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Fantastic. I'm keenly curious on how this will work with national regulations. Having a single global ISP is very attractive on the surface and that's with the

Fantastic. I'm keenly curious on how this will work with national regulations. Having a single global ISP is very attractive on the surface and that's with the huge caveat on monopoly, but as an additional option. I'm just not sure how this will interact with some nations' policy/restrictions. Looking at this aspect very much.

de_watcher 6y ago
Yes, need multiple ISPs so the national restrictions would cancel each other.
AdmiralGinge 6y ago
It's going to be very interesting for me. I plan to live on a sailing yacht and travel the world permanently, StarLink will make my working options a lot more flexible. Presently people are forced to see out their contracts over potentially dodgy marina WiFi. The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think, for example if you're in international waters, connected to the internet by a global ISP whose infrastructure is also outside of territorial limits then whose regulations do you have to comply with (besides your clients)? What's stopping the likes of Google poaching the concept of Radio Caroline, planting a datacentre somewhere in the North Sea and raising a two-fingered salute to any sort of data protection laws?
- Havoc 6y ago
  >The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think I think it'll be OK. Cellphone roaming works just fine for example
  - AdmiralGinge 6y ago
    True, but cellular infrastructure is definitively in someone's territory. If I stick a phone mast up I'm still subject to things like planning permission even if the signal crosses a border. As far as I'm aware, space is pretty similar to international waters in that nobody is sovereign there. It could lead to a bit of a "wild west" situation with governments giving themselves extraterritorial powers. In the late 1980s the British government gave itself very draconian powers to conduct armed raids on radio ships in international waters for example, they take a really dim view of information outside of state control even if they're not the state controlling it.
    - Thlom 6y ago
      Space X will need a license in each country/regulation to provide their service there. They will probably employ some geofencing or similar to comply.
- zhte415 6y ago
  Hard question. We will see. Take GDPR, only applicable, though extraterritorial, to EU residents. So if on a yaught or extra-EU for 183+ days? Plus multiple other territories doing GDPR similar. Interesting to watch. And most of the world does not live on yaughts. I think the answer will be a lot of deals. I'm in China and Elon is putting in a lot of energy here, and with Starlink a big potential conflict of interest with Starlink vs Tesla. Not sure how fickle that is. We will see.
rhn_mk1 6y ago
If countries require permission to use slices of radio spectrum over their territory (I don't know to what extent), then they can control whether a radio service operates there. Does this usually apply to space-based operations? I would guess there must be minimal coordination, or otherwise anyone space-based could degrade the infrastructure of countries in line of sight. If such regulation exists, then satellite internet either needs to make sure they have all the permission to use their band (bands?) in particular countries, or... I guess they can just ignore the local laws, blast away, and claim no jurisdiction?
- jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
  It's coordinated through ITU.
mola 6y ago
Why is a single global isp good? That's basically saying a single company owning and controlling the internet. That sounds dystopic
- john_minsk 6y ago
  For many countries like mine this will be a window towards freedom. As long as US stands behind its constitution
capableweb 6y ago
The right way of making sure this doesn't become a monopoly is to treat this satellite infrastructure just as you treat the fiber infrastructure in many countries. Where instead of having the ISP owning the infrastructure, they can rent the usage of it, so you can have many competing companies using it. So Starlink would be the infrastructure and they need to allow others to use it on the same level as the Starlink ISP uses it. One example of this already working is in Sweden, where Telia-Sonera is owning the actual infrastructure but they have to allow others to use it as well. So in Sweden you have plenty of ISP choice, one of them being Telia-Sonera, but not only them.
- seebetter 6y ago
  The tech who installed my Starry Internet said that they were going to offer Starlink next year in rural areas. Maybe he was confused but he was reasonably knowledgeable. We were specifically talking about Elon, Starlink and rural Internet. Obviously Starry is a completely unrelated company.

de_watcher 6y ago

Yes, need multiple ISPs so the national restrictions would cancel each other.

AdmiralGinge 6y ago

It's going to be very interesting for me. I plan to live on a sailing yacht and travel the world permanently, StarLink will make my working options a lot more flexible. Presently people are forced to see out their contracts over potentially dodgy marina WiFi. The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think, for example if you're in international waters, connected to the internet by a global ISP whose infrastructure is also outside of territorial limits then whose regulations do you have to comply with (besides your clients)? What's stopping the likes of Google poaching the concept of Radio Caroline, planting a datacentre somewhere in the North Sea and raising a two-fingered salute to any sort of data protection laws?

Havoc 6y ago
>The regulatory situation might get quite complicated I think I think it'll be OK. Cellphone roaming works just fine for example
- AdmiralGinge 6y ago
  True, but cellular infrastructure is definitively in someone's territory. If I stick a phone mast up I'm still subject to things like planning permission even if the signal crosses a border. As far as I'm aware, space is pretty similar to international waters in that nobody is sovereign there. It could lead to a bit of a "wild west" situation with governments giving themselves extraterritorial powers. In the late 1980s the British government gave itself very draconian powers to conduct armed raids on radio ships in international waters for example, they take a really dim view of information outside of state control even if they're not the state controlling it.
  - Thlom 6y ago
    Space X will need a license in each country/regulation to provide their service there. They will probably employ some geofencing or similar to comply.
zhte415 6y ago
Hard question. We will see. Take GDPR, only applicable, though extraterritorial, to EU residents. So if on a yaught or extra-EU for 183+ days? Plus multiple other territories doing GDPR similar. Interesting to watch. And most of the world does not live on yaughts. I think the answer will be a lot of deals. I'm in China and Elon is putting in a lot of energy here, and with Starlink a big potential conflict of interest with Starlink vs Tesla. Not sure how fickle that is. We will see.

rhn_mk1 6y ago

If countries require permission to use slices of radio spectrum over their territory (I don't know to what extent), then they can control whether a radio service operates there. Does this usually apply to space-based operations? I would guess there must be minimal coordination, or otherwise anyone space-based could degrade the infrastructure of countries in line of sight. If such regulation exists, then satellite internet either needs to make sure they have all the permission to use their band (bands?) in particular countries, or... I guess they can just ignore the local laws, blast away, and claim no jurisdiction?

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
It's coordinated through ITU.

mola 6y ago

Why is a single global isp good? That's basically saying a single company owning and controlling the internet. That sounds dystopic

john_minsk 6y ago
For many countries like mine this will be a window towards freedom. As long as US stands behind its constitution

capableweb 6y ago

The right way of making sure this doesn't become a monopoly is to treat this satellite infrastructure just as you treat the fiber infrastructure in many countries. Where instead of having the ISP owning the infrastructure, they can rent the usage of it, so you can have many competing companies using it. So Starlink would be the infrastructure and they need to allow others to use it on the same level as the Starlink ISP uses it. One example of this already working is in Sweden, where Telia-Sonera is owning the actual infrastructure but they have to allow others to use it as well. So in Sweden you have plenty of ISP choice, one of them being Telia-Sonera, but not only them.

seebetter 6y ago
The tech who installed my Starry Internet said that they were going to offer Starlink next year in rural areas. Maybe he was confused but he was reasonably knowledgeable. We were specifically talking about Elon, Starlink and rural Internet. Obviously Starry is a completely unrelated company.