23 ms·

FCC cancels Starlink’s and LTD's rural development grants

246 points by gamblor956 4y ago

danjoredd 4y ago
"After careful legal, technical, and policy review, we are rejecting these applications. Consumers deserve reliable and affordable high-speed broadband," So make ATT and other ISPs serve the rural market, FTC! The hypocrisy in this statement is laughable since rural customer's only choice is dial-up, HughesNet(which is worse than Starlink) and mobile hot-spots. I think there is more to this than that statement.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  That's exactly what the grants in question are for And no, there isn't more to it, the only reason we're even here is because they had to play along with Starlink's initial application that had too optimistic numbers because it's not their job to question pie in the sky numbers, but instead, to tentatively approve it until it's proven false.
- dogman144 4y ago
  Ya What’s tough is the only ya provider I trust for rural use is starlink.
- prvc 4y ago
  It's nakedly political.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  > So make ATT and other ISPs serve the rural market, FTC! You don’t want that. They (and others like Verizon) have repeatedly taken government grants to extend their networks into unserved areas (both rural and urban) and then just not done the work. Ars Technica follows this stuff pretty closely and they’ve done some good reporting on it.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    AT&T took $500M back when to extend fiber to rural areas, back when that seemed like a lot of money. They ran fiber to 1/10 mi from my house. Then, never lit it, because the grant they took didn't require that. FCC staying on top of telecomm companies' follow-through is a welcome change.
wmf 4y ago
Technically, RDOF ISPs have until 2028 to provide the promised service but Starlink's application was denied because their Ookla speed tests are slightly low in 2022. Appearances matter. If they provisioned slightly fewer customers per cell they might have passed.
wmf 4y ago
Technically, RDOF ISPs have until 2028 to provide the promised service but Starlink's application was denied because their Ookla speed tests are slightly low in 2022. Appearances matter. If they provisioned slightly fewer customers per cell they might have passed.
- malfist 4y ago
  Promising 20mbps and delivering 9 is not "a bit low". I want starlink to succeed, and I wish they'd gotten the the criteria to get this funding, but let's not be deceptive here.
  - mgerdts 4y ago
    That’s what Spectrum has done with my cable modem. It used to be 200/20 now it’s advertised as 300 with no upload speed advertised. Ookla tells me it is now 320+/10, but sometimes only 9 up. Uploads are reminiscent of my DSL line 20 years ago.
    - sidewndr46 4y ago
      Yep, I just got the same "upgrade" where I live. No guaranteed upload speeds at all now.
  - notatoad 4y ago
    not that i want to defend the practice, but real-world speeds being a bit less than half the advertised speed is about what i've experience from every ISP i've ever been a customer of.
    - shaklee3 4y ago
      I've had 5 cable providers in different cities and never experienced that. usually they overprovision you to make your plan look even better.
      - hedora 4y ago
Metacelsus 4y ago
So who will the money go to, Comcast?
- kube-system 4y ago
  Frontier is the big name in rural subsidies.
- pavon 4y ago
  The money (and the areas that were bid on) go back in the pot for Phase II of RDOF. Starlink can bid on that if they demonstrate adequate performance by then. Edit: Actually it looks like it goes back into the Universal Service Fund (which is where RDOF got it's money), and may be used for RDOF or other USF funded programs.
- _23sd 4y ago
  Comcast didn't participate in RDOF: https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/comcast-adds-323-000-internet-customers-q2-2020 https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/comcast-adds-323-000...
wnevets 4y ago
Starlink isn't capable of meeting its performance commitments, this was the correct decision.
- dboreham 4y ago
  I don't think I've ever seen 20Mbits up on my Starlink. It's usually a solid 10-15.
- xoa 4y ago
  This is completely wrong though, I've seen 220 down/40 up out of it. They've apparently been trying to stay right around their commitment level while building out as quickly as possible, and let it slip a bit under on a third party speed test. But that can be relatively easily remedied by reducing subscriber growth vs new satellite launches. And literally just today we saw another significant step towards Starship launching with the first static fire of Raptor 2 on a full Super Heavy booster. That'll bring far more launches of the much more powerful Starlink v2.0 satellites. It's brand new cutting edge technology bringing service right now to people abandoned to dialup or ludicrously expensive lines or HEO sat for decades. It's already been a life changer. Their plans for further scaling are solid and in progress. The tech is obviously and objectively capable. The lobbying against it has been intense for completely befuddling reasons though, but even so this is a really disappointing decision.
  - carbocation 4y ago
    I agree with all of the aspirational statements you have made here, but I still think this was the right choice. A threshold was set. The threshold was not met. Sounds like they can reapply, and if they provide the necessary service level at that time, then they can get the $.
    - btilly 4y ago
      I would agree if the same standard was being applied to the existing telecoms. But it isn't. In the last several decades, telecoms have routinely been paid billions for projects that didn't produce, and then won money in the next round as well. Indeed the fight isn't usually about whether to continue this, but who should win this round (established telecoms, municipal broadband, etc). It was a surprise when Starlink won in the first place. But it is no surprise that it is being held to a higher standard than, say, Charter.
themitigating 4y ago
I love how people want to live in rural areas to save money but then the federal government makes up the difference for what would normally be expensive utilities. Then those same people crap on those who live in cities.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- matthewfcarlson 4y ago
  Right? There was an article here earlier about running fiber in rural Michigan. Kudos to the dude doing it and I agree that internet access is important. But 30k per house seems like a very wonky investment. At 100$ a month that would be 25 years to pay back, which could be feasible depending on what we are doing for internet in 25 years. Still seems ridiculous. If you wanted to pay 30k per household to build super fast internet for everyone in Seattle or Austin, people would laugh you out of the room.
  - calgoo 4y ago
    It’s all about where you pass the cables. If you need to dig up the street then 30k is not a lot of money to do the installation. If you can install the cables on already existing poles, then that reduces the cost a lot. It’s also cheaper to do a group of homes then it is to do 1 as the cost of bringing the workers, the machinery and the permits is spread across all clients. That’s why we hear a lot of cases where someone has a fiber cable passing close by but the cable company did not see enough profit to finish the last mile (or they asked at the time of building and not enough homes signed up at the time).
  - newjersey 4y ago
    I don't get it. Why is fiber to the home so expensive? I think in principle, it makes sense for us to pay for rural broadband the same way we paid for rural electricity. The problem is some companies took the money but didn't deliver the results, no? > In 1936, the REA was made permanent through the Rural Electrification Act. It was granted an initial budget of $50 million for the first two years, then $40 million a year for the following decade ($550 million in 1936 is approximately $10.3 billion today). Jul 12, 2021 snippet answer from Google search https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+much+did+rural+electrification+cost https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+muc... I can't imagine how our government can justify subsidizing anything other than fiber to the home in the current year. As far as I know, there is very little ongoing maintenance cost and glass fiber is much cheaper than copper, no? Coax people are saying they can get symmetric gigabit up and down with docsis but I will believe it when I see it (low latency symmetric gigabit up and down, no data caps, reasonable pricing). Until then, we shouldn't give them any money.
syntaxing 4y ago
Been using T-mobile ISP, I have some complaints but overall, it does the job. I feel like some money should be put into 5G towers instead. Country wide 5G access + countrywide broadband. Overall a net win IMO.
- justapassenger 4y ago
  And as a bonus 5G towers don’t fall of the sky after few years and require constant total rebuilding of them.
1970-01-01 4y ago
>In a public notice, the FCC cited recent Ookla data Why is the FCC using Ookla when they built their own speed test app? https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-encourages-public-use-its-speed-test-app https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-encourages-public-use-its-s...
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Because people independently choose to use Ookla, it's very popular. Few people use the FCC's app, which depend on people at the locations using it to provide data.
- peeters 4y ago
  Because if a statistically insufficient number of people are using that app, the data shouldn't be used for decision making.
- jcrawfordor 4y ago
  FCC's app is a white-labeled test on contract from SamKnows. FCC also has contracts with Ookla for use of their data. From the FCC's perspective they seem to just be using data across multiple vendors for more coverage, but Ookla is the biggest player and has a lot more data points on offer than SamKnows.
- vardump 4y ago
  One issue: I don't know about others, but personally I'm way more likely to check Ookla's Speedtest when the connection is bad, to see whether my connection got an issue. Not when it works as expected.
- function_seven 4y ago
  I never heard of FCC's own speed test app. So I tried to use it. 1. Apparently I have to install an app on my phone. I can't use a web-based tool from my desktop. (I was thinking there must be a version for regular computer users, right?) 2. Thinking I missed something, I searched for "FCC speed test". The results all point back to this app. 3. On a whim, I tried visiting speedtest.fcc.gov. Of course nothing lives there. Why is FCC bothering with this if they're going to obscure it behind app stores? Seems like a way to only get outlier users.
cm2187 4y ago
Stupid question. In Europe or the US, we wired the whole country all the way to the most remote house to connect them to the electricity grid. Then again to connect them to the telephone. What has changed that makes it so difficult with fiber?
- wmf 4y ago
  Political will and lobbying.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    It seems to be the same problem in most european countries that have different political systems. Doesn't seem to explain it to me.
    - noahtallen 4y ago
      Not sure that’s completely true — I’ve heard great things about fiber availability in Romania, Switzerland, and Nordic countries for example.
      - Thlom 4y ago
        Norway here. Most suburbs had fiber installed around 2010. Cities were a bit slower due to the complexity and cost of running it underground. It's expensive and inconvenient to dig up city streets. But I think most city buildings have fiber installed these days. Rural parts of the country mostly relies on 4G/5G these days as the old cobber network is being phased out. Even our cabins have fiber installed these days ...
    - rjbwork 4y ago
      I forget the name of the phenomenon, and my search-fu is failing me, BUT - there is something like the "first mover disadvantage" or "innovator's curse" when it comes to infrastructure and technology. Compare somewhere like Romania with the US. Sure, the size of the country matters, but they started their modern network buildouts WAYYYY after the US. They US was heavily invested in copper and coax. Romania was able to leapfrog our legacy technology and move straight to fiber + neighborhood based local ISP's. While both technologies performed similarly very early on, the ceiling of performance and lifetime of the line is far higher for fiber than copper or coax (barring physically destructive actions like an errant shovel. So, in effect, they started with something can be upgraded continuously to this day. We started with something whose performance ceiling was much lower, and whose effective lifespan was over 10 years ago or more in many cases. So now that old stuff has to be maintained while doing the capex heavy infrastructure work all over again to get the new stuff in there. Meanwhile, we're still paying them every month and their shareholders are collecting their dividends, so why would they want anything to change? It's not like they're going be able to charge some insane premium for their new faster fiber lines over their old and slow coax and copper.
say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
This would be acceptable if the members of the FCC weren't being compelled to take action that would be favorable to Comcast and Verizon. I do not accept that they acted in good faith. Hasn't anyone noticed that the net neutrality actions initiated by the FCC under the Trump administration haven't changed?
chroma 4y ago
If you look at the authorized bids[1] versus the defaulted bids[2], you can see only three companies got any money from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband subsidy. The other five companies got nothing, including SpaceX and LTD. E-Fiber San Juan LLC gets $7.5M to provide broadband services to 1,085 homes in rural Utah. Monster Broadband gets $5.8M for 11,286 homes in Texas and Tennessee. Northern Arapaho Tribal Industries gets $7.8M for 2,408 homes in Wyoming (probably on Indian reservations). So a total of around $21 million will be spent on 15,000ish homes. The FCC's budget for the RDOF subsidy is around $20 billion for 4 million homes, so 99.99% of the money is still up for grabs, as are 99.96% of the rural households. 1. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A2.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A2.pdf 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A3.pdf
- chrisjc 4y ago
  I have a feeling that Starlink will end up being an indirect recipient despite the rejection. Starlink might just end up making deals with the companies that won their bids and sell their services/hardware as rebranded solutions. It's probably cheaper for these companies to do this instead of setting up their own infrastructure. Of course the real question is probably whether not following through on their obligations and getting fined is less than the amount they were awarded.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Starlink won in the 100Mbps category. Almost everybody else won in the 1Gbps category, so can't sub out to Starlink. The way the rules were set up, virtually any bid in the gigabit category beat the megabit category, so Starlink only won in the regions nobody bid in.
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      Does that reflect permanent limitations on Starlink speed? Somehow that's less impressive than it initially seemed...
TheRealPomax 4y ago
"Cory Hauer, LTD Broadband’s CEO, told Fierce it is “extremely disappointed in the FCC staff decision” and is evaluating next steps. He added “I don’t believe the FCC fully appreciated the benefits LTD Broadband would bring to hundreds of thousands of rural Americans.”" Except of course the facts suggest the exact opposite, where the FCC very much appreciated the benefits that you "would" bring, so much so as to select you as one of two potential contract recipients, but has determined that you lied during the bid and in reality can't bring what you claimed you'd be able to bring.
H8crilA 4y ago
Can someone explain how does Starlink go about using the electromagnetic spectrum efficiently? 4G (and 5G even more so) relies on small cells to spatially partition the spectrum, therefore increasing the maximum bandwidth available in the system. Need to serve more users without compromising per-user throughput? Split the cells. Now, the cell of a satellite is enormous, and there's no way to reduce the tx power without getting out of range of the surface of the planet altogether. Not to mention that those satellites are pretty damn fast so they stay over any particular user for a very short amount of time. What am I missing? Or is this supposed to be a low throughput system (when added up over all concurrent users)?
- wmf 4y ago
  All modern satellites use multiple narrow spot beams; in Starlink's case each beam is 22 km wide. This allows spectrum to be reused.
  - H8crilA 4y ago
    Oh, ok. But 22km is still a lot more than a typical 4G/5G urban cell. It's basically the size of a city. Whereas I can spot multiple stations in my city if I go for a 5-10 minute walk.
    - wmf 4y ago
      Yes, the density of satellite is far lower than urban cellular which is why no one is pitching satellite for urban customers.
      - colejohnson66 4y ago
        That, and latency. Or has that improved in the last decade?
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        I wouldn't care about 40ms of latency for my phone. If by "last decade" you're comparing against geostationary, then yes. The satellites are roughly a hundred times closer.
deltree7 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  You can't post this kind of dross here, regardless of which politics you prefer. Since you've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly in other places as well, I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
kotaKat 4y ago
I love how they call out Starlink's $600 equipment cost but completely gloss over many a small-town fiber company that will charge $200 easy for an install (or more), and completely ignores ViaSat's $10/month equipment lease (or $300 prepaid but you don't own it) and Hughes $15/mo lease and $99 setup or $450 upfront payment for their dish.
- anamexis 4y ago
  Did any of those companies win FCC rural development grants?
  - kotaKat 4y ago
    Why, yes, Hughes certainly did.
    - NotTameAntelope 4y ago
      Yeah, well the obvious answer is that $200 < $600, so the line must be somewhere between $200 and $600.
      - dogman144 4y ago
        Issue is starlink blows Hughes and viasat out the water on actual usefulness for internet. Only thing close or better is muni fiber
        ncmncm 4y ago
        At the moment. Bandwidth will decline relentlessly as subscriber count increases.
        google234123 4y ago
        And it will go up as more and probably better satellites are launched?
zw123456 4y ago
I explain it this way; think of it as a cellular network in the sky, except in a terrestrial cellular network, the cell sites are stationary and connected via fiber and you are moving in your car or walking (or you can). With LEOS, each satellite is like a cell site, like a 5G one with phased array antennas, the satellite is moving and you are stationary and the satellited are connected to each other via free space optics but the backhaul is obviously RF, but the hand offs between satellites is over FSO. In fact, R17 of 3GPP standards now has provisions in it for 5G direct from the LEOS to the user. None deploy yet. but in a couple of years, that could be interesting. Each satellite paints a spot on the ground using the beamforming capabilities of the phased array antenna. The capacity of that spot is of course limited by Shannon limit, where C ~ B * S C = capacity (think Mbps) B = spectrum (think Mhz) S = SINR (Singal to noise ratio) If you have a smaller spot on the ground, then the spectrum is shared amoung fewer users. If you have more powerful transmitters and or better antennas, then your C will be better. Right now based on the specifications I have seen publicly, Amazon's Kuiper (their LEOS) will have higher capacity than starlink because it will have half the "spot" diameter. That is due to better antennas mostly, more array elements mean narrower beam width.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Yeah, but starlink can just cycle in newer generation satellites with tighter beams as well, could they not? Is there a technical reason I'm not aware of that they can't? Would Dishys even need to be changed? Kuiper needs Blue Origin to get cost competitive with SpaceX, which doesn't look likely because a) they don't even have commercial operations and b) uhoh, here comes Starship. Sure SpaceX might launch Kuiper satellites ... at a premium over Starlink.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Dishys only need to focus on the right satellite.
    - zw123456 4y ago
      No dishes, Phased Array ar flat
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dang 4y ago
See also https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starlink-rdof-bids https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/fcc-rejects-ltd-broa... (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417500, but we merged that thread hither)
InTheArena 4y ago
So this is being rejected in 2022, for service in 2028 (which others will not provide until 2028) based on a speed test in 2022? Follow the money and the politics.
- ibero 4y ago
  follow them where?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Strom 4y ago
    To the source.
    - ibero 4y ago
      the source is my tax money. am i the source?
- shaklee3 4y ago
  This comment isn't adding anything to the discussion. SpaceX has stated they meet a certain standard of service. They have not according to speed test results. They were never going to be able to meet it given the amount of customers they intend to have, but the original rdof was won entirely due to promises and not having data. Now that they have data, it's clear that what everyone already knew happened -- they cannot provide the service they advertise and be profitable.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  They are not receiving money in 2022 because they are not meeting their commitments in 2022. They are still free to re-apply, and if they start meeting the level of service they bid for by 2028, they will get the money. This is all very much above board.
  - InTheArena 4y ago
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
I'm a starlink user, I'm a bit peeved that the costs haven't come down and other annoyances, but... This is a travesty of policy. The US has so many rural underserved areas and Starlink is instant cable-internet anywhere you go with a good view of the sky. Telecoms have been pocketing these rural development dollars brazenly and screwing over taxpayers and thumbing their noses at the FCC with their lobbying power. Starlink comes along with a usable service ... anyway, it's sad. Some Trump telecom insider (Ajit Pai) has a more balanced view than the Biden administration. This is bad policy. Starlink won't need it though. They have a billion or more potential worldwide customers.
- happyopossum 4y ago
  > I'm a bit peeved that the costs haven't come down I’ve never had a broadband bill go down. Not sure what you were expecting from a brand new company, but I’ve had the same service for 4+ years at the same cost from one provider, and 2.5 yrs from another. That’s the way they roll…
  - lutorm 4y ago
    Phone company finally pulled fiber here where we used to only have cable. Now getting faster service for half the cost compared to Spectrum. So it does happen. Maybe they'll raise the price once they've gotten everyone to switch...
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  If Starlink bid at a level of service they can't offer, why would they get the money they bid for? Blame Starlink for not bidding at a more realistic level, if you want to blame anyone.
bootlooped 4y ago
I don't get why they can't bake something into these grants that says if the company fails to deliver on their promises the government can claw back the money. It seems like I've read a lot of stories over the years of telecoms failing to deliver results after being given grants or large tax breaks.
- johnebgd 4y ago
  The lobbyists who hold titles like congress person will never let this happen.

246 points by gamblor956 4y ago

"After careful legal, technical, and policy review, we are rejecting these applications. Consumers deserve reliable and affordable high-speed broadband," So make ATT and other ISPs serve the rural market, FTC! The hypocrisy in this statement is laughable since rural customer's only choice is dial-up, HughesNet(which is worse than Starlink) and mobile hot-spots. I think there is more to this than that statement.

refulgentis 4y ago
That's exactly what the grants in question are for And no, there isn't more to it, the only reason we're even here is because they had to play along with Starlink's initial application that had too optimistic numbers because it's not their job to question pie in the sky numbers, but instead, to tentatively approve it until it's proven false.
dogman144 4y ago
Ya What’s tough is the only ya provider I trust for rural use is starlink.
prvc 4y ago
It's nakedly political.
thewebcount 4y ago
> So make ATT and other ISPs serve the rural market, FTC! You don’t want that. They (and others like Verizon) have repeatedly taken government grants to extend their networks into unserved areas (both rural and urban) and then just not done the work. Ars Technica follows this stuff pretty closely and they’ve done some good reporting on it.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  AT&T took $500M back when to extend fiber to rural areas, back when that seemed like a lot of money. They ran fiber to 1/10 mi from my house. Then, never lit it, because the grant they took didn't require that. FCC staying on top of telecomm companies' follow-through is a welcome change.

wmf 4y ago

Technically, RDOF ISPs have until 2028 to provide the promised service but Starlink's application was denied because their Ookla speed tests are slightly low in 2022. Appearances matter. If they provisioned slightly fewer customers per cell they might have passed.

wmf 4y ago

malfist 4y ago
Promising 20mbps and delivering 9 is not "a bit low". I want starlink to succeed, and I wish they'd gotten the the criteria to get this funding, but let's not be deceptive here.
- mgerdts 4y ago
  That’s what Spectrum has done with my cable modem. It used to be 200/20 now it’s advertised as 300 with no upload speed advertised. Ookla tells me it is now 320+/10, but sometimes only 9 up. Uploads are reminiscent of my DSL line 20 years ago.
  - sidewndr46 4y ago
    Yep, I just got the same "upgrade" where I live. No guaranteed upload speeds at all now.
- notatoad 4y ago
  not that i want to defend the practice, but real-world speeds being a bit less than half the advertised speed is about what i've experience from every ISP i've ever been a customer of.
  - shaklee3 4y ago
    I've had 5 cable providers in different cities and never experienced that. usually they overprovision you to make your plan look even better.
    - hedora 4y ago

Metacelsus 4y ago

So who will the money go to, Comcast?

kube-system 4y ago
Frontier is the big name in rural subsidies.
pavon 4y ago
The money (and the areas that were bid on) go back in the pot for Phase II of RDOF. Starlink can bid on that if they demonstrate adequate performance by then. Edit: Actually it looks like it goes back into the Universal Service Fund (which is where RDOF got it's money), and may be used for RDOF or other USF funded programs.
_23sd 4y ago
Comcast didn't participate in RDOF: https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/comcast-adds-323-000-internet-customers-q2-2020 https://www.fiercetelecom.com/operators/comcast-adds-323-000...

wnevets 4y ago

Starlink isn't capable of meeting its performance commitments, this was the correct decision.

dboreham 4y ago
I don't think I've ever seen 20Mbits up on my Starlink. It's usually a solid 10-15.
xoa 4y ago
This is completely wrong though, I've seen 220 down/40 up out of it. They've apparently been trying to stay right around their commitment level while building out as quickly as possible, and let it slip a bit under on a third party speed test. But that can be relatively easily remedied by reducing subscriber growth vs new satellite launches. And literally just today we saw another significant step towards Starship launching with the first static fire of Raptor 2 on a full Super Heavy booster. That'll bring far more launches of the much more powerful Starlink v2.0 satellites. It's brand new cutting edge technology bringing service right now to people abandoned to dialup or ludicrously expensive lines or HEO sat for decades. It's already been a life changer. Their plans for further scaling are solid and in progress. The tech is obviously and objectively capable. The lobbying against it has been intense for completely befuddling reasons though, but even so this is a really disappointing decision.
- carbocation 4y ago
  I agree with all of the aspirational statements you have made here, but I still think this was the right choice. A threshold was set. The threshold was not met. Sounds like they can reapply, and if they provide the necessary service level at that time, then they can get the $.
  - btilly 4y ago
    I would agree if the same standard was being applied to the existing telecoms. But it isn't. In the last several decades, telecoms have routinely been paid billions for projects that didn't produce, and then won money in the next round as well. Indeed the fight isn't usually about whether to continue this, but who should win this round (established telecoms, municipal broadband, etc). It was a surprise when Starlink won in the first place. But it is no surprise that it is being held to a higher standard than, say, Charter.

themitigating 4y ago

I love how people want to live in rural areas to save money but then the federal government makes up the difference for what would normally be expensive utilities. Then those same people crap on those who live in cities.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
matthewfcarlson 4y ago
Right? There was an article here earlier about running fiber in rural Michigan. Kudos to the dude doing it and I agree that internet access is important. But 30k per house seems like a very wonky investment. At 100$ a month that would be 25 years to pay back, which could be feasible depending on what we are doing for internet in 25 years. Still seems ridiculous. If you wanted to pay 30k per household to build super fast internet for everyone in Seattle or Austin, people would laugh you out of the room.
- calgoo 4y ago
  It’s all about where you pass the cables. If you need to dig up the street then 30k is not a lot of money to do the installation. If you can install the cables on already existing poles, then that reduces the cost a lot. It’s also cheaper to do a group of homes then it is to do 1 as the cost of bringing the workers, the machinery and the permits is spread across all clients. That’s why we hear a lot of cases where someone has a fiber cable passing close by but the cable company did not see enough profit to finish the last mile (or they asked at the time of building and not enough homes signed up at the time).
- newjersey 4y ago
  I don't get it. Why is fiber to the home so expensive? I think in principle, it makes sense for us to pay for rural broadband the same way we paid for rural electricity. The problem is some companies took the money but didn't deliver the results, no? > In 1936, the REA was made permanent through the Rural Electrification Act. It was granted an initial budget of $50 million for the first two years, then $40 million a year for the following decade ($550 million in 1936 is approximately $10.3 billion today). Jul 12, 2021 snippet answer from Google search https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+much+did+rural+electrification+cost https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=how+muc... I can't imagine how our government can justify subsidizing anything other than fiber to the home in the current year. As far as I know, there is very little ongoing maintenance cost and glass fiber is much cheaper than copper, no? Coax people are saying they can get symmetric gigabit up and down with docsis but I will believe it when I see it (low latency symmetric gigabit up and down, no data caps, reasonable pricing). Until then, we shouldn't give them any money.

syntaxing 4y ago

Been using T-mobile ISP, I have some complaints but overall, it does the job. I feel like some money should be put into 5G towers instead. Country wide 5G access + countrywide broadband. Overall a net win IMO.

justapassenger 4y ago
And as a bonus 5G towers don’t fall of the sky after few years and require constant total rebuilding of them.

1970-01-01 4y ago

>In a public notice, the FCC cited recent Ookla data Why is the FCC using Ookla when they built their own speed test app? https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-encourages-public-use-its-speed-test-app https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-encourages-public-use-its-s...

pwinnski 4y ago
Because people independently choose to use Ookla, it's very popular. Few people use the FCC's app, which depend on people at the locations using it to provide data.
peeters 4y ago
Because if a statistically insufficient number of people are using that app, the data shouldn't be used for decision making.
jcrawfordor 4y ago
FCC's app is a white-labeled test on contract from SamKnows. FCC also has contracts with Ookla for use of their data. From the FCC's perspective they seem to just be using data across multiple vendors for more coverage, but Ookla is the biggest player and has a lot more data points on offer than SamKnows.
vardump 4y ago
One issue: I don't know about others, but personally I'm way more likely to check Ookla's Speedtest when the connection is bad, to see whether my connection got an issue. Not when it works as expected.
function_seven 4y ago
I never heard of FCC's own speed test app. So I tried to use it. 1. Apparently I have to install an app on my phone. I can't use a web-based tool from my desktop. (I was thinking there must be a version for regular computer users, right?) 2. Thinking I missed something, I searched for "FCC speed test". The results all point back to this app. 3. On a whim, I tried visiting speedtest.fcc.gov. Of course nothing lives there. Why is FCC bothering with this if they're going to obscure it behind app stores? Seems like a way to only get outlier users.

cm2187 4y ago

Stupid question. In Europe or the US, we wired the whole country all the way to the most remote house to connect them to the electricity grid. Then again to connect them to the telephone. What has changed that makes it so difficult with fiber?

wmf 4y ago
Political will and lobbying.
- cm2187 4y ago
  It seems to be the same problem in most european countries that have different political systems. Doesn't seem to explain it to me.
  - noahtallen 4y ago
    Not sure that’s completely true — I’ve heard great things about fiber availability in Romania, Switzerland, and Nordic countries for example.
    - Thlom 4y ago
      Norway here. Most suburbs had fiber installed around 2010. Cities were a bit slower due to the complexity and cost of running it underground. It's expensive and inconvenient to dig up city streets. But I think most city buildings have fiber installed these days. Rural parts of the country mostly relies on 4G/5G these days as the old cobber network is being phased out. Even our cabins have fiber installed these days ...
  - rjbwork 4y ago
    I forget the name of the phenomenon, and my search-fu is failing me, BUT - there is something like the "first mover disadvantage" or "innovator's curse" when it comes to infrastructure and technology. Compare somewhere like Romania with the US. Sure, the size of the country matters, but they started their modern network buildouts WAYYYY after the US. They US was heavily invested in copper and coax. Romania was able to leapfrog our legacy technology and move straight to fiber + neighborhood based local ISP's. While both technologies performed similarly very early on, the ceiling of performance and lifetime of the line is far higher for fiber than copper or coax (barring physically destructive actions like an errant shovel. So, in effect, they started with something can be upgraded continuously to this day. We started with something whose performance ceiling was much lower, and whose effective lifespan was over 10 years ago or more in many cases. So now that old stuff has to be maintained while doing the capex heavy infrastructure work all over again to get the new stuff in there. Meanwhile, we're still paying them every month and their shareholders are collecting their dividends, so why would they want anything to change? It's not like they're going be able to charge some insane premium for their new faster fiber lines over their old and slow coax and copper.

say_it_as_it_is 4y ago

This would be acceptable if the members of the FCC weren't being compelled to take action that would be favorable to Comcast and Verizon. I do not accept that they acted in good faith. Hasn't anyone noticed that the net neutrality actions initiated by the FCC under the Trump administration haven't changed?

chroma 4y ago

If you look at the authorized bids[1] versus the defaulted bids[2], you can see only three companies got any money from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband subsidy. The other five companies got nothing, including SpaceX and LTD. E-Fiber San Juan LLC gets $7.5M to provide broadband services to 1,085 homes in rural Utah. Monster Broadband gets $5.8M for 11,286 homes in Texas and Tennessee. Northern Arapaho Tribal Industries gets $7.8M for 2,408 homes in Wyoming (probably on Indian reservations). So a total of around $21 million will be spent on 15,000ish homes. The FCC's budget for the RDOF subsidy is around $20 billion for 4 million homes, so 99.99% of the money is still up for grabs, as are 99.96% of the rural households. 1. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A2.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A2.pdf 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-848A3.pdf

chrisjc 4y ago
I have a feeling that Starlink will end up being an indirect recipient despite the rejection. Starlink might just end up making deals with the companies that won their bids and sell their services/hardware as rebranded solutions. It's probably cheaper for these companies to do this instead of setting up their own infrastructure. Of course the real question is probably whether not following through on their obligations and getting fined is less than the amount they were awarded.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Starlink won in the 100Mbps category. Almost everybody else won in the 1Gbps category, so can't sub out to Starlink. The way the rules were set up, virtually any bid in the gigabit category beat the megabit category, so Starlink only won in the regions nobody bid in.
  - jessaustin 4y ago
    Does that reflect permanent limitations on Starlink speed? Somehow that's less impressive than it initially seemed...

TheRealPomax 4y ago

"Cory Hauer, LTD Broadband’s CEO, told Fierce it is “extremely disappointed in the FCC staff decision” and is evaluating next steps. He added “I don’t believe the FCC fully appreciated the benefits LTD Broadband would bring to hundreds of thousands of rural Americans.”" Except of course the facts suggest the exact opposite, where the FCC very much appreciated the benefits that you "would" bring, so much so as to select you as one of two potential contract recipients, but has determined that you lied during the bid and in reality can't bring what you claimed you'd be able to bring.

H8crilA 4y ago

Can someone explain how does Starlink go about using the electromagnetic spectrum efficiently? 4G (and 5G even more so) relies on small cells to spatially partition the spectrum, therefore increasing the maximum bandwidth available in the system. Need to serve more users without compromising per-user throughput? Split the cells. Now, the cell of a satellite is enormous, and there's no way to reduce the tx power without getting out of range of the surface of the planet altogether. Not to mention that those satellites are pretty damn fast so they stay over any particular user for a very short amount of time. What am I missing? Or is this supposed to be a low throughput system (when added up over all concurrent users)?

wmf 4y ago
All modern satellites use multiple narrow spot beams; in Starlink's case each beam is 22 km wide. This allows spectrum to be reused.
- H8crilA 4y ago
  Oh, ok. But 22km is still a lot more than a typical 4G/5G urban cell. It's basically the size of a city. Whereas I can spot multiple stations in my city if I go for a 5-10 minute walk.
  - wmf 4y ago
    Yes, the density of satellite is far lower than urban cellular which is why no one is pitching satellite for urban customers.
    - colejohnson66 4y ago
      That, and latency. Or has that improved in the last decade?
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        I wouldn't care about 40ms of latency for my phone. If by "last decade" you're comparing against geostationary, then yes. The satellites are roughly a hundred times closer.

deltree7 4y ago

dang 4y ago
You can't post this kind of dross here, regardless of which politics you prefer. Since you've been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly in other places as well, I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

kotaKat 4y ago

I love how they call out Starlink's $600 equipment cost but completely gloss over many a small-town fiber company that will charge $200 easy for an install (or more), and completely ignores ViaSat's $10/month equipment lease (or $300 prepaid but you don't own it) and Hughes $15/mo lease and $99 setup or $450 upfront payment for their dish.

anamexis 4y ago
Did any of those companies win FCC rural development grants?
- kotaKat 4y ago
  Why, yes, Hughes certainly did.
  - NotTameAntelope 4y ago
    Yeah, well the obvious answer is that $200 < $600, so the line must be somewhere between $200 and $600.
    - dogman144 4y ago
      Issue is starlink blows Hughes and viasat out the water on actual usefulness for internet. Only thing close or better is muni fiber
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        At the moment. Bandwidth will decline relentlessly as subscriber count increases.
        google234123 4y ago
        And it will go up as more and probably better satellites are launched?

zw123456 4y ago

I explain it this way; think of it as a cellular network in the sky, except in a terrestrial cellular network, the cell sites are stationary and connected via fiber and you are moving in your car or walking (or you can). With LEOS, each satellite is like a cell site, like a 5G one with phased array antennas, the satellite is moving and you are stationary and the satellited are connected to each other via free space optics but the backhaul is obviously RF, but the hand offs between satellites is over FSO. In fact, R17 of 3GPP standards now has provisions in it for 5G direct from the LEOS to the user. None deploy yet. but in a couple of years, that could be interesting. Each satellite paints a spot on the ground using the beamforming capabilities of the phased array antenna. The capacity of that spot is of course limited by Shannon limit, where C ~ B * S C = capacity (think Mbps) B = spectrum (think Mhz) S = SINR (Singal to noise ratio) If you have a smaller spot on the ground, then the spectrum is shared amoung fewer users. If you have more powerful transmitters and or better antennas, then your C will be better. Right now based on the specifications I have seen publicly, Amazon's Kuiper (their LEOS) will have higher capacity than starlink because it will have half the "spot" diameter. That is due to better antennas mostly, more array elements mean narrower beam width.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Yeah, but starlink can just cycle in newer generation satellites with tighter beams as well, could they not? Is there a technical reason I'm not aware of that they can't? Would Dishys even need to be changed? Kuiper needs Blue Origin to get cost competitive with SpaceX, which doesn't look likely because a) they don't even have commercial operations and b) uhoh, here comes Starship. Sure SpaceX might launch Kuiper satellites ... at a premium over Starlink.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Dishys only need to focus on the right satellite.
  - zw123456 4y ago
    No dishes, Phased Array ar flat

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dang 4y ago

See also https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starlink-rdof-bids https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/fcc-rejects-ltd-broa... (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417500 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32417500, but we merged that thread hither)

InTheArena 4y ago

So this is being rejected in 2022, for service in 2028 (which others will not provide until 2028) based on a speed test in 2022? Follow the money and the politics.

ibero 4y ago
follow them where?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Strom 4y ago
  To the source.
  - ibero 4y ago
    the source is my tax money. am i the source?
shaklee3 4y ago
This comment isn't adding anything to the discussion. SpaceX has stated they meet a certain standard of service. They have not according to speed test results. They were never going to be able to meet it given the amount of customers they intend to have, but the original rdof was won entirely due to promises and not having data. Now that they have data, it's clear that what everyone already knew happened -- they cannot provide the service they advertise and be profitable.
tsimionescu 4y ago
They are not receiving money in 2022 because they are not meeting their commitments in 2022. They are still free to re-apply, and if they start meeting the level of service they bid for by 2028, they will get the money. This is all very much above board.
- InTheArena 4y ago

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

I'm a starlink user, I'm a bit peeved that the costs haven't come down and other annoyances, but... This is a travesty of policy. The US has so many rural underserved areas and Starlink is instant cable-internet anywhere you go with a good view of the sky. Telecoms have been pocketing these rural development dollars brazenly and screwing over taxpayers and thumbing their noses at the FCC with their lobbying power. Starlink comes along with a usable service ... anyway, it's sad. Some Trump telecom insider (Ajit Pai) has a more balanced view than the Biden administration. This is bad policy. Starlink won't need it though. They have a billion or more potential worldwide customers.

happyopossum 4y ago
> I'm a bit peeved that the costs haven't come down I’ve never had a broadband bill go down. Not sure what you were expecting from a brand new company, but I’ve had the same service for 4+ years at the same cost from one provider, and 2.5 yrs from another. That’s the way they roll…
- lutorm 4y ago
  Phone company finally pulled fiber here where we used to only have cable. Now getting faster service for half the cost compared to Spectrum. So it does happen. Maybe they'll raise the price once they've gotten everyone to switch...
tsimionescu 4y ago
If Starlink bid at a level of service they can't offer, why would they get the money they bid for? Blame Starlink for not bidding at a more realistic level, if you want to blame anyone.

bootlooped 4y ago

I don't get why they can't bake something into these grants that says if the company fails to deliver on their promises the government can claw back the money. It seems like I've read a lot of stories over the years of telecoms failing to deliver results after being given grants or large tax breaks.

johnebgd 4y ago
The lobbyists who hold titles like congress person will never let this happen.