there.

That is why I actually like the approach in the RDOF. It has regular progress check-ins built in, instead of the seemingly no strings attached grants given historically. This stage two review was "are you likely to succeed based on progress since stage one", but there are further delivery checkpoints that come with penalties and bonuses for under and over delivering.

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

#275

When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the…

I find it impressive that the government is actually punishing a project for running late and underdelivering. They should expand this to all parts of the government. Can you imagine if the F-35 was cancelled the first time it fell behind schedule? The Space Launch System? The Littoral Combat System? The USS JFK?

So many boondoggles could be killed off before they spend money. Maybe contractors would have to start properly estimating costs up front. Or maybe nothing would ever get done again.

I do wonder what the FCC is planning to do with these funds if they aren't funding Starlink. Are they going to go towards a "safer" project like Project Kuiper? Or maybe dumping it into Inmarsat?

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Are they wrong about these details then? Or is that the defense: “doesn’t matter if I’m actually doing that or not. The government is out to get me.”

The document in the tweet has a list of rebuttals.

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

#277
post #63

Starlink service is so obviously phenomenal to anyone who's used it, this isn't going to change that or effect SpaceX's success one bit. The FCC's actions here are just embarrassing their agency by exposing their petty ineptitude and harming whomever this program was supposed to help.

> Starlink service is so obviously phenomenal to anyone who's used it, this isn't going to change that or effect SpaceX's success one bit. Starlink success, and to that extent, SpaceX, are arguably tied to government money. I would say that not getting almost $1B may impact their operations quite a bit.

> Starlink success, and to that extent, SpaceX, are arguably tied to government money.

Citation please.

The government are paying SpaceX as a customer, they're not giving them free money.

Also note they're paying them a lot less than they pay ULA for the same things

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] (and Musk in general) have been over-promising and under-delivering for years now. Related, "Tesla FSD Timeline": > September 2014: They will be a factor of 10 safer than a person [at the wheel] in a six-year time frame * https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625380 (earlier today)

To be fair FSD is the hardest software problem that man has ever attempted.

That's not being fair, that's making excuses. If the problem is that hard, don't be running your mouth about you'll have it done in six months, and charge people money while you work out the bugs.

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

#279

It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Musk. You can show something great - high speed internet in remote areas - and then extrapolate that - just think about the whole world etc... Faster than fibre, with V2... Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of p…

[flagged]

It was not targeted. They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway?

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

#280
post #265

It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Musk. You can show something great - high speed internet in remote areas - and then extrapolate that - just think about the whole world etc... Faster than fibre, with V2... Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of p…

Starlink was never designed to be faster than fibre, and it was certainly never designed or intended for use by people that ave access to fibre (or cable, or LTE for that matter). SpaceX have re-iterated this on many, many occasions. Anyone who things otherwise simply doesn't understand the product. Starlink is designed for people who live in remote areas that have no access to any of that. Go out right now and see h…

It was. The V2 that they are deploying is supposedly communicating directly between satellites, making it faster than fiber over long distances.

Elon advertised that in 2019 or something already.

I don't deny it is life changing for those people ! All I'm saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported by the government.

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