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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

#381

Post by isk517 »

weswilson wrote: post #322
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically now 15/16th of the money goes into a void to never actually get service to anyone.

Anecdotally, my dad lives in a rural area with no cable/DSL broadband available. Cellular broadband only got him 10-15 Mbps. He was excited when Starlink was available. I think he was pretty early on the preorder list. Once he finally got access to Starlink (Feb 2022) the speeds were close to the advertised ~100 Mbps. Now the price has increased and on average he's back to getting like 15-20 Mbps down. Luckily, the E…

I feel like in 90% of Starlinks use cases it is only the best option because they are the most motivated to succeed. Running traditional wired service is the more practical and permanent solution but the telecoms have made far to much money by taking money then not delivering.

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

#382

Post by lesuorac »

jandrese wrote: post #337
lesuorac wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may not understand what the government is. The government is a collection of individuals. It is not a single borg instance. Some individuals within that collection are going to act different than other ones. Also the government does a lot of funding through different mechanisms. Many miltiary programs are a cost+ program where they pay the contractor the cost of development plus a profit% so the initial b…

As if cost+ contracting hasn't been a major factor in projects going overbudget and behind schedule. Even with cost+ the contractor needs to provide an estimate up front of both the time and money needed. While it is understood that it is just an estimate, having projects come in for 5x or more of the original estimated cost is egregious. SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B, but instead costs $11.2B and still…

> SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B

I wish it was; lol. The initial estimate was $18B [1]. I suspect you saw the $1.5B number for some sub-component of SLS. That's another common problem with government projects. The media will read some government report that says a new railroad will cost $1B and then report that the entire project will cost $1B while the report only talked about track cost and not about land acquisition, even environmental studies, or etc.

That said, yes SLS is over ($23B) the $18B budget and not done.

I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some milestone. Somewhat close to what the FCC did here except the FCC is giving the money ahead of milestone. But there are pros and cons to this as government contracting is a pia so when you get into the situation of a single competitor it gets awkward.

Contractors not meeting their bids is a problem though. At the personal/corporate/government level I don't think people account for enough the fact that the contractor might not uphold their side of the bargin. Similar to how many people choose the cheapest insurance and then :surprise-pickachu-face: all their claims get denied.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding

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

#383

Post by ilikehurdles »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #370
ilikehurdles wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 governmen…

We’ve had companies with astronomical market caps and the wealthiest government in the world for a long time, both with the capability of laying fiber and none doing so. Space tech bro is actually solving it not just for rural areas but much of world.

What I’m saying is, feel free to step in if you can, but the market has spoken and the market is not interested in solving the problem your way.

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

#384

Post by hughesjj »

shmatt wrote: post #284
jandrese wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Abandoned_military_pr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_military_pro... F35 Survived but there are like 50 other planes that didnt in that second list

And the f35 is honestly legit when it's all said and done. There's a reason why it's sold so well, and it's only getting better.

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

#385

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

aeturnum wrote: post #373
bryanlarsen wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo deployed cars without safety drivers to Tempe in 2021.

This is always a game of boundary-setting. In one way that's true, in another way Waymo is 21+ years behind[1]. People have been setting up 'particular vehicles' to navigate 'particular areas' for decades. If the Waymo "self driving car" is an expansion of older site-specific tech, then there's nothing new under the sun. If their car is can be put anywhere then it just being able to drive in Tempe isn't proof of that…

Oh, come on, these kinds of false analogies don't help to elucidate, only to confuse.

There is a universe of difference between something like ParkShuttle (its own right of way, using magnets in the road to detect position) and modern autonomous vehicles. Saying modern autonomous vehicles have environmental constraints is valid, saying that makes then no different than a "people mover on wheels" is not.

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

#386

Post by zbyte64 »

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #344
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a panel discussion on self driving cars in 2015 with several legit experts in the technology (I believe Sebastian Thrun was one of them). There were also some CEOs. The experts all said there’s no way the tech would deploy before 2025, potentially later. The CEOs were saying 2018 or 2019. The experts had a clear view way back then, the CEOs just don’t want to listen.

Experts are wrong all the time. The experts said that solar prices would come down but were off by nearly an order of magnitude in how long it took. With something this hard it's extremely tough to tell for sure when it will happen and often progress goes in chunks where it seems like it's going to happen but then doesnt.

I agree with all of this, but if the problem is too hard for the expert, why would I listen to a billionaire/CEO?

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

#387

Post by tomjakubowski »

freejazz wrote: post #380
rpmisms wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biden is not the Pentagon.

But he's the FCC? They are both the executive branch.

The President has a lot less control over independent agencies like the FCC. For example, the FCC commissioner currently attacking Biden is able to enjoy doing so from that position because Biden doesn't have the legal power to dismiss him.

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

#388

Post by licomo »

SECProto wrote: post #96
licomo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO. It is also vastly more reliable than our only WISP option in the area. What I have seen is that the cell will start to fill up, speeds slow down a little (still better than our WISP and other Satellite providers), then the cell closes. More satellites launch, speeds go up, and the cell opens again. It's my experience, so take…

> It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO SpaceX didn't apply for 25/3, they applied for 100/20. The rest of your comment matches my experience.

I understand, but the original comment was saying that was worse than what was available to many. That is not true in my case.

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

#389

Post by enraged_camel »

pmorici wrote: post #205
mason55 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because if you use the service you know it is capable of that and more today. The numbers show otherwise and the FCC made it clear that Starlink presented no numbers to the contrary. This isn't even a case of the FCC's numbers saying one thing and Starlink's numbers saying another. I totally believe that some places give you consistent 100/20 speeds, but aggregate numbers don't show that and Starlink made no attemp…

Today your speed tier is based on what you pay. If you pay for the priority or business tier service you absolutely get over 100Mbps consistently, a lot more. If you pay for the basic service tier then yeah you might only get 3-4x DSL speeds which is still phenomenal for the purpose being discussed here.

The question isnt whether it is phenomenal. The question is if Starlink is meeting the obligations outlined in the grant, and if so, why they didn’t bother to dispute the numbers FCC showed.

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

#390

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

delecti wrote: post #357
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never did Musk say "We'll have it done in six months".

This: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ (linked in the GGP to your comment) links to this tweet from Jan 23, 2017 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768 When asked the question "At what point will "Full Self-Driving Capability" features noticeably depart from "Enhanced Autopilot" features?" Elon responded "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely" Also, lots of examples of "this year" stated in various January…

This question was not asking about when FSD was going to work but when Enhanced Autopilot would noticeably depart from FSD. No where in there did it say "FSD will be working completely in 6 months".

They did in fact diverge, no where was that a statement that FSD would be complete by then.

It's ironic you are calling him a liar when your response seems to either be completely dishonest itself or you are not aware of the subject at hand.

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