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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

#361

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

madaxe_again wrote: post #285
danbruc wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is nothing that you deploy and then you are done. When you have launched the last satellite, then the first ones launched will have reached the end of their lifespan and you essentially have to start over, deploy the entire constellation once again as the satellites reach the end of their lifespan one by one. With a lifespan of say 5 years, you will have to deploy the entire constellation once every 5 years,…

I’ve got news for you about Earth-based networking gear. You don’t just install it and forget about it forever - you replace and upgrade, almost continuously, and lifespans are frequently significantly less than five years.

A 1000Gbps cable laid down in the ground will be able to support 1000Gbps even 50 years from now provided that it doesn't get truncated by accident or Earthquake

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

#362

Post by marcusverus »

ceruleanseas wrote: post #279
martindbp wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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?

> They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law.

Which constraints were they not able to meet? Brendan Carr, an FCC Commissioner, has publicly claimed that Starlink clearly met the traditional constraints, but that the FCC invented a new standard and claimed that Starlink failed to meet that. [0]

> Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway?

It depends. Did the FCC apply their standard in a consistent way? And is it normal practice for them to revoke the contract of every partner for the mere possibility of their missing a deadline? If the answer to both questions is 'Yes', then this action is proper. If not, then it is not only improper, but would appear to be an act of blatant political corruption, aimed at someone who is clearly considered to be an enemy of the administration.

The selective enforcement of the law is the very definition of corruption.

[0] https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...

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

#363

Post by Veserv »

belltaco wrote: post #59

Dissenting statement by one of the FCC commissioners. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf

Ah yes, the same Nathan Simington who made statements like this about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter [1]:

"If Mr. Musk follows through on his stated intention to ease Twitter's restrictions on speech, he would almost certainly enhance competition and better serve those Americans, the majority, who value free speech. ... We should instead applaud Mr. Musk for doing something about a serious problem that government has so far failed to address."

A very unbiased party who has no ulterior motives at all to consider things out of scope.

[1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-382898A1.pdf

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

#364

Post by inemesitaffia »

Deprecate9151 wrote: post #347
inemesitaffia wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink hasn't gotten any money, so they aren't subject to build requirements

Yeah I messed that up. After reading more the denial was focused on the fact that Starlink didn't refute they were not consistently delivering speeds and latency that matched the tier they bid on, and their plan to bridge that gap wasn't convincing to the reviewers or the Commission.

The argument is if they had paid on time would they have been able to deliver to the particular customers by 2025? i.e not everyone. Just RDOF subsided users in the awarded areas

The Dems say no. Evidence is current state of network and absence of starship.

SpaceX says yes. V2 is already launching on Falcon. We don't need starship to meet our obligations but it will make it faster.

Republicans say both of you are talking nonsense. Until 2025 you can't find out. And there's a process for getting there. You only test devices that are under the RDOF plan, not everyone. And since SpaceX hasn't been awarded, you can't do any testing that's relevant.

Imagine SpaceX got awarded say Diomede and you're bringing up speeds in LA and Seattle or the Midwest.

SpaceX will sue and lose due to Chevron deference

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

#365

Post by plumeria »

LukeLambert wrote: post #109

My parents in rural Northeast Texas use Starlink as their primary connection (they have a WISP as failover). Since Sept. 2022, I've been running automated speed tests four times a day (1 and 7, AM and PM). Speeds vary a lot throughout the day, but average about 100 Mbps down by 10 Mbps up. https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...

What are you using to run the automated speed tests?

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

#366

Post by Deprecate9151 »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #256
Deprecate9151 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this grant the 100/20 needed to be consistently available in specific geographic areas. So if the cells bring down the performance averages are concentrated in those grant areas, it makes sense for them to fail to meet the program criteria while still having a product that hits those metrics elsewhere.

The denial doesn't quote speeds in those areas

It doesn't, I'm just expanding on why a specific cell meeting the program specifications "usually" wouldn't really move the need for the FCC analysis.

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

#367

Post by gunapologist99 »

bmitc wrote: post #8
thot_experiment wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My eyes nearly roll out of my head every time I see someone complain about this. People act like astronomy is ruined forever, it's not. You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. They're not even a problem for large portions of the night and sky at all because there's very little light for them to reflect. There are a lot of benefits to having a constellation like this, and the tech that's b…

> This is a very marginal issue, folks need to calm down. Is it? Why do we need to visually see, basically permanently, a ring or string of lights in the sky, unwittingly, just because of some billionaire? > You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if you know where they're at if they're in your way. Telescope time is extremely precious and expens…

Focal points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(optics)

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

#368

Post by ceruleanseas »

marcusverus wrote: post #362
ceruleanseas wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> They are not able to meet the constraints written out in the law. Which constraints were they not able to meet? Brendan Carr, an FCC Commissioner, has publicly claimed that Starlink clearly met the traditional constraints, but that the FCC invented a new standard and claimed that Starlink failed to meet that . [0] > Are you saying we should ignore the law as it was written and give them the hand out anyway? It depe…

Starlink was not the only provider that was excluded from the subsidy. Giving public money away to a service provider that cannot provide the service as described in the law is the definition of corruption. You can see the details that led to the commission making its decision here: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf

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

#369

Post by [deleted] »

TheAlchemist wrote: post #237

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…

[deleted]

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

#370

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #176
libraryatnight wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or maybe speeds were dropping, requirements not met, and they didn't want to dump more money on self driving car man's company. Seems reasonable to me - if it also makes elon and his cult sad, that's just a happy accident.

This argument is too deeply rotted with bias to have value. This is going to slow the adoption of broadband and you’re happy because the guy you dislike might be harmed as a consequence. You should reflect on this behavior, because you’re embodying everything you criticize this supposed “other side” of being.

> > This is going to slow the adoption of broadband

Just lay down fiber. Unlike satellites you only have to do it once, but that's not exciting enough for rocket man because unlike satellites you don't get the government to pay you to play with rockets.

This is all there is to it, like the Apollo program was. A bunch of techbros want to play with rockets and try really hard to reverse engineer an excuse for government to hand them cash for it.

For the Apollo program it was collecting moon rocks that were supposed to hold god knows what secrets, for the current age of space it's rural internet.

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