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this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Starlink's grant was intended to subsidize deployment to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. The August 2022 ruling that rejected the grant called Starlink a "nascent LEO [low Earth orbit] satellite technology" with "recognized capacity constraints." The FCC questioned Starlink's ability to consistently provide low-latency service with the required download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps.
That’s Phony Stark for ya, everytime: Overpromise and Underdeliver. And then get angry when called on his bulkshit.
bulkshit
I love it, because he is so full of shit, you get it in bulk.
Aww. Poor SpaceX. To quote the man himself:
Go fuck yourself.
Funny how the FCC decided starlink is incapable of doing this, but was happy enough to pay all the other ISPs who are still incapable of doing it after decades of payments
God I hate how our options are between shit and shit like every time. I just want RC cola internet, instead of pepsi and coke, is that too much to ask? I want kirkland signature internet, that's what I want.
I would buy Kirkland signature internet in a heartbeat, all their stuff is so good.
pull yourself up by your bootstraps. no handouts.
Musk cannot make a profitable company without government subsidies. Hilarious.
Almost no major company can, have you seen how much the US subsidizes oil and gas despite their profits? How much we subsidize food production? Renewable technology such as wind and solar is only becoming so vastly popular because we're heavily subsidizing it finally.
Don't get me wrong fuck Elon musk, but don't kid yourself and pretend like most companies wouldn't fail without subsidies. That includes other internet companies which we subsidize regularly
there's no greater welfare than corporate welfare. And for some absolutely bizzare reason, people are ok with this. it's even worse because a lot of these companies don't just make obscene profits on the back of tax payer 'donations' they they go on to in some cases pay zero or close to zero tax. (gas and oil companies are the greatest offenders BTW).
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Maybe if they had just used the last subsidies payouts to expand coverage and reliability instead of lobbying local governments to kill off fiber coops, then they could have kept the tap open.
I still think Starlink can be a great service for rural areas, but it seems they need to improve their capabilities first. Which in a way makes a chicken-egg scenario. If they expand servers to handle all those people, they should be eligible for a grant, but they don’t wanna do it until they get the grant.
It's just not a sustainable idea. To expand service, they need to launch even more satellites. Which degrade and fall down after a year. The only reason it could exist thus far is because the US taxpayer paid for it with subsidies like this.
America has problems with getting cable companies to actually lay cable after giving them money to do that, which is a separate thing. But at least if you get cable laid, it is in the ground providing service for hundreds of years instead of 1 year.
They could do it and make money too, but they are only thinking of short term gains. In my neck of the woods spectrum kept taking the money and barely putting up any cable until our state finally told them to pound sand. Fios then said we'll do it, and they did. They have run thousands of miles of fibre in the last few years, and guess who everyone is paying for internet service because it's the only service available up here.
This is exactly it and everyone should keep it in mind even if it's helped you individually in your rural area. Elon keeps taking shortcuts for a cash grab and shooting garbage into space is not a long term answer.
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Also not only would they need more satellites, but satellites more densely in any area with multitude of customers. Which eventually hits RF interference saturation.
Radio signal has only so much bandwidth in certain amount of frequency band. Infact being high up and far away makes it worse. Since more receivers hit the beam of the satellite transmission. One would have to acquire more radio bands, but we'll unused global satellite transmission bands don't grow in trees.
Tighter transmitters and better filtering receivers can help, but usually at great expense and in the end eventually one hits a limit of "can't cheat laws of physics"
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On one hand, ew Elon Musk.
On the other hand Starlink has given us the first decent internet we've ever had so...
However this isn't about your anecdotal experience. This is about what level of service they can guarantee as minimum and overall to meet the conditions of the subsidy.
I would also note this isn't reinstatement matter. FCC refused to give them the subsidy in the first place with this decision. What SpaceX are trying to spin as reneg on previous decision is them making the short list of companies to be considered. Well, getting short listed is not same as being selected fully.
They passed the criterion for the short list check, but the final authorization and selection included more wide and more through checking on the promises of companies to meet criterion and SpaceX failed the more through final round of scrutiny before being awarded the subsidy.
Government having awarded bad money previously isn't fixed by following up bad awards with more bad awards. SpaceX exactly failed since previously money was handed out too losely and FCC has tightened the scrutiny on subsidy awards to not follow up bad money with more bad money.
Nobody is prevented from buying Starlink, this just means Starlink isn't getting subsidized with tax payer money.
The more people that use starlink the slower and less usable it becomes, additionally phony stark can turn it off whenever he sees fit.
Good luck with that
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cable companies literally took a billion dollar grant to expand infrastructure and didnt do much of anything. This is literally doing something. F elon but the engineers who worked hard to make this a reality deserve better
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
SpaceX is furious at the Federal Communications Commission after the agency refused to reinstate an $886 million broadband grant that was tentatively awarded to Starlink during the previous administration.
But the satellite provider still needed FCC approval of a long-form application to receive the money, which is meant to subsidize deployment in areas with little or no high-speed broadband access.
The Starlink and LTD rejections were the two biggest changes to a $9.2 billion round of grants that, in the Rosenworcel FCC's words, fueled "complaints that the program was poised to fund broadband to parking lots and well-served urban areas."
The August 2022 ruling that rejected the grant called Starlink a "nascent LEO [low Earth orbit] satellite technology" with "recognized capacity constraints."
In rejecting SpaceX's appeal, yesterday's FCC order said the agency's Wireline Competition Bureau "followed Commission guidance and correctly concluded that Starlink is not reasonably capable of offering the required high-speed, low-latency service throughout the areas where it won auction support."
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged Starlink's capacity limits several times, saying for example that it will face "a challenge [serving everyone] when we get into the several million user range."
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