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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

#731

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

2devnull wrote: post #672
nomel wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How Starlink works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2QcycggWU Its nearest ground station bounced off nearest satellite, or some inter-satellite laser links to make some hops, then to the user. It's optimized to be shortest route, just like routers with the wired internet you're using now: if you stream a movie, that request goes to in a short path from the server to you. You streaming doesn't slow down someone in C…

There are what 150 gateways/ground stations. That’s a finite number, no?

a ground station in the US can't see a satellite over Ukraine

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

#732

Post by callalex »

chrisdhoover wrote: post #437
mcguire wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speeds do you get? Edit: That's weird. San Gregorio is like 15-20 miles from Cupertino. Here in Jackson County, AL, Farmers Telecom Coop has gigabit or half-gigabit fiber to much of the county.

There is a slim sliver of coast that has farms, then mountains, then the valley. The mountains are sparsely populated and heavily forested. Driving up and out of the valley you enter into a different world complete with legends of murder cults. Its a car and motorbike mecca. Drive down the coast from San Francisco. Climb up the mountain at San Gregorio or further south, stop at Alice’s to look at the superbikes and s…

Just remember (this isn’t directed specifically at you), because apparently this needs reinforcing: public roads are not a racetrack! If you want to drive recklessly go to a track day. If you can afford a fast car and tires you can afford a track day. Public roads have wildlife, and the public on them.

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

#733

Post by callalex »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #669
bilbo0s wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At those growth rates, they shouldn't need the 900 Million. So this decision by the FCC shouldn't make a difference. As a matter of full disclosure, being from Wisconsin, (home of the great FoxConn boondoggle), I now find myself firmly against corporate welfare. Giving a guy who's supposed to be the richest man in the world a billion dollars to provide me internet service? Nah, that doesn't smell right to me. Somethi…

Bezos got a tax credit for his kids. These things are for people to deliver. Not people who don't have money to deliver. That's why the billionaires kid working at the grocery counter gets paid the same even though he's chauffeured to work in a Bentley

You’re conflating policy for individual people with policy for corporations. The post is specifically calling out corporate welfare.

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

#734

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Wytwwww wrote: post #576
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast because you're essentially trying to predict how long it will take to do something nobody has done before. So you look at what's left to do and as long as you don't run into any unforeseen issues you say, looks like about six months from now. Sometimes you don't run into any unforeseen issues and it turns out to be about six months. Sometimes you do, and then it tak…

> Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast Perhaps. Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months. I doubt Musk wasn't aware of that, so the only alternative that he was lying.

> Of course, we all know for a certainty that this had almost nothing to do with you're describing. The people how were actually designing the software knew that it won't happen in six months.

How do we know this?

Waymo has had this "almost" working for years. In theory you could get from the status quo to actually working in a short period of time, if you're sufficiently smart or lucky and have the right resources.

Or you could hit a wall for years.

The things currently happening with LLMs and image generation were the sort of things many people said were many years away, if not impossible, but we got there by basically throwing a lot of compute at some clever but relatively simple ML algorithms. Nobody knows until you try.

It's obvious that his estimates are optimistic, but optimism isn't inherently malicious.

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

#735

Post by medvezhenok »

phatskat wrote: post #698
medvezhenok wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not many people, even experts, predicted the success of ChatGPT even five years ago - and most have moved their timeline for AGI up significantly because of its release. AI is a hard field to make predictions in.

Do you have sources on those predictions moving up “significantly” because of ChatGPT? Predicting words that sound good together, as a result of a prompt, based on a pre trained set of data is vastly different from AGI.

I can't find the exact article I read it in at the moment, but ChatGPT was definitely a turning point where a bunch of people reeled in their predictions by a decade.

(The median expert prediction was between 2040-2060 previously, now quite a few people have moved that timeline to before 2035).

https://medium.com/@paul.k.pallaghy/chatgpt-did-any-one-remo...

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hQysqfSEzciRazx8k/forecastin...

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

#736

Post by lowmagnet »

ejb999 wrote: post #462
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...

Before starlink my only option was 3MB DSL from Verizon, it was literally life changing as a WFH person to get the 100-200Mbps downloads that Starlink gave me (for $99/month). Fast forward and now I have 1GB symmetrical fiber-to-the-home. Really nice to have that, but the leap from DSL to Starlink was life changing, the leap from Starlink to fiber was merely a minor improvment.

when we first moved here we had 15/5 that was actually 6/1 if we were lucky, so Starlink seemed like a good idea, so I got in my reservation early. We finally were able to switch to Starlink and while things were better, it became obvious that they were possibly oversubscribe in our area. Then they put caps in. Then they raised prices.

Then my rural power company saved the day by stringing fibre to EVERY single drop in their system. 1000 symmetric but really more like 950/800 but I'm doing fine, thanks.

I really think fiber is it for rural internet. They have the will to do it and it's rolling out all over in some states.

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

#737

Post by lowmagnet »

lowmagnet wrote: post #736
ejb999 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before starlink my only option was 3MB DSL from Verizon, it was literally life changing as a WFH person to get the 100-200Mbps downloads that Starlink gave me (for $99/month). Fast forward and now I have 1GB symmetrical fiber-to-the-home. Really nice to have that, but the leap from DSL to Starlink was life changing, the leap from Starlink to fiber was merely a minor improvment.

when we first moved here we had 15/5 that was actually 6/1 if we were lucky, so Starlink seemed like a good idea, so I got in my reservation early. We finally were able to switch to Starlink and while things were better, it became obvious that they were possibly oversubscribe in our area. Then they put caps in. Then they raised prices. Then my rural power company saved the day by stringing fibre to EVERY single drop…

also: our telco is simultaneously running trunks underground, and we will probably hop on to that (since it's buried) for backup.

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

#738

Post by pclmulqdq »

inemesitaffia wrote: post #664
pclmulqdq wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a fixed pool of money ($16 billion), so everyone who gets some of it does replace a denied org.

You have no idea how this works. Denied money isn't redistributed. Where do people get this from? Maybe there will be a future award. But there's no rollover here.

Two facts let you conclude this easily:

1. Money is fungible

2. Grant applications are still open

So money not spent on SpaceX can go to a future application.

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

#739

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

callalex wrote: post #726
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's lying, then the c-suite of every large auto manufacturer does it on a fairly regular basis. In general, they don't seem to get as much negative attention in the media, and I'm guessing that's because they pay a fair bit for advertising.

I’m not familiar with this, what are you referring to?

General Motors, a company that advertised how safe their vehicles were, knowing about faulty ignition switches in their products but only deciding to perform a recall 10 years after they became aware of them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_ignition_swit...

Almost every manufacturer's claims about EV production, range, etc.

Almost every manufacturer's claims about how hard and expensive it would be to add different safety features and/or fuel efficiency improvements.

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

#740

Post by pard68 »

turquoisevar wrote: post #728
pard68 wrote: post #606

I have Starlink and live an hour from town in a national forest. If I did not have Starlink I would have no choice but to move. It is the only option for rural internet when you need bandwidth and data plans that permit daily video meetings and regular dowloading.

You can check the map here to see if any of the other applicants have a bid for your area https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2...

No bids in my area or close to me. Also interesting I had to scroll/zoom to my location, the box did not know my address.
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