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US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink

332 points by adolph 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
silexia 3y ago
US regulators under the Biden administration have begun persecuting those on the other side of the political spectrum.
sinuhe69 3y ago
By the way, is the FCC's decision likely to improve rural access in the future or not (without Starlink)? Perhaps not, as the past has demonstrated. But with Starlink they will have better access anyway. So Starlink is a victim of its own success? And the FCC has acted in the best interests of the nation by saving 900 million taxpayer dollars, while rural access will still improve? What an irony!
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  There are many other companies, using a variety of technologies, in many different states and regions that still get their funding. This wasn’t a special Starlink project, this was an entire auction with many participants.
noonething 3y ago
[flagged]
adolph 3y ago
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.
- JPKab 3y ago
  If there was any doubt this was purely political, that quote erases it. The FCC rural broadband program is an infamous boondoggle of vast overspending on bad services from third rate providers. It's insane that they even mentioned Starship in this, when it was a test launch of the largest rocket in history, and has nothing to do with the Starlink launches.
  - appplication 3y ago
    As much as I really despise just about everything adjacent to musk, I think you’re right. Wtf does starship have to do with starlink.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      They said they'd use starship to launch and it's not yet ready
      - Uzza 3y ago
        They did not say Starship was a requirement for Starlink, they said they could use it when ready to speed up the rollout. SpaceX has been launching the Gen2 satellites, originally intended to be launched on Starship, on Falcon 9 instead.
        turquoisevar 3y ago
        They explicitly stated in the plan they submitted to the FCC that they would use Starship, going as far as to say that they’re completely going to stop using the Falcon for Starlink in a letter to the FCC. The letter was even picked up by media who then reported on this early last year. https://spacenews.com/spacex-goes-all-in-on-starship-configuration-for-second-gen-starlink/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-goes-all-in-on-starship-configu...
    - ianburrell 3y ago
      Starship is the only way that Starlink could meet its targets for capacity. The performance of Starlink depends on the number of subscribers and satellites. They have been growing subscribers faster than satellites which is why the performance in the report has been dropping. The only solution is to launch more satellites. SpaceX started launching V2 satellites on Falcon 9, but they can only fit 22 on each rocket instead of the 50 or so with previous version. Even with their increased launch rate, there is no way they can launch the tens of thousands of satellites they have planned.
Racing0461 3y ago
Any deeper analysis on why? I doubt it's a Biden-Harris admin retaliation against elon.
bmitc 3y ago
How about they regulate low orbit megaconstellations instead of allowing them to pollute the sky?
- thot_experiment 3y ago
  My eyes nearly roll out of my head every time I see someone complain about this. People act like astronomy is ruined forever, it's not. You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. They're not even a problem for large portions of the night and sky at all because there's very little light for them to reflect. There are a lot of benefits to having a constellation like this, and the tech that's being developed to support it will advance astronomy. Is it perfect? No. Is musk being an asshole about it? Probably, haven't checked. Are the people complaining about it mostly NIMBYs who care largely because Musk has a (deserved) bad rap? Yes, absolutely. This is a very marginal issue, folks need to calm down.
  - bmitc 3y ago
    > This is a very marginal issue, folks need to calm down. Is it? Why do we need to visually see, basically permanently, a ring or string of lights in the sky, unwittingly, just because of some billionaire? > You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if you know where they're at if they're in your way. Telescope time is extremely precious and expensive. Not to mention, these megaconstellations have basically permanently increased the background noise in various spectrums. Not all astronomy uses the visual spectrum. > They're not even a problem for large portions of the night and sky at all because there's very little light for them to reflect. That's not true. You can see them with your own eyes. Your eyes can roll all they want. It doesn't make the problem go away.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      If it’s cheap and easy to fill the night sky with satellites, the obvious implication is that it will also be cheap and easy to do astronomy from space, and your “extremely precious and expensive” telescope time could be on a satellite outside the atmosphere in the first place. This is an entirely transitory issue and instead of trying to deprive people of internet access, astronomers should be working together on launching their own satellite megaconstellation.
mlindner 3y ago
Well at least it can now be confidently state that Starlink was developed entirely with private funding. I do hope that the companies that do get it are providing proper fiber service though rather than the many many years of companies who were way slower than Starlink getting it.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway-432 3y ago
  That can't be further from the truth, spacex gets boatloads of government funding, just look at starshild
  - mlindner 3y ago
    Starshield is not "boatloads" of government funding. It's a rather small contract. And none of that money has even been delivered yet. Starlink was developed without it.
yuppie_scum 3y ago
Why should the taxpayer subsidize a business run by one of the world’s richest men?
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Because it's not a condition for acceptance or denial. Bezos got tax credits for having kids
- westurner 3y ago
  The US Government has demanded that Starlink MUST CARRY and provide service to support foreign nations. Foreign nations think that they're going to use Starlink to commit further genocide; that they run the show for this American company. "MUST DENY" If you cut off Internet service to emergency service personnel (with the red crosses) here, is that a war crime?
I_Am_Nous 3y ago
When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the FCC was required to assess if Starlink was reasonably, technically capable of supplying those speeds by 2025. Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. As of yet Starship hasn't had a successful launch. On top of this, the statistics that were available at the time showed that Starlink transfer speeds were already trending down and the network is a lot less utilized than it would be in 2025. There are technical challenges that need to be solved before Starlink is remotely capable of meeting that obligation and the challenges don't appear to be resolved yet. Giving Starlink money is a gamble and the FCC would rather play it safe. >RDOF rules set speeds of 25/3 Mbps as the minimum allowed for broadband service delivered by winners. However, participants were permitted to bid at four different performance tiers: 25/3 Mbps, 50/5 Mbps, 100/20 Mbps and 1 Gbps/500 Mbps. When the auction closed, the FCC noted 99.7% of locations were bid at 100/20 or higher, with 85% bid at the gigabit tier. That means Starlink will need to provide speeds of at least 100/20 in order to meet its obligations. 1. https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/what-do-starlinks-latest-ookla-results-mean-its-886m-rdof-winnings https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/what-do-starlinks-la... 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf
- tekla 3y ago
  > Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. Read the article you are referencing > To justify its motivated reasoning, 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. Undeterred by the facts, the Commission now resorts to twisting SpaceX’s words. For example, SpaceX said in a letter to the Commission that it had “reached a point in the development of its Starship launch vehicle and Gen2 satellites [such] that it can concentrate solely on Configuration 1 and no longer pursue Configuration 2” (emphasis added). Configuration 1 involves launching with Starship, and Configuration 2 involves launching with Falcon 9. Nothing in this sentence suggests that SpaceX needed Starship to launch Gen2 satellites, but that’s exactly the interpretation that the majority now relies on Falcon 9 is launching Starlink V2 at 22 per launch regularly for a while now
hedora 3y ago
I wish they’d bar companies that have failed to build out their rural service areas for more than a decade from accepting this money, and also that accepting the grant automatically granted you the appropriate right of way via imminent domain. It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in most places (they have little portable boring machines, so you don’t even have to trench), and independent ISPs have no problem profitably laying fiber where they are legally allowed to do so.
- voakbasda 3y ago
  So, my tiny rural co-op ISP should barred from getting one of these, because they cannot afford to lay dozens of miles of fiber in order to serve a hundred households? You want to keep us country folk in the dark ages? Because that’s what it sounds like. Laying fiber requires a small crew, and they don’t work for free. My driveway alone is over a 1/4 mile (400m), and it will take them a day to lay and terminate my branch due to all of the buried obstructions (based on how long it took them to lay new copper lines a decade ago). I would be all for disqualifying the regional cable/telco monopolists, but who do you think lobbied their Congress critters to get these funds allocated in the first place? Ain’t never gunna happen….
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Indeed. Fiber as a last mile solution for true rural areas is a non-starter. Source: I also built a small WISP and still maintain my own microwave service, and use Starlink as a backup.
    - newaccount74 3y ago
      Why? We managed to get power lines and phone lines to pretty much every house even in rural areas. Why should laying fiber be a "non-starter"?
      - voakbasda 3y ago
        Exactly. We decided internet is as important as any other infrastructure service. It is only infeasible when people decide that rural citizens do not deserve it. Indeed, it is hard for me not to read this thread in that light; I’m guessing those that seem to oppose subsidizing rural fiber either already have theirs or have simply given up all hope of it ever happening.
m3kw9 3y ago
SpaceX can’t launch? Then who got the money?!
tekla 3y ago
Highly recommend actually reading the FCC reports. I know that is a high bar. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-900-million-subsidy-starlink https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-... I'm pretty convinced that this ruling was a bit horseshit.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  Care to summarize why for those of us who don't want to read the FCC report?
- jcranmer 3y ago
  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?
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    The RDOF has a testing and deployment timeline. It's supposed to only cover deployments under the award itself.
jupp0r 3y ago
The argument that national average bandwidth for Starlink is probably worse than for those rural communities is a solid one. Not sure if it makes up for the large gap, but in my opinion Starlink is well suited because it works better the less other users are in your cell (ie better in less densely populated regions).
- licomo 3y ago
  It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO. It is also vastly more reliable than our only WISP option in the area. What I have seen is that the cell will start to fill up, speeds slow down a little (still better than our WISP and other Satellite providers), then the cell closes. More satellites launch, speeds go up, and the cell opens again. It's my experience, so take it with a grain of salt. I've had it since the original beta / before 100% coverage. Most of the complaints I see are from people with existing cable options. It is not as good as cable/fiber, but a complete game changer for those of us who have had flakey connections.
  - SECProto 3y ago
    > It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO SpaceX didn't apply for 25/3, they applied for 100/20. The rest of your comment matches my experience.
    - licomo 3y ago
      I understand, but the original comment was saying that was worse than what was available to many. That is not true in my case.
  - Coder1996 3y ago
    I agree. I have a WISP and it is shite. $99/mo for up to (but almost never) 100 Mpbs down. Charter's trucks are now running lines to my property and we will be switching to Spectrum as soon as we can. Fuck Adaptive.
hcfman 3y ago
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- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Only to the extent that it pissed off the democrats, but geofencing the receivers donated to Ukraine is definitely not in the top five reasons for democrats to dislike Musk.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  No, because most of that fiasco was just garbage journalism. SpaceX has had a publicly stated policy of not allowing use of Starlink in that manner and the US government has not opposed that stance (hell, it's likely because of technology export regulations that the use of Starlink to directly control drones is not allowed). The initial story claiming shutdowns was actually just about terminals that the UK was paying for being deactivated with full knowledge of Ukraine because there were far more terminals available being directly supported by SpaceX. Ukraine had rotated out the terminals appropriately. The other intermittent outages were just general system instability as many early users around the world also experienced. The more recent story was retracted because it turned out to be completely false. SpaceX hadn't turned off the cells over Crimea as an act of sabotage, they had always been off (to prevent Russia from using captured terminals) and they had just refused to turn them on hours before a drone attack. IIRC since then the cells have been turned on after having more time to discuss with relevant authorities.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    I’ve always found the outrage on HN over this somewhat inconsistent. Lots and lots of people here are critical of the arms industry and were largely supportive of Google employees pressuring the company into dropping US defense contracts, but when it’s Elon who doesn’t want his satellite internet service to be weaponized he’s suddenly the bad guy? Personally I think Elon (and the general HN consensus against the defense industry) is naively pacifistic, but the double standard is noteworthy. For what it’s worth, SpaceX is also launching a completely separate Starlink constellation, known as Starshield, for the US Space Force. So if the government wants to allow our allies to use a weaponized Starlink, they can share their own.
skymast 3y ago
[dead]
ciarlill 3y ago
Does anyone know how to find out information on progress or updates if you live in one of the RDOF auction blocks? I can see that Charter won a bid for my location 4 years ago. The FCC page also states "Winning bidders must meet periodic buildout requirements that will require them to reach all assigned locations by the end of the sixth year." We're going on 4 years now since the auction closed. I'm just curious if this is actually going to happen as it impacts my decision whether to move or not. The cynic in me says they haven't even started yet, and inevitably will push for extensions and do everything conceivable to take this money and not deliver within 6 years or possibly ever. Meanwhile for the past 2 years Starlink is the only service I can actually use with any reasonable stability and low(ish) latency. They have at times delivered up to 200Mbps down and 20 up but it is not consistent. I have much more faith that they will deliver 100/20 consistently by 2025 than Charter will be delivering gigabit to me by then.
Nifty3929 3y ago
Yes indeed, those subsidies were intended to go to the major telcom companies who lobbied for them. Starlink (and Musk) receiving them would be an unintended consequence and ruin the plan.
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
The moment Starlink started rolling out here (barely rural southern Ontario, just 5km-10km from town) -- along with more and more point to point wireless towers going up from indie ISPs -- the local telco (Bell Canada) suddenly found it in their heart to run fiber optic up and down the road. Which I'm sure promptly put all that out of business. So now I have 3gbps fiber to the house, after 10 years of surviving on low bandwidth capped expensive Internet despite being proximous to the suburbs of the biggest city in Canada. It may be in the end something like Starlink ends up being like Google's Fiber was in the cities it went into -- a fire lit under the bigger providers, forcing them to actually do something. Seems like a shitty way to get society's infrastructure built though, doesn't it? Imagine if the power grid had developed this way.
edent 3y ago
[flagged]
- rpmisms 3y ago
  It sounds like they decided to compete for a contract that was otherwise designed to just give money to traditional telecoms for doing nothing.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  Except for X, most of his companies have involved large government subsidies or contracts. Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, Hyperloop.
- pmorici 3y ago
  He doesn't, he has publicly said the company didn't lobby for this program. If it exists though would you rather have the most efficient player be award the contract or some legacy telco who lobbied for the largesse and is woefully slow and inefficient?
josefritz 3y ago
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-starlink-bids-broadband-subsidies https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starl...
- wnevets 3y ago
  This is precisely why anyone trying to tie this to Twitter is a political dunce.
  - ejb999 3y ago
    Right, I am sure it is a complete coincidence that almost all of Musk's companies are suddenly being investigated by multiple federal departments...
    - wnevets 3y ago
      The FCC canceled Starlink's welfare check on August 10, 2022. Elon took over Twitter on October 27, 2022. Where is the coincidence exactly?
      - turquoisevar 3y ago
        In their imaginations. But wouldn’t it something if we’d give that argument any merit. You could be a billionaire that goes around and makes lofty promises that are never realized, treat your workers like shit, have the common populous play death by auto lottery, and so much more and the government couldn’t do anything about any of it because of *gasp* …the optics. That would be a billionaire snake oil salesman’s wet dream right there.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  LTD broadband couldn't raise the cash.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
downvotetruth 3y ago
> 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.
- echelon 3y ago
  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.
  - 2devnull 3y ago
    I don’t think moves like this, where the government acts in an adversarial capacity to successful businesses that it previously supported, will do a lot to attract new capital or technologists. If anything, I’d worry such capriciousness discourages investment in the area. If Musk can’t make it work, what odds do the rest of us face. At least that would be my concern, about how this is received by the wider tech community.
    - lolbase 3y ago
      It is beyond parody to refer to "not giving money that was not earned" as acting in an "adversarial capacity". Your argument is completely detached from reality, and devoid of logic.
      - 2devnull 3y ago
        My argument is that perceptions matter more than reality. Disagreeing on the grounds that my argument is not reality is not a dismissal, but I certainly understand that you do not perceive things as such. You are only one anecdote out of many.
toss1 3y ago
>> : "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.
- belltaco 3y ago
  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.
  - toss1 3y ago
    Sure. Neither you nor I were in the room, and the evidence is that the committee that was in the room evaluated those plans and it seemed more unlikely to meet the goals. Given Musk's track record, it is very reasonable to treat any timeline with a shipload of salt. He literally took $thousands from thousands of customers for Full-Self-Driving upgrades that were to transform their Teslas into self-driving Uber/Lyft goldmines by 2021, not 2022, not 2023, no... oops, recall 2 million yesterday because of safety failures in "autopilot" that isn't. Even with the assumption that Starship is not part of the equation, Starlink still is falling down on bandwidth reliability as subscription exceeds capacity.
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      Space X is launching Falcon 9 rockets multiple times per week with additional capacity for Starlink on the regular. Space X is not Elon Musk. It's a company with its own staff, with its own track record, so let's set aside any emotional arguments about FSD from Tesla, which is completely unrelated and which itself is an extremely difficult problem to solve. The "recall" from Tesla, again a completely unrelated issue to SpaceX and the Starlink internet service, was simply a required software patch. Millions of vehicles get recalled all the time from all car manufacturers: "Ford is recalling 870,701 of the bestselling pickups from 2021 through 2023" "About a quarter of a million 2016–2019 models are under recall for a connecting rod defect that can cause the engine to stall or not start, including the Pilot, Odyssey, Ridgeline, and Acura TLX and MDX." "2013–2018 Toyota RAV4s Recalled Due to a Potential Fire Risk The increased fire risk stems from loose-fitting 12-volt batteries, with the recall affecting nearly 1.9 million RAV4s." The Starlink service is popular, because it generally works, and it's better than what a lot of people even have available to them in many parts of the country or in specific situations (like fulltime RVers).
belltaco 3y ago
Dissenting statement by one of the FCC commissioners. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
- skissane 3y ago
  From Simington’s dissenting statement: > I was disappointed by this wrongheaded decision when it was first announced, but the majority today lays bare just how thoroughly and lawlessly arbitrary it was. If this is what passes for due process and the rule of law at the FCC, then this agency ought not to be trusted with the adjudicatory powers Congress has granted it and the deference that the courts have given it. Sounds to me like he’s encouraging SpaceX to sue the FCC
- Veserv 3y ago
  Ah yes, the same Nathan Simington who made statements like this about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter [1]: "If Mr. Musk follows through on his stated intention to ease Twitter's restrictions on speech, he would almost certainly enhance competition and better serve those Americans, the majority, who value free speech. ... We should instead applaud Mr. Musk for doing something about a serious problem that government has so far failed to address." A very unbiased party who has no ulterior motives at all to consider things out of scope. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-382898A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-382898A1.pdf
_ea1k 3y ago
If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink cannot provide, then this makes sense? Odd that they'd include comments about Starship in it, though. That doesn't seem like a requirement for continued development of Starlink and seems very speculative. There could be details on that aspect that I'm missing though.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  The reason Starship is brought up is because all of this hinges on SpaceX’s explanation on how they’re going to achieve the requirements of their bid. SpaceX has stated they’re going to use Starship for this, going as far as stating early last year that they were exclusively going to use Starship. So obviously, when the FCC is going to weigh if SpaceX is going to be able to meet the requirements of their bid, they’re going to look at the plan presented to them by SpaceX. In the FCC’s defense, they apparently asked SpaceX questions regarding concerns they had, but SpaceX didn’t answer.
- belltaco 3y ago
  > If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink cannot provide, then this makes sense? I think the metric is 'more likely than not meet peformance goals in 2025'. The technology itself is capable of the goals of latency and bandwidth.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    Sure, and that makes sense if the competitors have proven approaches to meeting the requirements. While I expect Starlink to be able to improve, I can see their point that the outcome is far from certain.
    - lolbase 3y ago
      The government shouldn’t give out billion dollar participation trophies. There’s a set of metrics to meet. Starlink is moving the wrong way against those metrics. As such, they’ll need to succeed unaided in the marketplace, instead of getting a government handout.
pmorici 3y ago
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.
- colechristensen 3y ago
  Is it phenomenal? Not quite. In my experience speeds vary and brief dropouts are frequent. It's great to be able to access high speed internet from anywhere, but it has its limitations.
  - pmorici 3y ago
    In truly rural or remote areas relative to any available alternative it is as close to a miracle product as one could imagine. If you haven’t had to use other satellite Internet services like BGAN, Iridium, viasat, etc… it’s hard to explain what a revolution Starlink is in every aspect.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  Ehh, their average speeds have gone down by half in the last 3 years (150 down -> 75 down). They chased profits by signing up more people at the expense of network saturation. Had they held this reduction to 100+ down, they would have remained eligible for the grant they applied for.
  - pmorici 3y ago
    If the terms of the deal were that they didn't need to hit the performance benchmarks until 2025 and they have demonstrated that the technology was capable of those speeds it makes little sense to do this now except as a thinly vailed political punishment.
    - Deprecate9151 3y ago
      That was not the terms, there were buildout requirements attached that started when the bid was accepted. https://www.usac.org/high-cost/funds/rural-digital-opportunity-fund/ https://www.usac.org/high-cost/funds/rural-digital-opportuni... Looks like Starlink was supposed to be 40% built with their participation starting in 2020, that are consistent with their winning bid (in this case 100/20). It seems they clearly failed by that metric.
convery 3y ago
As commissioner Brendan Carr's dissent wasn't included in the article: https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
- hnburnsy 3y ago
  And... DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER NATHAN SIMINGTON https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
- akamaka 3y ago
  Reading that dissent felt as painful as reading a partisan reddit comment. In one paragraph he said Biden is targeting Musk politically, and in the very next he states, as proof of the quality of the internet service, that the Pentagon just signed a contract with Starlink for military applications.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    Biden is not the Pentagon.
    - freejazz 3y ago
      But he's the FCC? They are both the executive branch.
      - tomjakubowski 3y ago
        The President has a lot less control over independent agencies like the FCC. For example, the FCC commissioner currently attacking Biden is able to enjoy doing so from that position because Biden doesn't have the legal power to dismiss him.
        freejazz 3y ago
        Sure, but that runs against the argument that was being made, which is that Biden isn't the pentagon but he's the fcc...
Coder1996 3y ago
I wonder who was ultimately approved for RDOF at my house. How do I find that out?
- ciarlill 3y ago
  You can check out this map. Data is from 2020 though and I have found no other updates about the program. https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2020/ https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2...
data_monkey 3y ago
[flagged]
- martinky24 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - fastball 3y ago
    This was basically stated[1] by one of the (dissenting) FCC commissioners, so not exactly unfounded. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
    - Timon3 3y ago
      Could you quote the part you're referring to? I searched for "censor" in the document, and it doesn't come up. Then I read through the document, and I don't see anything trying to explain possible reasons. There seems to be no connection between "the feds punishing Musk for not participating in their well documented censorship operations" and this document.
      - fastball 3y ago
        Sorry, linked to the wrong one. This is the one[1] (and twitter thread[2]) that calls that out more specifically. And the one I linked first starts by saying it agrees completely with Carr's dissent. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A2.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A2.pdf [2] https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
        Timon3 3y ago
        Thank you for providing the correct link. I just read through it, and I guess you could stretch the first paragraph very, very far to make it compatible with "the feds punishing Musk for not participating in their well documented censorship operations", but unless Mr. Carr has brought something like this up more explicitly, it seems like you're trying to read something into it that he didn't write. There are many ways to interpret his initial paragraph without asserting some "well documented censorship operations" (which I do not believe exist).
paxys 3y ago
I don't know if it is part of the official report or not, but I'd bet that Starlink cutting off service in Ukraine to prevent them from launching an attack on Russian vessels in Crimea definitely played a part in this decision.
- belltaco 3y ago
  Starlink only cut off service in the occupied parts of Ukraine because you don't want Russia using Starlink there. The Ukrainian forces say Starlink has and is continuing to help them. > Starlink in use on ‘all front lines,’ Ukraine spy chief says > “They have proven themselves on the front lines. You can say what you want about whether [Starlink systems] are good or bad, but facts are facts. Absolutely all front lines are using them,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate, said Saturday, according to Interfax Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/10/europe/ukraine-starlink-not-active-crimea-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/10/europe/ukraine-starlink-not-a... Crimea is under occupied territory and didn't have Starlink activated, so it's wrong to say they deacivated it.
- rapsey 3y ago
  Starlink would literally be breaking the law if they were to provide connectivity to Crimea.
- literalAardvark 3y ago
  I doubt Starlink make any military related decisions. They have a framework from the US government that they follow and that's that. Musk can't just randomly decide to give Ukraine access to Starlink on Russian territory without severe consequences, and this fcc bullshit isn't that.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Have you tried using a FAANG product with a Crimean IP address?
bryanlarsen 3y ago
If the complaint is that Elon Musk has a history of not delivering on his promises, why the #%@# are telecom companies still getting money based on promises? They also have an awful track record on delivering on their promises. Nobody should get anything until after they've delivered. If they need money to do their deployments, they can take their FCC awards to the bank and get a factoring loan. And if their plan is not solid enough to convince a bank, it's not solid enough for FCC money either.
- libraryatnight 3y ago
  They did reject another broadband company - that company just doesn't have a cult of fans to throw tantrums online for them.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    In total there were 22 that didn’t meet the requirements last year. Like you said, one just has a cult attached to it.
  - ilikehurdles 3y ago
    They rejected that telecom company for the same underlying reason as this one - the company presented a challenge to legacy telecoms, and the industry dominated by regulatory capture defeated it. You’re celebrating a win for the Comcast and AT&T protection racket.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
LukeLambert 3y ago
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/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9dbcc6615 https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...
- plumeria 3y ago
  What are you using to run the automated speed tests?
  - jamroom 3y ago
    Not sure what they use but I've used Speedtest CLI: https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli works good.
    - plumeria 3y ago
      Great, thanks!
    - LukeLambert 3y ago
      Yep! speedtest -f json -I eth0 I also test the WISP connection on eth1
      - plumeria 3y ago
        Thanks for the tip!
- dubcanada 3y ago
  Is it weird that most of the ones around 1am are under 50mbps? The variability I think make sense, but the 1am consistency seems strange.
  - 3y ago
sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago
Maybeeeeeeee Musk shouldn't be conducting personal foreign policy?
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  So he shouldn't have sent dishes in February 2022 or allowed use in the frontline thereafter?
  - sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago
    He can do whatever he wants, as long as he's not helping enemies of America. Ok let me rephrase my comment: Maybeeeeeeee Musk shouldn't be helping America's enemies?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      Can't remember SpaceX sending Russia dishes. SpaceX interfered with the conflict by sending equipment and allowing them to be used for the conflict. You're essentially saying SpaceX should have waited until the DOD contracted for services There's a guy in the UK who sent his APC to Ukraine. He didn't just have it delivered via a truck. He handed it over to the UK MoD. That's how these things are meant to be done.
chung8123 3y ago
I don't understand with so much money being poured into NASA, rural broadband, and the Military why the Government cannot setup their own starlink. It will be less money in the end.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
  [dead]
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Falcon 9 cost ~ 400 million for block 1. NASA thinks they could have done it for over 10X Starlink+Falcon+Starship have so far cost less than SLS+Ares+Orion development. The best you could have got would have been something like Oneweb. Prices available online.
TradingPlaces 3y ago
This is all being superseded by IIJA anyway. A lot of fiber is going to go in the ground.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
SpaceX already subsidizes the government for billions of dollars of launch cost savings and a lowered reliance on Russia. It only makes sense to save taxpayers money by being subsidized even more.
jm4 3y ago
I wonder if behind the scenes this has anything to do with Elon’s Starlink shenanigans in Ukraine. He interfered with their military operations after a meeting with Putin and then pulled that nonsense where he basically extorted the U.S. government for more funding. Their options for dealing with him are somewhat limited because their relationship with him goes both ways. A good way to give him a little slap is in his wallet.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  There's no evidence of a Putin meeting. The government was refusing to pay their bills. They've fattened his wallet with starshield. This denial happened ages ago. This article is a response to the appeal.
TheAlchemist 3y ago
It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Musk. You can show something great - high speed internet in remote areas - and then extrapolate that - just think about the whole world etc... Faster than fibre, with V2... Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of people use it - but it's maintained afloat by government money. But if 10x customers sign on, bandwidth will completely plummet and it won't be such a great service anymore. But in the meantime, and it's quite a long time, Elon can continue to extract billions $ of taxpayers money.
- martindbp 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    Are they wrong about these details then? Or is that the defense: “doesn’t matter if I’m actually doing that or not. The government is out to get me.”
    - gruez 3y ago
      The document in the tweet has a list of rebuttals.
      - Waterluvian 3y ago
        Unfortunately Twitter doesn't function for me after loading it a few times earlier today. I max out my daily quota through precaching or something. It used to work a few years back!
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      To someone who's used to getting away with murder, enforcement of the rules as written seems like persecution. Consider the "Funding secured" mess Elon got himself into with the SEC[1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud-trial-funding-secured-tweet https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud...
UltimateFloofy 3y ago
do reporters not use spellcheck anymore? the number of spelling mistakes in that article was ridiculous.
NelsonMinar 3y ago
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. A particular problem with Starlink is if it fails, there's no infrastructure left behind. The fiber installs that RDOF is paying for should outlive the companies getting the grants. [1] https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70 https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70
- sinuhe69 3y ago
  I wonder whether you have any data to back up your claim, but other data seem to contradict it. Also see the comment of Luke Lambert on this thread https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9dbcc6615 https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    Do you have a link to the other data? I’m looking at Lambert’s data, but aside from the problem of sample size, it seems to support the FCC’s reading of the situation. There are barely any samples that hit the required >= 20Mbps up and while it’s easier to spot >= 100Mbps down, it’s far from consistent and seems to be more of a “once a day” occurrence.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      In 2025 and in areas covered by RDOF. Not everywhere
  - mortos 3y ago
    I suggest reviewing this data again, especially with the understanding that the timestamps are in UTC. 0027 UTC corresponds to 1827 in CST (the timezone for Texas). During prime time, this user was often around 10mbps.
chrisweekly 3y ago
Tangent: a few months ago there was a huge bonfire party at the beach in my town (Duxbury, MA), and my friends and I were treated to the trifecta of the conflagration plus a gorgeous blood moon rise, capped off by a starlink satellite train passing directly overhead. It was unforgettable.
- superduperer 3y ago
  It was Tetsuo and Matel.
- thehappypm 3y ago
  Tangent off a tangent: I'm new to the south shore area, do you have a favorite beach spot?
tehjoker 3y ago
> The two Republican commissioners on the five-member FCC dissented from the decision saying the FCC was improperly holding SpaceX to 2025 targets three years early and suggesting the Biden administration's anger toward Musk was to blame. didn't elon switch off starlink for ukrainian forces in the middle of an attack that one time? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/07/elon-musk-ordered-starlink-turned-off-ukraine-offensive-biography https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/07/elon-musk...
- adolph 3y ago
  No, Starlink services were never turned on for portions of Ukraine previously occupied by Russia such as Crimea. On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biog...
notyourwork 3y ago
Maybe a dumb take but I’d really like for the population to earn an ownership stake in the company for providing subsidies. I don’t know much about subsidies but it seems like it would be in the best interest of the population to be able to have an ownership stake in the companies that are providing a head start through monetary or policy subsidizing. Can someone tell me if there is a way for the US to recoup subsidy money or how this works?
- boldslogan 3y ago
  I think it is taxes, what you’re looking for. Not to be snarky
  - spiderice 3y ago
    At least back up your snark with an explanation of how that answers GP’s question.
    - dnissley 3y ago
      I thought it was pretty obvious, and don't detect any snark. A business/industry gets subsidies and is able to grow faster than it would have or just simply grow where nothing would before. Those businesses are then subject to taxes which the government collects and puts to use, which then benefits the populace at large.
      - pseudocomposer 3y ago
        Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes. And businesses pay very little tax in the first place. Finally, tax revenue isn’t an ownership stake in a company; no amount of money is.
        dnissley 3y ago
        > Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes. But the point of a subsidy is to create a business where one did not, possibly could not exist before. Therefore the tax revenue coming from companies created by subsidies is in addition to other businesses tax revenue, not replacing it.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
Isn't the DoD one of Starlink's top customers? The FCC can certainly pull their funds, but if the DoD has many - too many? - eggs in the Starlink basket - and no legit viable alternatives - and this funding pull-back compromises Starlink on a broader scale, isn't it likely the DoD steps in, in the name of national defense?
flareback 3y ago
The government shouldn't be funding internet anyways.
jongjong 3y ago
It's so obvious that this is in retaliation for Elon's stance on free speech. The people behind this are frauds and weak. When China takes over and sends all the current elite to the electric chair, the people ofnl the west will be chanting Xi Jinping's praises. That's what you get for weakness and moral deprivation.
pard68 3y ago
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.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  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-2020/ https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2...
  - pard68 3y ago
    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.
ddxv 3y ago
Starlink was revolutionary for my family. We ended up getting a better product (lower latency, less data cap restrictions) for a cheaper price than our previous Viasat satellite.
anon-sre-srm 3y ago
Wild hair conspiracy theory: Blowback for bowing to Putin, hanging out with Alex Jones and Joe Rogan, and following the Kanye's guide to child naming.

332 points by adolph 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

silexia 3y ago

US regulators under the Biden administration have begun persecuting those on the other side of the political spectrum.

sinuhe69 3y ago

By the way, is the FCC's decision likely to improve rural access in the future or not (without Starlink)? Perhaps not, as the past has demonstrated. But with Starlink they will have better access anyway. So Starlink is a victim of its own success? And the FCC has acted in the best interests of the nation by saving 900 million taxpayer dollars, while rural access will still improve? What an irony!

turquoisevar 3y ago
There are many other companies, using a variety of technologies, in many different states and regions that still get their funding. This wasn’t a special Starlink project, this was an entire auction with many participants.

noonething 3y ago

[flagged]

adolph 3y ago

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.

JPKab 3y ago
If there was any doubt this was purely political, that quote erases it. The FCC rural broadband program is an infamous boondoggle of vast overspending on bad services from third rate providers. It's insane that they even mentioned Starship in this, when it was a test launch of the largest rocket in history, and has nothing to do with the Starlink launches.
- appplication 3y ago
  As much as I really despise just about everything adjacent to musk, I think you’re right. Wtf does starship have to do with starlink.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    They said they'd use starship to launch and it's not yet ready
    - Uzza 3y ago
      They did not say Starship was a requirement for Starlink, they said they could use it when ready to speed up the rollout. SpaceX has been launching the Gen2 satellites, originally intended to be launched on Starship, on Falcon 9 instead.
      - turquoisevar 3y ago
        They explicitly stated in the plan they submitted to the FCC that they would use Starship, going as far as to say that they’re completely going to stop using the Falcon for Starlink in a letter to the FCC. The letter was even picked up by media who then reported on this early last year. https://spacenews.com/spacex-goes-all-in-on-starship-configuration-for-second-gen-starlink/ https://spacenews.com/spacex-goes-all-in-on-starship-configu...
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    Starship is the only way that Starlink could meet its targets for capacity. The performance of Starlink depends on the number of subscribers and satellites. They have been growing subscribers faster than satellites which is why the performance in the report has been dropping. The only solution is to launch more satellites. SpaceX started launching V2 satellites on Falcon 9, but they can only fit 22 on each rocket instead of the 50 or so with previous version. Even with their increased launch rate, there is no way they can launch the tens of thousands of satellites they have planned.

Racing0461 3y ago

Any deeper analysis on why? I doubt it's a Biden-Harris admin retaliation against elon.

bmitc 3y ago

How about they regulate low orbit megaconstellations instead of allowing them to pollute the sky?

thot_experiment 3y ago
My eyes nearly roll out of my head every time I see someone complain about this. People act like astronomy is ruined forever, it's not. You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. They're not even a problem for large portions of the night and sky at all because there's very little light for them to reflect. There are a lot of benefits to having a constellation like this, and the tech that's being developed to support it will advance astronomy. Is it perfect? No. Is musk being an asshole about it? Probably, haven't checked. Are the people complaining about it mostly NIMBYs who care largely because Musk has a (deserved) bad rap? Yes, absolutely. This is a very marginal issue, folks need to calm down.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > This is a very marginal issue, folks need to calm down. Is it? Why do we need to visually see, basically permanently, a ring or string of lights in the sky, unwittingly, just because of some billionaire? > You can predict where the satellites are going to be and avoid them. That doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter if you know where they're at if they're in your way. Telescope time is extremely precious and expensive. Not to mention, these megaconstellations have basically permanently increased the background noise in various spectrums. Not all astronomy uses the visual spectrum. > They're not even a problem for large portions of the night and sky at all because there's very little light for them to reflect. That's not true. You can see them with your own eyes. Your eyes can roll all they want. It doesn't make the problem go away.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    If it’s cheap and easy to fill the night sky with satellites, the obvious implication is that it will also be cheap and easy to do astronomy from space, and your “extremely precious and expensive” telescope time could be on a satellite outside the atmosphere in the first place. This is an entirely transitory issue and instead of trying to deprive people of internet access, astronomers should be working together on launching their own satellite megaconstellation.

mlindner 3y ago

Well at least it can now be confidently state that Starlink was developed entirely with private funding. I do hope that the companies that do get it are providing proper fiber service though rather than the many many years of companies who were way slower than Starlink getting it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
throwaway-432 3y ago
That can't be further from the truth, spacex gets boatloads of government funding, just look at starshild
- mlindner 3y ago
  Starshield is not "boatloads" of government funding. It's a rather small contract. And none of that money has even been delivered yet. Starlink was developed without it.

yuppie_scum 3y ago

Why should the taxpayer subsidize a business run by one of the world’s richest men?

inemesitaffia 3y ago
Because it's not a condition for acceptance or denial. Bezos got tax credits for having kids
westurner 3y ago
The US Government has demanded that Starlink MUST CARRY and provide service to support foreign nations. Foreign nations think that they're going to use Starlink to commit further genocide; that they run the show for this American company. "MUST DENY" If you cut off Internet service to emergency service personnel (with the red crosses) here, is that a war crime?

I_Am_Nous 3y ago

When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25/3, Starlink applied for 100/20. When they didn't reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not just because they didn't hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100/20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the FCC was required to assess if Starlink was reasonably, technically capable of supplying those speeds by 2025. Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. As of yet Starship hasn't had a successful launch. On top of this, the statistics that were available at the time showed that Starlink transfer speeds were already trending down and the network is a lot less utilized than it would be in 2025. There are technical challenges that need to be solved before Starlink is remotely capable of meeting that obligation and the challenges don't appear to be resolved yet. Giving Starlink money is a gamble and the FCC would rather play it safe. >RDOF rules set speeds of 25/3 Mbps as the minimum allowed for broadband service delivered by winners. However, participants were permitted to bid at four different performance tiers: 25/3 Mbps, 50/5 Mbps, 100/20 Mbps and 1 Gbps/500 Mbps. When the auction closed, the FCC noted 99.7% of locations were bid at 100/20 or higher, with 85% bid at the gigabit tier. That means Starlink will need to provide speeds of at least 100/20 in order to meet its obligations. 1. https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/what-do-starlinks-latest-ookla-results-mean-its-886m-rdof-winnings https://www.fiercetelecom.com/broadband/what-do-starlinks-la... 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf

tekla 3y ago
> Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. Read the article you are referencing > To justify its motivated reasoning, 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. Undeterred by the facts, the Commission now resorts to twisting SpaceX’s words. For example, SpaceX said in a letter to the Commission that it had “reached a point in the development of its Starship launch vehicle and Gen2 satellites [such] that it can concentrate solely on Configuration 1 and no longer pursue Configuration 2” (emphasis added). Configuration 1 involves launching with Starship, and Configuration 2 involves launching with Falcon 9. Nothing in this sentence suggests that SpaceX needed Starship to launch Gen2 satellites, but that’s exactly the interpretation that the majority now relies on Falcon 9 is launching Starlink V2 at 22 per launch regularly for a while now

hedora 3y ago

I wish they’d bar companies that have failed to build out their rural service areas for more than a decade from accepting this money, and also that accepting the grant automatically granted you the appropriate right of way via imminent domain. It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in most places (they have little portable boring machines, so you don’t even have to trench), and independent ISPs have no problem profitably laying fiber where they are legally allowed to do so.

voakbasda 3y ago
So, my tiny rural co-op ISP should barred from getting one of these, because they cannot afford to lay dozens of miles of fiber in order to serve a hundred households? You want to keep us country folk in the dark ages? Because that’s what it sounds like. Laying fiber requires a small crew, and they don’t work for free. My driveway alone is over a 1/4 mile (400m), and it will take them a day to lay and terminate my branch due to all of the buried obstructions (based on how long it took them to lay new copper lines a decade ago). I would be all for disqualifying the regional cable/telco monopolists, but who do you think lobbied their Congress critters to get these funds allocated in the first place? Ain’t never gunna happen….
- dboreham 3y ago
  Indeed. Fiber as a last mile solution for true rural areas is a non-starter. Source: I also built a small WISP and still maintain my own microwave service, and use Starlink as a backup.
  - newaccount74 3y ago
    Why? We managed to get power lines and phone lines to pretty much every house even in rural areas. Why should laying fiber be a "non-starter"?
    - voakbasda 3y ago
      Exactly. We decided internet is as important as any other infrastructure service. It is only infeasible when people decide that rural citizens do not deserve it. Indeed, it is hard for me not to read this thread in that light; I’m guessing those that seem to oppose subsidizing rural fiber either already have theirs or have simply given up all hope of it ever happening.

m3kw9 3y ago

SpaceX can’t launch? Then who got the money?!

tekla 3y ago

Highly recommend actually reading the FCC reports. I know that is a high bar. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-900-million-subsidy-starlink https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-... I'm pretty convinced that this ruling was a bit horseshit.

jupp0r 3y ago
Care to summarize why for those of us who don't want to read the FCC report?
jcranmer 3y ago
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?
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  The RDOF has a testing and deployment timeline. It's supposed to only cover deployments under the award itself.

jupp0r 3y ago

The argument that national average bandwidth for Starlink is probably worse than for those rural communities is a solid one. Not sure if it makes up for the large gap, but in my opinion Starlink is well suited because it works better the less other users are in your cell (ie better in less densely populated regions).

licomo 3y ago
It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO. It is also vastly more reliable than our only WISP option in the area. What I have seen is that the cell will start to fill up, speeds slow down a little (still better than our WISP and other Satellite providers), then the cell closes. More satellites launch, speeds go up, and the cell opens again. It's my experience, so take it with a grain of salt. I've had it since the original beta / before 100% coverage. Most of the complaints I see are from people with existing cable options. It is not as good as cable/fiber, but a complete game changer for those of us who have had flakey connections.
- SECProto 3y ago
  > It has fluctuated over time, but has almost always been over the minimum limits (25/3) IMO SpaceX didn't apply for 25/3, they applied for 100/20. The rest of your comment matches my experience.
  - licomo 3y ago
    I understand, but the original comment was saying that was worse than what was available to many. That is not true in my case.
- Coder1996 3y ago
  I agree. I have a WISP and it is shite. $99/mo for up to (but almost never) 100 Mpbs down. Charter's trucks are now running lines to my property and we will be switching to Spectrum as soon as we can. Fuck Adaptive.

hcfman 3y ago

[flagged]

sebzim4500 3y ago
Only to the extent that it pissed off the democrats, but geofencing the receivers donated to Ukraine is definitely not in the top five reasons for democrats to dislike Musk.
dotnet00 3y ago
No, because most of that fiasco was just garbage journalism. SpaceX has had a publicly stated policy of not allowing use of Starlink in that manner and the US government has not opposed that stance (hell, it's likely because of technology export regulations that the use of Starlink to directly control drones is not allowed). The initial story claiming shutdowns was actually just about terminals that the UK was paying for being deactivated with full knowledge of Ukraine because there were far more terminals available being directly supported by SpaceX. Ukraine had rotated out the terminals appropriately. The other intermittent outages were just general system instability as many early users around the world also experienced. The more recent story was retracted because it turned out to be completely false. SpaceX hadn't turned off the cells over Crimea as an act of sabotage, they had always been off (to prevent Russia from using captured terminals) and they had just refused to turn them on hours before a drone attack. IIRC since then the cells have been turned on after having more time to discuss with relevant authorities.
- philwelch 3y ago
  I’ve always found the outrage on HN over this somewhat inconsistent. Lots and lots of people here are critical of the arms industry and were largely supportive of Google employees pressuring the company into dropping US defense contracts, but when it’s Elon who doesn’t want his satellite internet service to be weaponized he’s suddenly the bad guy? Personally I think Elon (and the general HN consensus against the defense industry) is naively pacifistic, but the double standard is noteworthy. For what it’s worth, SpaceX is also launching a completely separate Starlink constellation, known as Starshield, for the US Space Force. So if the government wants to allow our allies to use a weaponized Starlink, they can share their own.

skymast 3y ago

[dead]

ciarlill 3y ago

Does anyone know how to find out information on progress or updates if you live in one of the RDOF auction blocks? I can see that Charter won a bid for my location 4 years ago. The FCC page also states "Winning bidders must meet periodic buildout requirements that will require them to reach all assigned locations by the end of the sixth year." We're going on 4 years now since the auction closed. I'm just curious if this is actually going to happen as it impacts my decision whether to move or not. The cynic in me says they haven't even started yet, and inevitably will push for extensions and do everything conceivable to take this money and not deliver within 6 years or possibly ever. Meanwhile for the past 2 years Starlink is the only service I can actually use with any reasonable stability and low(ish) latency. They have at times delivered up to 200Mbps down and 20 up but it is not consistent. I have much more faith that they will deliver 100/20 consistently by 2025 than Charter will be delivering gigabit to me by then.

Nifty3929 3y ago

Yes indeed, those subsidies were intended to go to the major telcom companies who lobbied for them. Starlink (and Musk) receiving them would be an unintended consequence and ruin the plan.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

The moment Starlink started rolling out here (barely rural southern Ontario, just 5km-10km from town) -- along with more and more point to point wireless towers going up from indie ISPs -- the local telco (Bell Canada) suddenly found it in their heart to run fiber optic up and down the road. Which I'm sure promptly put all that out of business. So now I have 3gbps fiber to the house, after 10 years of surviving on low bandwidth capped expensive Internet despite being proximous to the suburbs of the biggest city in Canada. It may be in the end something like Starlink ends up being like Google's Fiber was in the cities it went into -- a fire lit under the bigger providers, forcing them to actually do something. Seems like a shitty way to get society's infrastructure built though, doesn't it? Imagine if the power grid had developed this way.

edent 3y ago

[flagged]

rpmisms 3y ago
It sounds like they decided to compete for a contract that was otherwise designed to just give money to traditional telecoms for doing nothing.
dehrmann 3y ago
Except for X, most of his companies have involved large government subsidies or contracts. Tesla, SpaceX, Boring, Hyperloop.
pmorici 3y ago
He doesn't, he has publicly said the company didn't lobby for this program. If it exists though would you rather have the most efficient player be award the contract or some legacy telco who lobbied for the largesse and is woefully slow and inefficient?

josefritz 3y ago

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-starlink-bids-broadband-subsidies https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starl...

wnevets 3y ago
This is precisely why anyone trying to tie this to Twitter is a political dunce.
- ejb999 3y ago
  Right, I am sure it is a complete coincidence that almost all of Musk's companies are suddenly being investigated by multiple federal departments...
  - wnevets 3y ago
    The FCC canceled Starlink's welfare check on August 10, 2022. Elon took over Twitter on October 27, 2022. Where is the coincidence exactly?
    - turquoisevar 3y ago
      In their imaginations. But wouldn’t it something if we’d give that argument any merit. You could be a billionaire that goes around and makes lofty promises that are never realized, treat your workers like shit, have the common populous play death by auto lottery, and so much more and the government couldn’t do anything about any of it because of *gasp* …the optics. That would be a billionaire snake oil salesman’s wet dream right there.
inemesitaffia 3y ago
LTD broadband couldn't raise the cash.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

downvotetruth 3y ago

> 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.

echelon 3y ago
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.
- 2devnull 3y ago
  I don’t think moves like this, where the government acts in an adversarial capacity to successful businesses that it previously supported, will do a lot to attract new capital or technologists. If anything, I’d worry such capriciousness discourages investment in the area. If Musk can’t make it work, what odds do the rest of us face. At least that would be my concern, about how this is received by the wider tech community.
  - lolbase 3y ago
    It is beyond parody to refer to "not giving money that was not earned" as acting in an "adversarial capacity". Your argument is completely detached from reality, and devoid of logic.
    - 2devnull 3y ago
      My argument is that perceptions matter more than reality. Disagreeing on the grounds that my argument is not reality is not a dismissal, but I certainly understand that you do not perceive things as such. You are only one anecdote out of many.

toss1 3y ago

>> : "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.

belltaco 3y ago
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.
- toss1 3y ago
  Sure. Neither you nor I were in the room, and the evidence is that the committee that was in the room evaluated those plans and it seemed more unlikely to meet the goals. Given Musk's track record, it is very reasonable to treat any timeline with a shipload of salt. He literally took $thousands from thousands of customers for Full-Self-Driving upgrades that were to transform their Teslas into self-driving Uber/Lyft goldmines by 2021, not 2022, not 2023, no... oops, recall 2 million yesterday because of safety failures in "autopilot" that isn't. Even with the assumption that Starship is not part of the equation, Starlink still is falling down on bandwidth reliability as subscription exceeds capacity.
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    Space X is launching Falcon 9 rockets multiple times per week with additional capacity for Starlink on the regular. Space X is not Elon Musk. It's a company with its own staff, with its own track record, so let's set aside any emotional arguments about FSD from Tesla, which is completely unrelated and which itself is an extremely difficult problem to solve. The "recall" from Tesla, again a completely unrelated issue to SpaceX and the Starlink internet service, was simply a required software patch. Millions of vehicles get recalled all the time from all car manufacturers: "Ford is recalling 870,701 of the bestselling pickups from 2021 through 2023" "About a quarter of a million 2016–2019 models are under recall for a connecting rod defect that can cause the engine to stall or not start, including the Pilot, Odyssey, Ridgeline, and Acura TLX and MDX." "2013–2018 Toyota RAV4s Recalled Due to a Potential Fire Risk The increased fire risk stems from loose-fitting 12-volt batteries, with the recall affecting nearly 1.9 million RAV4s." The Starlink service is popular, because it generally works, and it's better than what a lot of people even have available to them in many parts of the country or in specific situations (like fulltime RVers).

belltaco 3y ago

Dissenting statement by one of the FCC commissioners. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf

skissane 3y ago
From Simington’s dissenting statement: > I was disappointed by this wrongheaded decision when it was first announced, but the majority today lays bare just how thoroughly and lawlessly arbitrary it was. If this is what passes for due process and the rule of law at the FCC, then this agency ought not to be trusted with the adjudicatory powers Congress has granted it and the deference that the courts have given it. Sounds to me like he’s encouraging SpaceX to sue the FCC
Veserv 3y ago
Ah yes, the same Nathan Simington who made statements like this about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter [1]: "If Mr. Musk follows through on his stated intention to ease Twitter's restrictions on speech, he would almost certainly enhance competition and better serve those Americans, the majority, who value free speech. ... We should instead applaud Mr. Musk for doing something about a serious problem that government has so far failed to address." A very unbiased party who has no ulterior motives at all to consider things out of scope. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-382898A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-382898A1.pdf

_ea1k 3y ago

If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink cannot provide, then this makes sense? Odd that they'd include comments about Starship in it, though. That doesn't seem like a requirement for continued development of Starlink and seems very speculative. There could be details on that aspect that I'm missing though.

turquoisevar 3y ago
The reason Starship is brought up is because all of this hinges on SpaceX’s explanation on how they’re going to achieve the requirements of their bid. SpaceX has stated they’re going to use Starship for this, going as far as stating early last year that they were exclusively going to use Starship. So obviously, when the FCC is going to weigh if SpaceX is going to be able to meet the requirements of their bid, they’re going to look at the plan presented to them by SpaceX. In the FCC’s defense, they apparently asked SpaceX questions regarding concerns they had, but SpaceX didn’t answer.
belltaco 3y ago
> If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink cannot provide, then this makes sense? I think the metric is 'more likely than not meet peformance goals in 2025'. The technology itself is capable of the goals of latency and bandwidth.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Sure, and that makes sense if the competitors have proven approaches to meeting the requirements. While I expect Starlink to be able to improve, I can see their point that the outcome is far from certain.
  - lolbase 3y ago
    The government shouldn’t give out billion dollar participation trophies. There’s a set of metrics to meet. Starlink is moving the wrong way against those metrics. As such, they’ll need to succeed unaided in the marketplace, instead of getting a government handout.

pmorici 3y ago

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.

colechristensen 3y ago
Is it phenomenal? Not quite. In my experience speeds vary and brief dropouts are frequent. It's great to be able to access high speed internet from anywhere, but it has its limitations.
- pmorici 3y ago
  In truly rural or remote areas relative to any available alternative it is as close to a miracle product as one could imagine. If you haven’t had to use other satellite Internet services like BGAN, Iridium, viasat, etc… it’s hard to explain what a revolution Starlink is in every aspect.
ortusdux 3y ago
Ehh, their average speeds have gone down by half in the last 3 years (150 down -> 75 down). They chased profits by signing up more people at the expense of network saturation. Had they held this reduction to 100+ down, they would have remained eligible for the grant they applied for.
- pmorici 3y ago
  If the terms of the deal were that they didn't need to hit the performance benchmarks until 2025 and they have demonstrated that the technology was capable of those speeds it makes little sense to do this now except as a thinly vailed political punishment.
  - Deprecate9151 3y ago
    That was not the terms, there were buildout requirements attached that started when the bid was accepted. https://www.usac.org/high-cost/funds/rural-digital-opportunity-fund/ https://www.usac.org/high-cost/funds/rural-digital-opportuni... Looks like Starlink was supposed to be 40% built with their participation starting in 2020, that are consistent with their winning bid (in this case 100/20). It seems they clearly failed by that metric.

convery 3y ago

As commissioner Brendan Carr's dissent wasn't included in the article: https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...

hnburnsy 3y ago
And... DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER NATHAN SIMINGTON https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
akamaka 3y ago
Reading that dissent felt as painful as reading a partisan reddit comment. In one paragraph he said Biden is targeting Musk politically, and in the very next he states, as proof of the quality of the internet service, that the Pentagon just signed a contract with Starlink for military applications.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  Biden is not the Pentagon.
  - freejazz 3y ago
    But he's the FCC? They are both the executive branch.
    - tomjakubowski 3y ago
      The President has a lot less control over independent agencies like the FCC. For example, the FCC commissioner currently attacking Biden is able to enjoy doing so from that position because Biden doesn't have the legal power to dismiss him.
      - freejazz 3y ago
        Sure, but that runs against the argument that was being made, which is that Biden isn't the pentagon but he's the fcc...

Coder1996 3y ago

I wonder who was ultimately approved for RDOF at my house. How do I find that out?

ciarlill 3y ago
You can check out this map. Data is from 2020 though and I have found no other updates about the program. https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2020/ https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2...

data_monkey 3y ago

[flagged]

martinky24 3y ago
[flagged]
- fastball 3y ago
  This was basically stated[1] by one of the (dissenting) FCC commissioners, so not exactly unfounded. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
  - Timon3 3y ago
    Could you quote the part you're referring to? I searched for "censor" in the document, and it doesn't come up. Then I read through the document, and I don't see anything trying to explain possible reasons. There seems to be no connection between "the feds punishing Musk for not participating in their well documented censorship operations" and this document.
    - fastball 3y ago
      Sorry, linked to the wrong one. This is the one[1] (and twitter thread[2]) that calls that out more specifically. And the one I linked first starts by saying it agrees completely with Carr's dissent. [1] https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A2.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A2.pdf [2] https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1734696706795778126 https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
      - Timon3 3y ago
        Thank you for providing the correct link. I just read through it, and I guess you could stretch the first paragraph very, very far to make it compatible with "the feds punishing Musk for not participating in their well documented censorship operations", but unless Mr. Carr has brought something like this up more explicitly, it seems like you're trying to read something into it that he didn't write. There are many ways to interpret his initial paragraph without asserting some "well documented censorship operations" (which I do not believe exist).

paxys 3y ago

I don't know if it is part of the official report or not, but I'd bet that Starlink cutting off service in Ukraine to prevent them from launching an attack on Russian vessels in Crimea definitely played a part in this decision.

belltaco 3y ago
Starlink only cut off service in the occupied parts of Ukraine because you don't want Russia using Starlink there. The Ukrainian forces say Starlink has and is continuing to help them. > Starlink in use on ‘all front lines,’ Ukraine spy chief says > “They have proven themselves on the front lines. You can say what you want about whether [Starlink systems] are good or bad, but facts are facts. Absolutely all front lines are using them,” Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate, said Saturday, according to Interfax Ukraine. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/10/europe/ukraine-starlink-not-active-crimea-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/10/europe/ukraine-starlink-not-a... Crimea is under occupied territory and didn't have Starlink activated, so it's wrong to say they deacivated it.
rapsey 3y ago
Starlink would literally be breaking the law if they were to provide connectivity to Crimea.
literalAardvark 3y ago
I doubt Starlink make any military related decisions. They have a framework from the US government that they follow and that's that. Musk can't just randomly decide to give Ukraine access to Starlink on Russian territory without severe consequences, and this fcc bullshit isn't that.
inemesitaffia 3y ago
Have you tried using a FAANG product with a Crimean IP address?

bryanlarsen 3y ago

If the complaint is that Elon Musk has a history of not delivering on his promises, why the #%@# are telecom companies still getting money based on promises? They also have an awful track record on delivering on their promises. Nobody should get anything until after they've delivered. If they need money to do their deployments, they can take their FCC awards to the bank and get a factoring loan. And if their plan is not solid enough to convince a bank, it's not solid enough for FCC money either.

libraryatnight 3y ago
They did reject another broadband company - that company just doesn't have a cult of fans to throw tantrums online for them.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  In total there were 22 that didn’t meet the requirements last year. Like you said, one just has a cult attached to it.
- ilikehurdles 3y ago
  They rejected that telecom company for the same underlying reason as this one - the company presented a challenge to legacy telecoms, and the industry dominated by regulatory capture defeated it. You’re celebrating a win for the Comcast and AT&T protection racket.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

LukeLambert 3y ago

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/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9dbcc6615 https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...

plumeria 3y ago
What are you using to run the automated speed tests?
- jamroom 3y ago
  Not sure what they use but I've used Speedtest CLI: https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli works good.
  - plumeria 3y ago
    Great, thanks!
  - LukeLambert 3y ago
    Yep! speedtest -f json -I eth0 I also test the WISP connection on eth1
    - plumeria 3y ago
      Thanks for the tip!
dubcanada 3y ago
Is it weird that most of the ones around 1am are under 50mbps? The variability I think make sense, but the 1am consistency seems strange.
- 3y ago

sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago

Maybeeeeeeee Musk shouldn't be conducting personal foreign policy?

inemesitaffia 3y ago
So he shouldn't have sent dishes in February 2022 or allowed use in the frontline thereafter?
- sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago
  He can do whatever he wants, as long as he's not helping enemies of America. Ok let me rephrase my comment: Maybeeeeeeee Musk shouldn't be helping America's enemies?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    Can't remember SpaceX sending Russia dishes. SpaceX interfered with the conflict by sending equipment and allowing them to be used for the conflict. You're essentially saying SpaceX should have waited until the DOD contracted for services There's a guy in the UK who sent his APC to Ukraine. He didn't just have it delivered via a truck. He handed it over to the UK MoD. That's how these things are meant to be done.

chung8123 3y ago

I don't understand with so much money being poured into NASA, rural broadband, and the Military why the Government cannot setup their own starlink. It will be less money in the end.

AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
[dead]
inemesitaffia 3y ago
Falcon 9 cost ~ 400 million for block 1. NASA thinks they could have done it for over 10X Starlink+Falcon+Starship have so far cost less than SLS+Ares+Orion development. The best you could have got would have been something like Oneweb. Prices available online.

TradingPlaces 3y ago

This is all being superseded by IIJA anyway. A lot of fiber is going to go in the ground.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

SpaceX already subsidizes the government for billions of dollars of launch cost savings and a lowered reliance on Russia. It only makes sense to save taxpayers money by being subsidized even more.

jm4 3y ago

I wonder if behind the scenes this has anything to do with Elon’s Starlink shenanigans in Ukraine. He interfered with their military operations after a meeting with Putin and then pulled that nonsense where he basically extorted the U.S. government for more funding. Their options for dealing with him are somewhat limited because their relationship with him goes both ways. A good way to give him a little slap is in his wallet.

inemesitaffia 3y ago
There's no evidence of a Putin meeting. The government was refusing to pay their bills. They've fattened his wallet with starshield. This denial happened ages ago. This article is a response to the appeal.

TheAlchemist 3y ago

It looks like it's becoming apparent that Elon's empire is based on a lot of impossible promises. Starlink is probably one of them. A perfect 'business' for Musk. You can show something great - high speed internet in remote areas - and then extrapolate that - just think about the whole world etc... Faster than fibre, with V2... Thing is, this business is probably not economically viable. It can work if not a lot of people use it - but it's maintained afloat by government money. But if 10x customers sign on, bandwidth will completely plummet and it won't be such a great service anymore. But in the meantime, and it's quite a long time, Elon can continue to extract billions $ of taxpayers money.

martindbp 3y ago
[flagged]
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  Are they wrong about these details then? Or is that the defense: “doesn’t matter if I’m actually doing that or not. The government is out to get me.”
  - gruez 3y ago
    The document in the tweet has a list of rebuttals.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      Unfortunately Twitter doesn't function for me after loading it a few times earlier today. I max out my daily quota through precaching or something. It used to work a few years back!
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    To someone who's used to getting away with murder, enforcement of the rules as written seems like persecution. Consider the "Funding secured" mess Elon got himself into with the SEC[1]. [1] https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud-trial-funding-secured-tweet https://www.theverge.com/23558736/elon-musk-securities-fraud...

UltimateFloofy 3y ago

do reporters not use spellcheck anymore? the number of spelling mistakes in that article was ridiculous.

NelsonMinar 3y ago

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. A particular problem with Starlink is if it fails, there's no infrastructure left behind. The fiber installs that RDOF is paying for should outlive the companies getting the grants. [1] https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70 https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70

sinuhe69 3y ago
I wonder whether you have any data to back up your claim, but other data seem to contradict it. Also see the comment of Luke Lambert on this thread https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9dbcc6615 https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  Do you have a link to the other data? I’m looking at Lambert’s data, but aside from the problem of sample size, it seems to support the FCC’s reading of the situation. There are barely any samples that hit the required >= 20Mbps up and while it’s easier to spot >= 100Mbps down, it’s far from consistent and seems to be more of a “once a day” occurrence.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    In 2025 and in areas covered by RDOF. Not everywhere
- mortos 3y ago
  I suggest reviewing this data again, especially with the understanding that the timestamps are in UTC. 0027 UTC corresponds to 1827 in CST (the timezone for Texas). During prime time, this user was often around 10mbps.

chrisweekly 3y ago

Tangent: a few months ago there was a huge bonfire party at the beach in my town (Duxbury, MA), and my friends and I were treated to the trifecta of the conflagration plus a gorgeous blood moon rise, capped off by a starlink satellite train passing directly overhead. It was unforgettable.

superduperer 3y ago
It was Tetsuo and Matel.
thehappypm 3y ago
Tangent off a tangent: I'm new to the south shore area, do you have a favorite beach spot?

tehjoker 3y ago

> The two Republican commissioners on the five-member FCC dissented from the decision saying the FCC was improperly holding SpaceX to 2025 targets three years early and suggesting the Biden administration's anger toward Musk was to blame. didn't elon switch off starlink for ukrainian forces in the middle of an attack that one time? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/07/elon-musk-ordered-starlink-turned-off-ukraine-offensive-biography https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/07/elon-musk...

adolph 3y ago
No, Starlink services were never turned on for portions of Ukraine previously occupied by Russia such as Crimea. On Friday, Isaacson tweeted a clarification, writing that “the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biographer-admits-suggestion-spacex-head-blocked-ukraine-drone-attack-was-wrong https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/12/elon-musk-biog...

notyourwork 3y ago

Maybe a dumb take but I’d really like for the population to earn an ownership stake in the company for providing subsidies. I don’t know much about subsidies but it seems like it would be in the best interest of the population to be able to have an ownership stake in the companies that are providing a head start through monetary or policy subsidizing. Can someone tell me if there is a way for the US to recoup subsidy money or how this works?

boldslogan 3y ago
I think it is taxes, what you’re looking for. Not to be snarky
- spiderice 3y ago
  At least back up your snark with an explanation of how that answers GP’s question.
  - dnissley 3y ago
    I thought it was pretty obvious, and don't detect any snark. A business/industry gets subsidies and is able to grow faster than it would have or just simply grow where nothing would before. Those businesses are then subject to taxes which the government collects and puts to use, which then benefits the populace at large.
    - pseudocomposer 3y ago
      Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes. And businesses pay very little tax in the first place. Finally, tax revenue isn’t an ownership stake in a company; no amount of money is.
      - dnissley 3y ago
        > Businesses that don’t get subsidies pay the same exact taxes. But the point of a subsidy is to create a business where one did not, possibly could not exist before. Therefore the tax revenue coming from companies created by subsidies is in addition to other businesses tax revenue, not replacing it.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

Isn't the DoD one of Starlink's top customers? The FCC can certainly pull their funds, but if the DoD has many - too many? - eggs in the Starlink basket - and no legit viable alternatives - and this funding pull-back compromises Starlink on a broader scale, isn't it likely the DoD steps in, in the name of national defense?

flareback 3y ago

The government shouldn't be funding internet anyways.

jongjong 3y ago

It's so obvious that this is in retaliation for Elon's stance on free speech. The people behind this are frauds and weak. When China takes over and sends all the current elite to the electric chair, the people ofnl the west will be chanting Xi Jinping's praises. That's what you get for weakness and moral deprivation.

pard68 3y ago

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.

turquoisevar 3y ago
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-2020/ https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2...
- pard68 3y ago
  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.

ddxv 3y ago

Starlink was revolutionary for my family. We ended up getting a better product (lower latency, less data cap restrictions) for a cheaper price than our previous Viasat satellite.

anon-sre-srm 3y ago

Wild hair conspiracy theory: Blowback for bowing to Putin, hanging out with Alex Jones and Joe Rogan, and following the Kanye's guide to child naming.