US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by stusmall » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:50 PM UTC

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...

Huh. It's really nice to see actual metrics. I live in a rural area and get my internet through a fixed wireless provider. For a while I'd been wondering if it was worth giving Starlink a try

While this is usually a bit more bandwidth than I get, that isn't consistent and the ping is much worse. I pretty consistently get 50/15 with 15ms ping at about $90/mo after tax+fees. Based on some of the hype and press Starlink gets I assumed it would have had much better bandwidth, even if the latency is about inline with my expectations. Thanks for gathering and sharing this.

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

#482

Post by natch » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

NotACop182 wrote: post #442

DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I never understood someone so determined to ignore all the evidence. Yet when confronted doubles/triples down with excuses.

Confronted with evidence that nowhere supports the claims. We really are in bizarro world here, rife with sloppy thinking and fuzzy smears. Certainly Elon shoots off his mouth and has underestimated timelines, but the specific claims being made about those mistakes go way beyond and into lala land.

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

#483

Post by _fizz_buzz_ » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: 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.

If starlink would be a success regardless, why should it be subsidized with tax payer money. Isn’t the point of subsidies to support things that would otherwise not be a success?

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

#484

Post by The_Colonel » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #446

jcranmer wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect his statements are carefully made to not technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but colloquially he's absolutely a liar. They're probably not carefully made, but fraud requires knowledge of falsity, and short of an internal report saying "this feature won't be ready before XYZ," it is going to be extremely difficult to prove Tesla knew the claims were false. The other thing you'll run into is re…

I would think it would be hard to find a reasonable person who takes anything Musk says seriously anymore and yet plenty seem to.

If you're not following Musk every day, and maybe just know he's the Tesla/rocket guy, why wouldn't you take him seriously?

Somehow, this sounds like shifting blame from the liar to others ...

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

#485

Post by flareback » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

The government shouldn't be funding internet anyways.

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

#486

Post by phpisthebest » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

NelsonMinar wrote: post #288

I'm glad to see the FCC sticking to its requirements and having a testing regime for them. Starlink's own service specifications are far below the 100/20Mbps requirements. They currently are promising 25-100Mbps down, 5-10Mbps up. In congested areas they often don't even deliver that in the evenings. [1] I use Starlink in my rural area and am grateful for it. But hopefully the $900M will be better spent on other ISPs…

Now if the FCC was actually principled when when choosing when to " sticking to its requirements" because ti seems large traditional companies can just do what ever the hell they want and get subsidies.

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

#487

Post by HWR_14 » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #415

delecti wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I suspect his statements are carefully made to not technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but colloquially he's absolutely a liar. They're probably not carefully made, but fraud requires knowledge of falsity, and short of an internal report saying "this feature won't be ready before XYZ," it is going to be extremely difficult to prove Tesla knew the claims were false. The other thing you'll run into is re…

> fraud requires knowledge of falsity

Does it? Is there no "average person should be aware" level?

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

#488

Post by grecy » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

isk517 wrote: post #381

weswilson wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Running traditional wired service is the more practical and permanent solution

Not when you're 50+ miles from the nearest anything.

Don't think of people that live kind of near a town and still get LTE. Think of people that drive for hours and still don't get LTE.

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

#489

Post by medvezhenok » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #446

jcranmer wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect his statements are carefully made to not technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but colloquially he's absolutely a liar. They're probably not carefully made, but fraud requires knowledge of falsity, and short of an internal report saying "this feature won't be ready before XYZ," it is going to be extremely difficult to prove Tesla knew the claims were false. The other thing you'll run into is re…

I would think it would be hard to find a reasonable person who takes anything Musk says seriously anymore and yet plenty seem to.

The reason people follow Musk is that even though he over-promises and under-delivers; the under-delivered product is still better than the alternatives (or at least was for a while).

People are not complete fools and can learn to discount over-the-top rhetoric; sure, some people are harmed by believing everything verbatim, but those people also fall for scams, etc, etc.

His statements are parsed as statements of intent more so than actual timeline commitments. We'll have FSD in 6 months = FSD is our main priority at the moment. And sure it also makes for PR/free advertising. Is it scammy? Probably. But he likely got more out of people by pushing this false narrative than would have been otherwise accomplished.

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

#490

Post by kelnos » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 10:00 PM UTC

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #431

kelnos wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's one of the (many) frustrating things with Musk: he fairly consistently overpromises and underdelivers. Even if that underdelivering is better than what you can get elsewhere, it still leaves a bad taste in people's mouths.

> it still leaves a bad taste in people's mouths It definitely does, although I don't understand why. One thing making bold forecasts does is motivate your people. JFK told us we'd get to the moon this decade which is absolutely nuts. Would we have got there as soon if he had said we'd get to the moon eventually ? To the other responder: JFK also had no tangible justification to say we'd get there so soon, and the mo…

I think there are some lines you shouldn't cross. Like having people pre-pay a bunch of money for FSD, claiming it's going to be ready in a certain amount of time, but wildly missing that deadline and not offering to refund people's money.

And certainly there's a "pile on" element as well. Musk is, to put it mildly, a controversial character in general. It's easier to take someone you already don't like, and criticize them more harshly for other faults than you would for someone (like JFK, perhaps) that you otherwise generally like. Maybe that's not fair, but it seems pretty human-nature-y.

Another point: is there a way to make bold forecasts in order to motivate your employees, without making it feel like a promise to your customers? If so, Musk generally fails at that.