This is consistent with the original decision. LTD Broadband, another big 2020 recipient is no longer eligible. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starl...
US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
51–60 of 773 posts
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also involved in government procurement, also provide guidance to several Congressional reps gratis as a technologist subject matter expert. Change is possible, to believe otherwise is to give up. If you want to give up, head to the bar and make way for people who give a shit. I give a shit, so I am admittedly biased.
You're being incredibly optimistic. Show me a non-greedy person in Congress, with the exception of Thomas Massie, and I'll believe you that change is possible.
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/
https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/
Hope is in short supply, but not at empty yet. Make sure to vote every election. 1.8M voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US, and 4M voters age into voting at 18. Demographics are inevitable. As I tell the young folks, Hold Fast.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/07/the-chang...
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americas-electoral-...
https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/41-million-members-...
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/maxwell-frost-will-be-the-fi...
(disclaimer: I have maxed out my FEC political contributions to every rep enumerated due to my belief in their character; if someone's character changes or evidence surfaces they are not a good person, my support changes accordingly)
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#53[deleted]
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#54> The FCC cited among its reasons SpaceX's failure to successfully launch its Starship rocket, saying "the uncertain nature of Starship's future launches could impact Starlink's ability to meet" its obligations.
The X beatings will continue until the tweeting improves.
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#55>> : "SpaceX continues to put more satellites into orbit every month, which should translate to even faster and more reliable service."
NB.
Should =/= does
"Should" is doing a LOT of work in that sentence.
If Starlink dosen't meet requirements today, they can improve and meet them in the future. Meanwhile, this seems like more of an effort to unfairly pre-empt funds going to other competitors.
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can arrive at your own conclusion. I think its pretty obvious whats happening here (the commissioners voted along party lines right down the middle). And theres no other company thats even close to Starlink now or in the medium term future. So I dont know who would practically fill this spot. For below comment: This is for "rural" connection. You're not laying wire for that regardless of what Comcast wants you to…
It's a letter from one FCC commissioner, of which there are currently 5. He dissents from the decision the commission as a whole came to. There are a lot of companies on the ground that could benefit from that ~$900 million so a single company replacing Starlink is not necessary. The main concern is if the FCC give Starlink money to reach 100/20 and they don't do it (because there are legitimate technical issues to s…
you're ignoring over-provisioning which generally is ~10x
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#57> The FCC cited among its reasons SpaceX's failure to successfully launch its Starship rocket, saying "the uncertain nature of Starship's future launches could impact Starlink's ability to meet" its obligations. The X beatings will continue until the tweeting improves.
We need more competition [1] in orbital launch and orbital internet. Backing SpaceX alone when they have the lead will not lead to a good outcome.
I'd imagine that there are also concerns about the close ties Musk has to the Russians and how he's tried to insert himself into the Ukrainian conflict on numerous occasions.
[1] Not the largess of traditional government contractors Lockheed and Boeing, but the plethora of startups entering into this space.
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#58>> : "SpaceX continues to put more satellites into orbit every month, which should translate to even faster and more reliable service." NB. Should =/= does "Should" is doing a LOT of work in that sentence. If Starlink dosen't meet requirements today, they can improve and meet them in the future. Meanwhile, this seems like more of an effort to unfairly pre-empt funds going to other competitors.
From one of the dissenting opinions:
> the majority points to delays in the development of SpaceX’s Starship launch platform—the largest, most powerful rocket ever built—as evidence that SpaceX would be unable to launch enough Starlink satellites to meet its 2025 commitments. The trouble with this argument is that SpaceX never indicated that it was relying on the Starship platform to meet its RDOF obligations, and in fact it repeatedly stated that it was not.
I think the metric was 'more likely than not achieve the metric by 2025' and the decision was made in 2022.
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#59Dissenting statement by one of the FCC commissioners.
Re: US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
#60Highly recommend actually reading the FCC reports. I know that is a high bar. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-... I'm pretty convinced that this ruling was a bit horseshit.
Paragraphs 30 and 31 seem pretty dispositive to me. Starlink has not yet been able to reach the required speeds, its speeds have gotten worse over the past years, and it can point to no concrete evidence to suggest that Starlink's aspirational plans to suddenly and dramatically change that trend over the next several months are in fact realistic. Not that the report points this out, but Musk's companies do have a long history of touting unrealistic milestones and a very short history of actually reaching any such milestone on time.
So what's horseshit about it?