[HN Gopher] US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
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US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink
Author : adolph
Score : 186 points
Date : 2023-12-13 01:05 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| adolph wrote:
| _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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They said they'd use starship to launch and it's not yet
| ready
| Uzza wrote:
| 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.
| Racing0461 wrote:
| Any deeper analysis on why? I doubt it's a Biden-Harris admin
| retaliation against elon.
| bmitc wrote:
| How about they regulate low orbit megaconstellations instead of
| allowing them to pollute the sky?
| thot_experiment wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bmitc wrote:
| > obvious implication is that it will also be cheap and
| easy to do astronomy from space
|
| That's so beyond false it's difficult to even respond to.
| Do you understand the size of the telescopes, both
| optical and radio?
|
| Do you understand the complexity of space-based
| instruments like the James Webb and Hubble telescopes?
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Optical band interferometry is gonna happen eventually,
| perhaps directly as a result to advances in optical
| interlinking being pursued by starlink right now.
| gunapologist99 wrote:
| Focal points. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_(optics)
| bmitc wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
| thot_experiment wrote:
| > 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?
|
| There are upsides also.
|
| > You can predict where the satellites are going to be and
| avoid them.
|
| You could for example not collect from the relevant
| photosites during transit, we're not using photographic
| plates anymore. This is not some sort of insurmountable
| problem, I'm not claiming it's _not_ a problem, but it is
| not an astronomy ruining problem. As an indirect result of
| starlink we have also vastly decreased the cost to put an
| telescope in space.
|
| > That's not true. You can see them with your own eyes.
|
| You absolutely can't see them in the earth's umbra, they're
| only 500km high, the umbra represents a significant portion
| of the sky.
| bmitc wrote:
| > You absolutely can't see them in the earth's penumbra
|
| I have seen them with my own eyes and they've been
| filmed. It's just not correct. It's particularly visible
| when the sun is hitting them. You can find several photos
| and videos of them from the ground.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| My mistake, I meant umbra, the part where there isn't any
| sun, which makes up most of the sky most of the night.
| mlindner wrote:
| 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.
| yuppie_scum wrote:
| Why should the taxpayer subsidize a business run by one of the
| world's richest men?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Because it's not a condition for acceptance or denial.
|
| Bezos got tax credits for having kids
| westurner wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-
| la...
|
| 2. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf
| tekla wrote:
| > 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
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| They are just using what SpaceX/Starlink has said in the
| past[1].
|
| >SpaceX asked the FCC to expedite approval now that it has
| settled on the Starship-launched configuration.
|
| Regardless, to reach those obligatory speeds by 2025 they
| would need to launch an insane amount of satellites with no
| failures. If the FCC doesn't think they can do that, they
| don't get funding.
|
| 1. https://spacenews.com/spacex-goes-all-in-on-starship-
| configu...
| Faark wrote:
| Then why decide now that SpaceX won't get the money? Does
| another company get the contract? Otherwise would have
| assumed to simply check at/after the delivery date...
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| They didn't decide now. The program was created as a two
| step process initially. Starlink succeeded in the first
| round, but was denied in the second, more in depth,
| review that lead to the rejection. This was basically an
| appeal of that rejection.
|
| The second round was designed to eliminate providers who
| didn't seem able to deliver on their promises even with
| the subsidies. It was made to prevent a situation where
| either party (but mostly the US Gov and tax payers by
| extension) was on the hook for unsuccessful delivery.
|
| I'm not sure what happens with the funds that would have
| gone to Starlink.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| They decided a while ago (2022) that Starlink wouldn't
| get the RDOF grant. This was essentially an appeal to see
| if the decision would be reversed, and they upheld the
| original decision not to fund Starlink. It's not a check
| after deployment thing, it's a "check if they actually
| _can_ deploy in the first place " situation.
|
| There are two rounds of funding so it's possible unspent
| funds from the first round may roll over to fund the
| second round.
| devindotcom wrote:
| F9 launches of v2 were only announced after the FCC denied
| the award last year, this is in the primary doc
| trident5000 wrote:
| These are future speed metrics, not current speed thresholds.
| And the performance metrics have been a constant shifting
| goalpost. You can read FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's letter
| on this matter here:
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A2.pdf This
| is most likely political.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| I read that letter, and was unconvinced that it's anything
| more than the FCC not wanting to gamble with nearly 1/16th of
| the total RDOF grant money (for that round) and would rather
| give it to a company that can be reasonably expected to hit
| the obligatory throughput.
|
| If Starlink bid for 25/3 they might have made it.
| trident5000 wrote:
| You can arrive at your own conclusion. I think its pretty
| obvious whats happening here (the commissioners voted along
| party lines right down the middle). And theres no other
| company thats even close to Starlink now or in the medium
| term future. So I dont know who would practically fill this
| spot.
|
| For below comment: This is for "rural" connection. You're
| not laying wire for that regardless of what Comcast wants
| you to believe. They can barely service what they have and
| the cost/benefit of laying 30 miles of wire to reach
| someone in the woods is never going to make sense.
| ecshafer wrote:
| Verizon was able to lay fiber all over rural New York in
| a pretty short amount of time due to a New York law for
| similar rural funding. Places that couldn't even get
| cable have fiber now. Just laying fiber is an alternative
| to satellite.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Do want to point out buildout requirements that are
| actually enforced in NY would be strongly compelling.
| Spectrum was heavily fined and had their license
| suspended on cable for failing to meet these commitments
| a few years back. Other states just dole out the money
| without punishing the companies that cash out dividends
| and use it for mergers.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I'd rather the federal government just roll out fiber and
| not put Starlink and Elon in a position of power. That
| fiber will always be in the ground and available. Elon
| has shown himself to be unworthy of any position where
| trust and good judgement is required. If it costs more,
| that is a premium worth paying. Fool me once.
|
| https://www.internetforall.gov/
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
| releases...
|
| https://spacenews.com/senate-armed-services-committee-to-
| pro...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/30/elon-
| musk...
|
| https://www.cnas.org/press/in-the-news/elon-musks-
| control-of...
|
| https://babel.ua/en/news/98461-elon-musk-partially-
| transferr...
|
| (disclosure: starlink customer)
| willcipriano wrote:
| The government: "best I can do is give billions to
| Comcast and when they don't build out the fiber, just let
| them keep it"
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Instead of a simple comment about historical grants, you
| perhaps could educate yourself on current state grants
| and efforts. Trying and failing previously doesn't mean
| trying something different shouldn't be done, you know?
| Should we just give up because of previous mistakes? No,
| absolutely not. _That_ is failure.
| rpmisms wrote:
| You're replying to an accurate comment about how
| government funding works. I am educated on this, I have
| worked off of government grant money often, it's 100% who
| you know, not what you do.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also involved in government procurement, also provide
| guidance to several Congressional reps gratis as a
| technologist subject matter expert. Change is possible,
| to believe otherwise is to give up. If you want to give
| up, head to the bar and make way for people who give a
| shit. I give a shit, so I am admittedly biased.
| rpmisms wrote:
| You're being incredibly optimistic. Show me a non-greedy
| person in Congress, with the exception of Thomas Massie,
| and I'll believe you that change is possible.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.sanders.senate.gov/
|
| https://www.wyden.senate.gov/
|
| https://www.fetterman.senate.gov/
|
| https://foster.house.gov/
|
| https://frost.house.gov/
|
| Hope is in short supply, but not at empty yet. Make sure
| to vote every election. 1.8M voters over the age of 55
| die every year in the US, and 4M voters age into voting
| at 18. Demographics are inevitable. As I tell the young
| folks, Hold Fast.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/07/the-
| chang...
|
| https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americas-
| electoral-...
|
| https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/41-million-
| members-...
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/maxwell-frost-will-be-
| the-fi...
|
| (disclaimer: I have maxed out my FEC political
| contributions to every rep enumerated due to my belief in
| their character; if someone's character changes or
| evidence surfaces they are not a good person, my support
| changes accordingly)
| rpmisms wrote:
| Oh, I see. I agree that these are people who deeply
| embody the Democratic ethos, and Bernie is one of the
| poorer members of the Senate. I seriously dislike
| Fetterman's "working class" act, though.
|
| However, considering that they hate me, I will pass.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| We may disagree politically, but I still want the best
| for you (although the debate lies in what that looks
| like). Take care, and I enjoyed the conversation
| regardless.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I understand and appreciate that perspective. I usually
| want the government to leave me alone, but if they won't,
| I want the most principled people duking it out. It
| sounds like we both value principles in office, maybe not
| to the exclusion of ideology, but it's a major factor.
|
| I did as well, good to have some old-style HN
| conversation.
| noarchy wrote:
| >Show me a non-greedy person in Congress, with the
| exception of Thomas Massie, and I'll believe you that
| change is possible.
|
| "They're all bad except the one I agree with."
| rpmisms wrote:
| I actually disagree with him on plenty, but he
| consistently doesn't play the game and votes on
| principle, hence why he's widely hated.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Elon has shown himself to be unworthy of any position
| where trust and good judgement is required.
|
| That's an insane statement given the unprecedented
| success of SpaceX.
| alwayseasy wrote:
| The success of SpaceX is placing Musk in a position to
| decide where America's allies have access to the internet
| and choosing what region of the world can be cut off just
| through meeting politicians he likes.
| cubefox wrote:
| Surely there is no risk the US will be cut off.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| That doesn't negate the fact that he wields power against
| others when it meets his needs. He's effective, I don't
| dispute that, but still needs a metaphorical cage built
| around him to protect others.
| cubefox wrote:
| He "wields power against others"? What are you talking
| about?
| freejazz wrote:
| I don't follow
| WheatMillington wrote:
| >just roll out fiber
|
| As if this were a trivial task
| Shawnecy wrote:
| This is in comparison to launching satellites into space.
| I think most people would agree it's probably more along
| the lines of "trivial" when compared to that.
| lxgr wrote:
| Neither are trivial, the two just scale very differently.
|
| I do see the benefit in resilience of building out fiber
| even to moderately unprofitable (from a unit economics
| point of view) regions, just like we also build roads to
| communities that will never "pay the investment back" in
| taxes. But there are cases where it just can't be
| justified.
|
| But it's also not a simple either-or: There are other
| technologies than fiber and satellite; there can be more
| than one high-throughput LEO provider; we can have a few
| GEO satellites for redundancy (although with
| significantly worse latency) etc.
| coding123 wrote:
| That's what I read too: you're not democratic enough elon
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| It's a letter from one FCC commissioner, of which there
| are currently 5. He dissents from the decision the
| commission as a whole came to. There are a lot of
| companies on the ground that could benefit from that
| ~$900 million so a single company replacing Starlink is
| not necessary. The main concern is if the FCC give
| Starlink money to reach 100/20 and they don't do it
| (because there are legitimate technical issues to solve
| before it's possible for Starlink to supply over half a
| million people with 100/20), it's wasted money. The FCC
| didn't think it was doable on that time scale.
|
| Doing some math, currently each satellite launch sends up
| 22 satellites at around 2.8 Gbps per satellite. For each
| launch, Starlink adds ~61.6 Gbps of capacity. If we cut
| that up into 100/20 slices, each launch supports 616
| customers at 100/20. To support 650,000 subscribers at
| 100/20, it would take about 1055 perfect launches.
|
| I don't think the FCC was wrong when they said Starlink
| could not reach 650,000 people at 100/20 by 2025. There
| aren't enough days to launch one rocket a day to even try
| to catch up.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| you're ignoring over-provisioning which generally is ~10x
| cma wrote:
| The terms of these subsidies only allow 4X
| oversubscription.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| ok, so that still cuts down the amount of launches by 4x
| which takes them from 1055 launches to 260 launches. Over
| 2 years that would require doubling Starlink's launch
| cadence which is a lot, but does seem plausible.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| So to make the 2025 deadline they would have had to
| perfectly launch more rockets than they ever have
| before...sounds like the FCC made the correct choice.
| philwelch wrote:
| SpaceX has done that every year since 2020. In 2020 they
| had 26 successful Falcon 9/Heavy launches, 31 in 2021, 61
| in 2022, and 91 to date in 2023.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| Sure but the assumption made already say, that SpaceX
| uses _all_ capacity for this program (and nothing else)
| and it doesn't require any double hops (I would think you
| need to at least add a factor of two for the up/down
| thing). And that you can see all satellites all the time.
| So it was a _very_ conservative assumption. And it would
| still require ~all launch capacity of 2024 and 2025.
| SpaceX calculations is extremely optimistic to the point
| of being delusional.
|
| At least without Starship, which I _personally_ think
| that they will manage to iron out their problems of the
| course of next year. But even then _this_ timeline they
| won't be able to keep
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| They need to do 180 a year to put enough satellites up to
| even try to hit the 2025 deadline. That's not even
| counting any satellites which may fail between now and
| then and need replaced. This is a major reason why the
| FCC didn't think they could have met the 2025 obligation
| to reach ~650,000 subscribers with 100/20 and rejected
| their application.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| They're upgrading Vandenburg to do 100/year and
| Kennedy/Canaveral to do a ~daily cadence.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| That will be sweet when they can get it done and reliably
| launch Starship! Starlink isn't _bad_ , it just wasn't
| capable of meeting the RDOF deadline according to the
| information available at the time.
| cycomanic wrote:
| The calculation above assumes all satellites are
| available to provide bandwidth to the customers. That
| means essentially the 260 satellites need to be above the
| US (let's ignore that the visible horizon is different
| across the US). Now starlink are LEO, so 260 essentially
| we need to divide the 260 by the fraction the globe area
| the US is.
|
| The 260 is a significant underestimate. It's likely 4-10x
| more
| cavisne wrote:
| Oversubscription where?
|
| ISPs are not buying anywhere near that much transit
| bandwidth.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Did you miss the other dissent which would mean 40% of
| the commission disagreed with the decision?
|
| DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER NATHAN SIMINGTON
|
| >I wholeheartedly agree with the entirety of Commissioner
| Carr's dissent. I write separately to further highlight
| some of the meretricious logic that underlies the
| Bureau's, and now Commission's, rescinding of SpaceX's
| RDOF award. ... >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
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| WoahNoun wrote:
| Where does that dissent say 40% disagreed? It only uses
| the term majority.
| geoffpado wrote:
| There are 5 FCC commissioners (as @I_Am_Nous's comment
| points out). @I_Am_Nous references one dissent. @hnburnsy
| links to another. That's 2 dissents. 2 out of 5
| dissenting is 40%.
| abduhl wrote:
| Well if you want to really dig into the numbers here and
| get down to the gnat's ass of uselessness, Simington was
| confirmed with a 49-46 vote which means that less than
| 50% of the Senate agreed with him being on the Commission
| and hence he shouldn't even serve because he couldn't
| garner a majority of Senate approval. So, while 40% of
| the Commission disagreed with the decision, we should
| recognize that 20% of that 40% comes from someone
| undemocratically serving on the Commission and hence
| should be ignored. Meaning that, in actuality, only 25%
| of the democratically appointed Commission (1 out of 4)
| disagreed with the decision, not 40%.
|
| All of that to say: this whole point you're making about
| "40% disagreed" or "20% disagreed" because the decision
| wasn't unanimous is really fucking dumb. The decision by
| the Commission is the decision, it doesn't matter how
| many dissents there are.
| mcguire wrote:
| Farmer's Telecom Coop service map, Jackson County and
| nearby, AL.
|
| https://connect.farmerstel.com/front_end/zones
|
| Yes, it's fiber. Yes, to the home. Currently, 93Mbps
| down, 83 Mbps up (but I have the cheap service). And the
| service is a crap-ton better than that of Spectrum in NC.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| So basically now 15/16th of the money goes into a void to
| never actually get service to anyone.
| devindotcom wrote:
| no, it will be awarded to other applicants instead.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Not necessarily. This round of grants is closed. There is
| no guarantee that this money will be rolled into the next
| round. In fact, that seems quite unlikely to me.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| >Phase 1: Will provide up to $16.4 billion >Phase 2: Will
| provide at least $4.4 billion
|
| When it says "at least $4.4 billion" that leaves the door
| open for phase 1 fund rollover. We'll see eventually.
| Maybe Starlink can get some money in phase 2.
|
| 1. https://rdof.com/rdof
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I don't understand why you're just rephrasing my comment.
| weswilson wrote:
| Anecdotally, my dad lives in a rural area with no
| cable/DSL broadband available.
|
| Cellular broadband only got him 10-15 Mbps. He was
| excited when Starlink was available. I think he was
| pretty early on the preorder list. Once he finally got
| access to Starlink (Feb 2022) the speeds were close to
| the advertised ~100 Mbps.
|
| Now the price has increased and on average he's back to
| getting like 15-20 Mbps down.
|
| Luckily, the EMC that services the area received some
| rural broadband grant money to roll out FTTH and that
| build out has been pretty quick. They have already run
| fiber down his road and said that service should be
| available in a couple of months. The EMC is offering 2
| Gbps down / 1-2 Gbps up (!!!) for $100/mo.
|
| So this money is actually being spent effectively when it
| goes to the right place. Starlink made a bunch of
| promises that they couldn't fulfill and the money is
| being redirected, as it should be.
| isk517 wrote:
| I feel like in 90% of Starlinks use cases it is only the
| best option because they are the most motivated to
| succeed. Running traditional wired service is the more
| practical and permanent solution but the telecoms have
| made far to much money by taking money then not
| delivering.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >Running traditional wired service is the more practical
| and permanent solution
|
| It's permanent but it depends on what the word practical
| means. Often the cost of setting up infrastructure for
| such low density population means the infrastructure will
| never pay for itself, or that the same money spent
| elsewhere would service many more customers, so its not
| necessarily practical.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Running traditional wired service is the more
| practical and permanent solution_
|
| Not when you're 50+ miles from the nearest anything.
|
| Don't think of people that live kind of near a town and
| still get LTE. Think of people that drive for hours and
| still don't get LTE.
| oooyay wrote:
| This letter is junk, to put it lightly. I lived in a rural
| area with copper lines that were destined to stay that way
| because of classist inaction by the FCC - one that rewarded
| cities with new, expanded internet lines repeatedly and
| required vast parts of rural America to be torn up for
| backbones that they weren't allowed to tap, or could only be
| tapped with inexpensive copper lines mandated through
| telephony requirements. To put it less lightly, 100/20 is
| still a joke and a clear discrepancy between what's offered
| in most US cities and suburbs. The Biden Administration is
| trying to fix that history with the FCCs mandate; I don't
| care about whether Elon's satellite business is worth it in
| the end. I do care whether rural people get stable,
| dependable, fast internet that doesn't become irrelevant the
| moment it's laid.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Just FYI, in case it makes a difference to your assessment of
| credibility, but this is the same commissioner who opposes
| net neutrality, wants to rework the CDA to deal with the way
| "the far left has worked to weaponize social media
| platforms", hopes to have TikTok banned in the interest of
| national security, and appeared on Fox News to talk about how
| "the far-left has hopped from hoax to hoax to hoax to explain
| how it lost to President Trump at the ballot box".
|
| When you say it is most likely political, it certainly is,
| because Carr and Simington (who was rammed through the Senate
| at the last moment by the Trump administration) are pretty
| much the definition of partisan. People who were paying
| attention to the development of this situation back in
| 2020/21 saw it coming.
| mdasen wrote:
| Starlink (and Musk in general) have been over-promising and
| under-delivering for years now. Starlink claimed 150Mbps back
| in 2020 and that speeds would double to 300Mbps by the end of
| 2021.[1] Instead, speeds have halved.[2]
|
| At this point, T-Mobile is likely serving more rural high speed
| internet customers with greater speeds (T-Mobile has 4.2M home
| internet customers and Ookla's stats show 34% to be rural for
| 1.4M; Starlink has 2M customers and assuming two-thirds are in
| the US and of those 83% are rural would make for 1.1M).
|
| [1] https://www.tomsguide.com/news/elon-musk-promises-to-
| double-...
|
| [2] https://www.ookla.com/articles/us-satellite-
| performance-q3-2...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I regularly get 150+ Mbps on my Starlink terminal. Don't
| really care that they didn't hit the ambitious goal of
| providing 300+, it is already more than 15x better than the
| next best option available for me.
|
| T-Mobile has a three decade head start (maybe four if you
| count their Sprint Wireless acquisition's history), so hardly
| surprising if there is currently more T-Mobile home internet
| users than Starlink users. But I also doubt that their rural
| base is as large as Starlink's currently is. Mobile broadband
| speeds heavily depend on the strength of the signal available
| in area, and in many rural areas, the 5G coverage is
| extremely spotty, or non-existent.
| Powdering7082 wrote:
| Yeah there's a pretty common routine of SpaceX & Tesla
| having some of the best results in the world for what they
| are trying to accomplish AND being much worse than what was
| promised.
| kelnos wrote:
| And that's one of the (many) frustrating things with
| Musk: he fairly consistently overpromises and
| underdelivers. Even if that underdelivering is better
| than what you can get elsewhere, it still leaves a bad
| taste in people's mouths.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > he fairly consistently overpromises and underdelivers.
|
| Can we please just call it what it really is? Lying. He's
| a pathological liar.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| How many startups start by telling investors, employees
| and customers, "We're going to fail"? They know the odds
| are that's going to happen. Are they pathological liars?
|
| _No one_ can predict the future. Musk is what plenty of
| entrepreneurs are...over-confident. That 's part of the
| profile. That doesn't make him or any of them liars.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > it still leaves a bad taste in people's mouths
|
| It definitely does, although I don't understand why.
|
| One thing making bold forecasts does is motivate your
| people. JFK told us we'd get to the moon _this decade_
| which is absolutely nuts. Would we have got there as soon
| if he had said we 'd get to the moon _eventually_?
|
| To the other responder: JFK also had no tangible
| justification to say we'd get there so soon, and the most
| likely outcome was that he was going to be wrong. Does
| that make him a pathological liar?
| dmix wrote:
| It's pretty obvious why it's such a big deal recently.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > It definitely does, although I don't understand why.
|
| Maybe because it's a kind of lying, and people who do it
| on a regular basis are untrustworthy people?
|
| > JFK told us we'd get to the moon this decade which is
| absolutely nuts.
|
| Remember that he didn't phrase it as "we will do this",
| he phrased it as "this is our goal". He referred to it as
| a goal we're choosing, not as an inevitability.
|
| Musk isn't goal-setting, he's making promises. The
| difference between the two is critical. One is being a
| leader, the other is being a liar.
| flextheruler wrote:
| You don't think there was any consultation between JFK
| and NASA before he gave that speech?
|
| A simple search for more information provides this.
| Kennedy asked Johnson to consult with NASA.
|
| Johnson consulted with officials of the National
| Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Its new
| administrator, James E. Webb, told him that there was no
| chance of beating the Russians to launching a space
| station, and he was not certain that NASA could orbit a
| man around the Moon first, so the best option would be to
| attempt to land a man on the Moon. This would also be the
| most expensive option; Webb believed it would require $22
| billion (equivalent to $166 billion in 2022) to achieve
| it by 1970. Johnson also consulted with Wernher von
| Braun; military leaders, including Lieutenant General
| Bernard Schriever; and three business executives: Frank
| Stanton from CBS, Donald C. Cook from American Electric
| Power, and George R. Brown from Brown & Root.
|
| JFK was stating an experts opinion in a speech not
| spitballing random estimates that were changing yearly in
| order to make him and the US seem awesome.
| kelnos wrote:
| I think there are some lines you shouldn't cross. Like
| having people pre-pay a bunch of money for FSD, claiming
| it's going to be ready in a certain amount of time, but
| wildly missing that deadline and not offering to refund
| people's money.
|
| And certainly there's a "pile on" element as well. Musk
| is, to put it mildly, a controversial character in
| general. It's easier to take someone you already don't
| like, and criticize them more harshly for other faults
| than you would for someone (like JFK, perhaps) that you
| otherwise generally like. Maybe that's not fair, but it
| seems pretty human-nature-y.
|
| Another point: is there a way to make bold forecasts in
| order to motivate your employees, without making it feel
| like a promise to your customers? If so, Musk generally
| fails at that.
| SteveGerencser wrote:
| Perhaps, but he does deliver. As a rural internet
| customer who has been told for a decade now that "fiber
| is coming to our area" by the local telco, I am more than
| happy to give Musk the benefit of the doubt as one of the
| cleanest players in a filthy industry full of lies and
| graft.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > I regularly get 150+ Mbps on my Starlink terminal.
|
| Your anecdotal experience is not a refuting of statistical
| data from the overall population of users. Starlink
| consistently does not provide that level of service to a
| large swath of its users.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >In 2022, many RDOF recipients had deployed no service at any
| speed to any location at all, and they had no obligation to
| do so. By contrast, Starlink had half a million subscribers
| in June 2022 (and about two million in September 2023)
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| That argument is a red herring. The RDOF program is
| concentrated in specific geographic areas. Starlink
| onboarding subscribers in other areas doesn't really have a
| bearing on this program if they can't prove they can extend
| that to the areas in scope and hit the service levels they
| bid at. It might even hurt their argument if performance
| degrades as they focus on areas outside the RDOF locations.
|
| More traditional offerings have a much easier time
| demonstrating they can do that, even if they haven't
| started physically building yet. It's very easy for them to
| say x amount of fiber capacity at this location will meet
| the program specs, and this is how fast we can install it.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| A rule of thumb is that big infrastructure projects are
| always significantly behind schedule and budget. Fiber
| rollouts are big infrastructure projects. They'll be
| late, almost guaranteed. Therefore demonstrating that
| they can hit a schedule is very difficult.
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| It is difficult, but the program (theoretically, since
| the program isn't at that stage yet) has checkpoints to
| address failure to actually deliver.
|
| This stage was to focus on if the bid accepted based off
| of the short-form proposal was progressing and likely to
| deliver as described by reviewing additional information
| provided in the long-form application. That is going to
| be easier for tech with an established delivery history.
| btilly wrote:
| Your counterargument hides a major flaw.
|
| It is true that more traditional offerings have an easier
| time demonstrating that they should be able to do that.
| But decades of traditional telecoms failing to hit
| promised targets demonstrates that they are unlikely to
| perform as promised.
|
| That said, regulatory capture has let them regularly get
| away with the argument that you describe. Regulators
| motivated by politics and corruption have pretended to
| believe them. Non-incumbents therefore struggle to
| navigate their higher bar.
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| Can't disagree there.
|
| That is why I actually like the approach in the RDOF. It
| has regular progress check-ins built in, instead of the
| seemingly no strings attached grants given historically.
| This stage two review was "are you likely to succeed
| based on progress since stage one", but there are further
| delivery checkpoints that come with penalties and bonuses
| for under and over delivering.
| COGlory wrote:
| As a Montanan with T-Mobile, I promise that those "rural"
| T-Mobile ones are not the same type of rural that Starlink
| can serve.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Hell I work at a farm on the coast near Silicon Valley in
| San Gregorio (designing a farming robot) and Starlink is
| the only decent internet option we've ever had.
| mcguire wrote:
| What speeds do you get?
|
| Edit: That's weird. San Gregorio is like 15-20 miles from
| Cupertino. Here in Jackson County, AL, Farmers Telecom
| Coop has gigabit or half-gigabit fiber to much of the
| county.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Bay Area's fiber and broadband network is a joke. That
| it's the tech capital of the world makes it so much
| worse. Things are improving - I got fiber in 2020 - and
| speeds are trending upwards with some local completion.
| AT&T and Comcast are finally getting a bit better with
| speed. Coverage still sucks. Number of available options
| still suck. Not to mention weird collusions between
| Comcast and apt management companies and other anti-
| competitive behaviour. Then there's PG&E using various
| excuses to block using their poles to expand the network.
|
| It's terrible.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yep, completely terrible. My only high-speed choice in a
| well-developed neighborhood in San Francisco is 1000/35
| from Comcast (not like I ever see that 1000, though).
| AT&T's fiber trunk is a block away from me, but they want
| $20k+ to run that fiber to my home.
|
| Apparently Comcast has been experimenting/offering higher
| upload speeds for a while now, but it's still not
| available where I am.
| chrisdhoover wrote:
| There is a slim sliver of coast that has farms, then
| mountains, then the valley.
|
| The mountains are sparsely populated and heavily
| forested. Driving up and out of the valley you enter into
| a different world complete with legends of murder cults.
|
| Its a car and motorbike mecca. Drive down the coast from
| San Francisco. Climb up the mountain at San Gregorio or
| further south, stop at Alice's to look at the superbikes
| and super cars, and drive back down into the valley.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Its a car and motorbike mecca.
|
| I'll say! In high school and college I had a 1991
| Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 and I grew up on Highway 9 in Ben
| Lomond. I went to college at Santa Clara University and
| continued dating someone who lived off Highway 9 in
| Boulder Creek. I got to rip it over HWY 9 a few times a
| week! Such a lovely drive. Tho I lost a dear friend to a
| car accident on that road and I slowed down a lot since
| then.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I've lived in lots of locations around the Bay Area over
| the last 20 years and I didn't have fiber until a year
| ago when I moved to Oakland.
|
| According to three speed tests with the command line
| speedtest application I am getting these speeds with
| Starlink:
|
| Download: 59.79, 88.52, 104.76 Mbit/s
|
| Upload: 6.45, 11.42, 15.79 Mbit/s
| throw0101c wrote:
| > [...] _(and Musk in general) have been over-promising and
| under-delivering for years now._
|
| Related, "Tesla FSD Timeline":
|
| > _September 2014: They will be a factor of 10 safer than a
| person [at the wheel] in a six-year time frame_
|
| * https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38625380 (earlier
| today)
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| To be fair FSD is the hardest software problem that man has
| ever attempted.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Possibly, but then don't make promises and have the
| audacity to charge for it
| mikestew wrote:
| That's not being fair, that's making excuses. If the
| problem is _that_ hard, don 't be running your mouth
| about you'll have it done in six months, and charge
| people money while you work out the bugs.
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| Never did Musk say "We'll have it done in six months".
| r3d0c wrote:
| lol... but he has been saying "it'll be out next year"
| for many years
|
| but please, keep defending in bad faith
| delecti wrote:
| This: https://motherfrunker.ca/fsd/ (linked in the GGP to
| your comment) links to this tweet from Jan 23, 2017
| https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/823727035088416768
|
| When asked the question "At what point will "Full Self-
| Driving Capability" features noticeably depart from
| "Enhanced Autopilot" features?"
|
| Elon responded "3 months maybe, 6 months definitely"
|
| Also, lots of examples of "this year" stated in various
| Januarys, and multiple instances along the lines of
| "complete autonomy in 2 years" going back 8 years.
|
| I suspect his statements are carefully made to not
| technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but
| colloquially he's absolutely a liar.
| isk517 wrote:
| Those don't count because Elon had this fingers crossed
| when he made those tweets. /s
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| This question was _not_ asking about when FSD was going
| to work but when Enhanced Autopilot would noticeably
| depart from FSD. No where in there did it say "FSD will
| be working completely in 6 months".
|
| They did in fact diverge, no where was that a statement
| that FSD would be complete by then.
|
| It's ironic you are calling him a liar when your response
| seems to either be completely dishonest itself or you are
| not aware of the subject at hand.
| tedivm wrote:
| In October of 2016-
|
| > By the end of next year, said Musk, Tesla would
| demonstrate a fully autonomous drive from, say, a home in
| L.A., to Times Square ... without the need for a single
| touch, including the charging.
|
| So you're technically right- he said three months, not
| six.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/driverless-tesla-
| will...
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| I don't see any direct quote of him saying what you are
| claiming. Please post that quote if you can find it
| Fountain1320 wrote:
| Quote came from a conference call.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5SfDmL0sv3w
|
| At ~6:20.
| NotACop182 wrote:
| I never understood someone so determined to ignore all
| the evidence. Yet when confronted doubles/triples down
| with excuses.
| flextheruler wrote:
| It's called the sunk cost fallacy anyone who owns a Tesla
| and Tesla stock has been extremely susceptible for years
| now
| natch wrote:
| Confronted with evidence that nowhere supports the
| claims. We really are in bizarro world here, rife with
| sloppy thinking and fuzzy smears. Certainly Elon shoots
| off his mouth and has underestimated timelines, but the
| specific claims being made about those mistakes go way
| beyond and into lala land.
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| There is no proof. He never said it. People keep posting
| other quotes but none where he says what they claim.
|
| If you have proof of a direct quote where he says that
| FSD will be done withing 6 or 3 months for certain than
| please post it.
|
| Otherwise, attacking me is dishonest
| jcranmer wrote:
| > I suspect his statements are carefully made to not
| technically meet the legal definition for fraud, but
| colloquially he's absolutely a liar.
|
| They're probably not carefully made, but fraud requires
| knowledge of falsity, and short of an internal report
| saying "this feature won't be ready before XYZ," it is
| going to be extremely difficult to prove Tesla knew the
| claims were false.
|
| The other thing you'll run into is reasonability of
| reliance--at this point, with so many deadlines
| repeatedly blown through, it would be hard to demonstrate
| that a reasonable person could rely on a representation
| that a promised deadline would be met.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I would think it would be hard to find a reasonable
| person who takes anything Musk says seriously anymore and
| yet plenty seem to.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| If you're not following Musk every day, and maybe just
| know he's the Tesla/rocket guy, why wouldn't you take him
| seriously?
|
| Somehow, this sounds like shifting blame from the liar to
| others ...
| JohnFen wrote:
| I wasn't assigning or shifting blame for anything. I was
| just expressing that I am baffled by the reality.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| The reason people follow Musk is that even though he
| over-promises and under-delivers; the under-delivered
| product is still better than the alternatives (or at
| least was for a while).
|
| People are not complete fools and can learn to discount
| over-the-top rhetoric; sure, some people are harmed by
| believing everything verbatim, but those people also fall
| for scams, etc, etc.
|
| His statements are parsed as statements of intent more so
| than actual timeline commitments. We'll have FSD in 6
| months = FSD is our main priority at the moment. And sure
| it also makes for PR/free advertising. Is it scammy?
| Probably. But he likely got more out of people by pushing
| this false narrative than would have been otherwise
| accomplished.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I have real trouble with "the ends justify the means"
| arguments.
|
| > Is it scammy? Probably.
|
| It's the behavior of a con artist.
|
| > But he likely got more out of people by pushing this
| false narrative than would have been otherwise
| accomplished.
|
| Even if that's the case, he could have had the same, or
| better, effect without the lying. The lying is clearly
| aimed at gaining investment money and preorders, though,
| not at some bizarre attempt at motivating engineers.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > fraud requires knowledge of falsity
|
| Does it? Is there no "average person should be aware"
| level?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > fraud requires knowledge of falsity,
|
| The civil tort of fraud (criminal fraud is different)
| generally requires either knowledge of falsity or
| reckless indifference to the truth.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| > _fraud requires knowledge of falsity_
|
| Or recklessness as to falsity - like not caring whether
| the statement was true or false.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > with so many deadlines repeatedly blown through, it
| would be hard to demonstrate that a reasonable person
| could rely on a representation that a promised deadline
| would be met.
|
| That enables fraudsters, of course. Also, what about
| people who don't spend all their time on the Internet, on
| HN, reading about Elon Musk? They buy stocks and cars
| too.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _I suspect his statements are carefully made to not
| technically meet the legal definition for fraud_
|
| 2017 was before the infamous "funding secured" tweet, so
| I imagine there was no care in crafting his statements.
| fragmede wrote:
| I dunno, AGI seems like a hard problem too.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Safe AGI is a hard problem. AGI is, sadly, not hard
| enough.
| acdha wrote:
| FSD is a substantial subset of AGI: driving is full of
| edge cases where you need to be able to reason about
| unusual conditions or behavior by other drivers,
| understand what someone like a flagger or police officer
| is saying, etc.
| mannykannot wrote:
| It is not obvious that even level 5 FSD will require
| either self-awareness or a theory of mind: adequate
| modeling of the possible behaviors of nearby actors in
| the immediate future may be "all" it takes, and current
| systems are struggling with that.
|
| Of course, if one were to _define_ FSD in terms of being
| so capable that it could also likely pass the Turing test
| (or whatever better replacement we come up with as a
| measure of AGI), then, _by definition_ , it would be
| close to as hard a problem as AGI itself.
| acdha wrote:
| I said "substantial subset" precisely to avoid this kind
| of tangent. My point was simply that there are a lot of
| edge cases we have no clear path to solving which are
| masked at the current level by punting the problem to the
| human driver. We are a very long time from being able to
| build cars without manual controls even if we might hit
| the point where a majority of driving miles are automated
| long before then.
| deepsun wrote:
| Not necessarily -- we can have AGI, but it might be too
| resource-intensive to put in a mobile platform like a
| car.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| We will know that AGI is more likely to be solved when
| FSD is easily solved.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is important to consider when judging Tesla's
| engineering capability, but not when judging Elon Musk's
| highly optimistic promises.
|
| Either Elon is aware of the fact that FSD is really hard
| and he's _lying repeatedly_ about being able to deliver
| it "later this year". Or he is not aware that FSD is as
| hard as you say and needs to "hit the books" and
| understand the problem better. I don't really see an
| "out" here after so many missed promises.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Software timelines are notoriously hard to forecast
| because you're essentially trying to predict how long it
| will take to do something nobody has done before.
|
| So you look at what's left to do and as long as you don't
| run into any unforeseen issues you say, looks like about
| six months from now.
|
| Sometimes you don't run into any unforeseen issues and it
| turns out to be about six months.
|
| Sometimes you do, and then it takes longer. So a year
| later you found an unexpected problem that delayed you by
| a year. Someone asks you how long you think it will take
| again, that issue delayed you by a year but that was a
| year ago, so you say, looks like about six months from
| now.
|
| Eventually the estimate will be true but nobody knows
| when because nobody knows how to make an accurate
| estimate. Because you have to know how hard it is to do
| in order to know how long it will take, which nobody
| knows until after somebody has actually done it.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| I watched a panel discussion on self driving cars in 2015
| with several legit experts in the technology (I believe
| Sebastian Thrun was one of them). There were also some
| CEOs. The experts all said there's no way the tech would
| deploy before 2025, potentially later. The CEOs were
| saying 2018 or 2019.
|
| The experts had a clear view way back then, the CEOs just
| don't want to listen.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Waymo deployed cars without safety drivers to Tempe in
| 2021.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I'd argue even waymo is still far away from FSD.
| Driverless cars on a restricted set of roads with a
| remote operator monitoring things (and the ability to
| quickly resolve issues), is nowhere close to what I (and
| the general public I would argue) understands as fully
| self driving.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Sure, if you set the goalposts in a place that's
| unachievable we'll never reach them.
|
| - even human drivers cannot safely operate in all
| locations/conditions
|
| - all self-driving cars will need a mechanism for cops to
| talk to a human
| kelnos wrote:
| The goal is to replace a human driver in every situation
| where a human driver could or would drive, with an
| equivalent or (ideally) better safety record.
|
| Are you suggesting that Waymo is there? I don't think the
| evidence would support that. Even if we relax that goal a
| bit so the self-driving car can disengage and refuse to
| drive in, say, the most difficult 20% of situations, I
| don't think we can say Waymo is there, either.
| mannykannot wrote:
| You just moved the goalposts in order to set up a straw-
| man argument!
|
| One can quite reasonably point out that level 5 autonomy
| has not yet been achieved without moving the level 5
| goalposts.
| aeturnum wrote:
| This is always a game of boundary-setting. In one way
| that's true, in another way Waymo is 21+ years behind[1].
| People have been setting up 'particular vehicles' to
| navigate 'particular areas' for decades. If the Waymo
| "self driving car" is an expansion of older site-specific
| tech, then there's nothing new under the sun. If their
| car is can be put anywhere then it just being able to
| drive in Tempe isn't proof of that.
|
| IMO the truth is more with the experts. Each new location
| seems to require a lot of tuning to get right and
| function in a way the company is happy with. If a "self
| driving car" is one we can drop anywhere and have it
| drive we are still waiting on that.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParkShuttle
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Oh, come on, these kinds of false analogies don't help to
| elucidate, only to confuse.
|
| There is a universe of difference between something like
| ParkShuttle (its own right of way, using magnets in the
| road to detect position) and modern autonomous vehicles.
| Saying modern autonomous vehicles have environmental
| constraints is valid, saying that makes then no different
| than a "people mover on wheels" is not.
| aeturnum wrote:
| So my analogy is false huh? Then say a true one!
|
| The point is that "deployed to a limited area" is not
| what people are thinking when they talk about a "self
| driving car." Of course ParkShuttle isn't the same as
| Waymo (or any other modern self-driving car) - but the
| question is how far we've come!
|
| Are you claiming Waymo is ready to drive anywhere in the
| world? I do not think that's Waymo's position. So where
| are we? Cut through the rhetoric and tell it like it is -
| or join the rest of us who are speculating from the
| sidelines with incomplete information.
| deepsun wrote:
| By the way, Particular Vehicles have been safely serving
| Particular Areas for decades: airport driverless
| shuttles. Slowly expanding from there is the right way to
| go, not "New York to Palo Alto by 2017", as Musk
| promised.
| aeturnum wrote:
| Yah, without any evidence to back it up my personal
| suspicion is that we'll arrive at a local maxima of "full
| self driving on highways and instrumented roads" in ~20
| years. I think the area has a lot of potential, but so
| much of the hype (and stock price) is tied up with "a car
| that can drive better than a human everywhere" which
| seems impossible for anyone to produce.
|
| Just like with IoT we'll eventually arrive at a boring,
| useful state...it will just take a while.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Sure but the panel discussion was talking about consumer
| release of self driving cars, which really requires level
| 5 capabilities in a wide variety of conditions, not just
| ideal weather.
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| Experts are wrong all the time. The experts said that
| solar prices would come down but were off by nearly an
| order of magnitude in how long it took.
|
| With something this hard it's extremely tough to tell for
| sure when it will happen and often progress goes in
| chunks where it seems like it's going to happen but then
| doesnt.
| r3d0c wrote:
| > The experts said that solar prices would come down but
| were off by nearly an order of magnitude in how long it
| took.
|
| citation required
| zbyte64 wrote:
| I agree with all of this, but if the problem is too hard
| for the expert, why would I listen to a billionaire/CEO?
| skygazer wrote:
| He also does dubiously claim to be an expert in many
| fields, although despite the success of the engineers
| working for him, his greatest personal expertise appears
| to be sycophant creation -- competence can only propel
| one so far.
|
| Although one should never believe the ravings, useful
| work does surprisingly often nucleate around them, just
| not to the degree or with the speed promised.
| mulmen wrote:
| Experts have a narrow, deep view while CEOs have a wide,
| shallow view.
|
| If the expert works in a lab developing new experimental
| solar panels they probably don't see a clear path to mass
| production.
|
| The CEO might know another manufacturing expert that does
| see a path to production and have enough high level
| understanding to know the methods are compatible.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| In this case yes, but in this case we have to assume the
| research side has achieved it's goal (its proven a
| material exists with the desired properties), now it is a
| manufacturing problem. If the lab can't produce the
| material, the manufacturing lines have nothing to
| manufacture with. And that seems to be the case with FSD.
| CEOs make wild claims, but the tech isn't there. The
| material has not been proven to exist in a lab with the
| desired properties.
|
| Like a CEO saying, I have a material that can protect
| wearers from nuclear fusion blasts and it will be on the
| market in 6 months, but the experts in the field have yet
| to actually prove that material exists and create it in a
| lab.
| LamaOfRuin wrote:
| Many experts predicted price declines with pretty fair
| accuracy. The large groups of experts that were making
| these forecasts for purposes of global planning for
| mitigation of climate change were often intentionally
| conservative because the danger of planning with that
| assumption outweighs anything you lose by making more
| conservative predictions.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, but I'd trust experts in a field over a bunch of
| CEOs who have a vested interest in claiming something
| will be ready sooner rather than later.
|
| Even CEOs who _are_ an experts are by their very nature
| too biased to take at face value.
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Not many people, even experts, predicted the success of
| ChatGPT even five years ago - and most have moved their
| timeline for AGI up significantly because of its release.
|
| AI is a hard field to make predictions in.
| serf wrote:
| who in their right mind would look at any problem in any
| field with the title of "hardest problem" and then put a
| schedule to it?
| pyrale wrote:
| A deluded narcissist?
| freejazz wrote:
| One would think this would be a good reason to not
| promise that you'll have solved it within a timeframe
| that's not even remotely realistic
| didntknowya wrote:
| can't be that hard if he claimed he could finish it in
| 3-6months.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| At this point anyone who takes his claims at face value is
| a fool
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Is it legal to cheat the foolish and ignorant?
| pstuart wrote:
| It's legal to do lots of shitty things. But is it immoral
| to do so? Yes.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I get 300/30 on starlink. I'm not sure why ookla's data says
| otherwise.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Did you consider that your experience may not be
| representative?
| kelnos wrote:
| Because you are not everyone who uses Starlink? Just
| because you get good speeds, it doesn't mean that the
| average Starlink user does as well.
| jlmorton wrote:
| Starlink also just launched in earnest a couple years ago,
| and is experiencing meteoric growth rates of ~100% a year.
|
| It doesn't take very many doublings for this comment to go
| down with "why would anyone want Dropbox."
| tomcam wrote:
| > T-Mobile is likely serving more rural high speed internet
| customers with greater speeds
|
| I live exactly 13 miles away from T-Mobile HQ (one city over)
| and their service was unusable. I know, I know, anecdotal.
| But funny!
| itslennysfault wrote:
| When I was living in Seattle I found the service to be
| shockingly bad. I "upgraded" to 5G and my service got
| substantially worse. I'd often have "full signal 5G" and
| barely be able to watch videos in Capitol Hill. I worked in
| SoDo and I found multiple dead zones between the train
| station and my work (just a few blocks).
|
| For a while I was tweeting at them regularly with
| screenshots, but got bored of the "DM us so we can resolve
| this right away" bots and realized I was screaming into the
| void. I ultimately wound up switching to Verizon.
|
| Interestingly, T-Mobile service was far better in the 3
| other major cities I lived in, but it's still pretty
| embarrassing that their service is so bad right in their
| own backyard.
| tomcam wrote:
| > got bored of the "DM us so we can resolve this right
| away" bots and realized I was screaming into the void
|
| You're giving me PTSD here lol
| memish wrote:
| "under-delivering"
|
| Delivered millions of EVs that everyone said would never
| work, dragging the entire car industry out of its stupor.
|
| Delivered a vast electric charging network and made it
| available to the competition.
|
| Delivered the best satellite internet.
|
| Delivered rockets that NASA uses.
|
| Delivered the most payload to space, more than even China.
|
| Gee, imagine under-delivering that badly.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| "under-delivering" was paired with "over-promising". Elon
| has done some cool stuff, yeah. He promised _cooler_ stuff
| and so far it hasn 't been possible for lots of reasons. So
| you are both correct.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| over delivering compared to the world, under delivering
| compared to where Musk wants to be
| hnburnsy wrote:
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
|
| "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."
|
| 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.
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| The Commission decision does address this. Unfortunately the
| section is redacted of specific details, but it appears
| Starlink argued that it's second gen satellites would be
| launched via Starship and address these issues.
|
| However, they didn't successfully launch Starship yet as they
| described in that plan, and only announced Falcon 9 would
| launch second gen satellites after they were already denied
| based off of the initial plan.
|
| The dissenting letter unfortunately just says "no they
| didn't", but doesn't point to any documentary evidence. It's
| hard to accept it at face value when compared to the long
| form explanation. Especially when much of the "corrective
| action" taken by Starlink has come after the initial denial.
| trothamel wrote:
| Given how much of the decision is blacked out, it's hard to
| give it any credibility, either.
| jandrese wrote:
| I find it impressive that the government is actually punishing
| a project for running late and underdelivering. They should
| expand this to all parts of the government. Can you imagine if
| the F-35 was cancelled the first time it fell behind schedule?
| The Space Launch System? The Littoral Combat System? The USS
| JFK?
|
| So many boondoggles could be killed off before they spend
| money. Maybe contractors would have to start properly
| estimating costs up front. Or maybe nothing would ever get done
| again.
|
| I do wonder what the FCC is planning to do with these funds if
| they aren't funding Starlink. Are they going to go towards a
| "safer" project like Project Kuiper? Or maybe dumping it into
| Inmarsat?
| shmatt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Abandoned_military_pr.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cancelled_military_pro.
| ..
|
| F35 Survived but there are like 50 other planes that didnt in
| that second list
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Bradley IFV is _not_ on this list.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Say what you want about the Bradley, and criticism of the
| military is very healthy! I think the war in Ukraine
| shows that while the project may have been wasteful the
| end result is still useful.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Because the Bradley IFV was only a boondoggle within the
| almost completely fictionalized setting of _Pentagon
| Wars_.
|
| Someone else pointed out the performance in Ukraine, but
| IMO this was already a settled point in 1991, when they
| collectively destroyed more enemy armor than the Abrams
| and only lost 3 vehicles to enemy fire.
| Qwertious wrote:
| The Pentagon Wars was misleading bullshit and the Bradley
| IFV was a good idea that was slated to come in under
| budget (before James Burton demanded his tests).
|
| The tests were a huge waste of money that conclusively
| proved that the Bradley couldn't survive an anti-tank
| missile, which is irrelevant because 1) the Bradley isn't
| a tank and was never required to survive one, and 2) the
| Pentagon already _knew_ that; they 'd tested the
| components individually already.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOGHdZDmEk
|
| (28min 20sec)
| jandrese wrote:
| Most of those weren't cancelled because they ran behind
| schedule, they were cancelled for political reasons or
| because the role they were designed for went away.
| Sometimes because some other project was overrunning their
| budget so badly that they had to be cancelled to free up
| the money for the boondoggle.
| hughesjj wrote:
| And the f35 is honestly legit when it's all said and done.
| There's a reason why it's sold so well, and it's only
| getting better.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I think you may not understand what the government is.
|
| The government is a collection of individuals. It is not a
| single borg instance. Some individuals within that collection
| are going to act different than other ones.
|
| Also the government does a lot of funding through different
| mechanisms. Many miltiary programs are a cost+ program where
| they pay the contractor the cost of development plus a
| profit% so the initial budget is a bit moot since the point
| is to pay for a capability. That obviously doesn't apply here
| and the FCC wasn't offering a Cost+ program.
| jandrese wrote:
| As if cost+ contracting hasn't been a major factor in
| projects going overbudget and behind schedule. Even with
| cost+ the contractor needs to provide an estimate up front
| of both the time and money needed. While it is understood
| that it is just an estimate, having projects come in for 5x
| or more of the original estimated cost is egregious. SLS
| for example was estimated to cost $1.5B, but instead costs
| $11.2B and still hasn't launched.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > SLS for example was estimated to cost $1.5B
|
| I wish it was; lol. The initial estimate was $18B [1]. I
| suspect you saw the $1.5B number for some sub-component
| of SLS. That's another common problem with government
| projects. The media will read some government report that
| says a new railroad will cost $1B and then report that
| the entire project will cost $1B while the report only
| talked about track cost and not about land acquisition,
| even environmental studies, or etc.
|
| That said, yes SLS is over ($23B) the $18B budget and not
| done.
|
| I do wish NASA would move closer to how DARPA does things
| where you payout a reward to companies that achieve some
| milestone. Somewhat close to what the FCC did here except
| the FCC is giving the money ahead of milestone. But there
| are pros and cons to this as government contracting is a
| pia so when you get into the situation of a single
| competitor it gets awkward.
|
| Contractors not meeting their bids is a problem though.
| At the personal/corporate/government level I don't think
| people account for enough the fact that the contractor
| might not uphold their side of the bargin. Similar to how
| many people choose the cheapest insurance and then
| :surprise-pickachu-face: all their claims get denied.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Funding
| jandrese wrote:
| It was $1.5B per launch. But that figure keeps going up
| as they have to amortize even more development cost into
| each launch, and the total number of launches remains
| constant or even drops.
| kelnos wrote:
| The problem with cost+ is that contractors can inflate the
| actual cost of things, and pocket the difference. Obviously
| they can't do this to an unlimited extent, but the cynic in
| me would have a hard time believing this isn't a common
| practice.
| kulahan wrote:
| It's much more likely that this stuff is difficult to do,
| and thus difficult to price out, than that somehow the
| managers of these companies are working with the finance
| people to secretly steal money from the government and
| hide it in their books, the government never catches it,
| and these very amicable ties between the government and
| defense contractors continues - and all of that is before
| we even get to what happens when you try to steal and
| your project falls _behind_.
|
| It's way more valuable, usually, to get it done quickly
| and done well the first time, so you can move onto
| another project. You leave a few people on the original
| program pull in tons of super easy maintenance contract
| money for what essentially ends up being a skeleton crew.
|
| Or, I suppose, you could try and inflate costs by a
| couple percentage points (not too much - you'll get
| caught and the risk here is MASSIVE), keep working on the
| same program, and hope the opportunity cost doesn't get
| too high.
|
| I'm sure it happens, but I doubt it happens often.
| lesuorac wrote:
| I mean there's almost certainly crime that happens in
| contracting but there is a real risk of being caught if
| you commit fraud. Do remember that companies such as
| Google do pay out literally millions of dollars to random
| people that send in invoices for work never requested or
| done.
|
| Cost+ at face-value isn't that bad of an idea. An
| alternative to it is the government hiring a bunch of
| people to do a project and ideally the government only
| pays Cost in that case. For people that don't believe the
| government can do anything this is a pretty good trade
| off.
|
| IIRC, the `+` part is capped at 15% profit so IIUC that's
| similar to an operating margin of 15%. Although IIUC,
| executive expenses and a ton of other things come out of
| the `+` part so it should be lower than 15%. But the
| point I'm going to make here is that an operating margin
| of 15% isn't really impressive and that's the best that
| the contractor can do.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Some individuals within that collection are going to act
| different than other ones
|
| Actually, no, they seem to have been acting as a
| (predictable) monolith for at least the past three years...
| atty wrote:
| To be fair, defense is an existential risk for the US and its
| allies. NATO can't really afford to not have a reasonably up-
| to-date combat jet. They also need to continually feed money
| into the military industrial complex so that suppliers don't
| go under/downsize too much/etc.
|
| Not disagreeing with your sentiment, just think that certain
| fields like defense, healthcare, etc have slightly different
| priority lists.
| tehjoker wrote:
| > defense is an existential risk for the US
|
| this is not a true statement for a huge country with oceans
| on 2 sides and nukes. it is a true statement about people
| relying on the us military to make money tho
| FredPret wrote:
| Oceans are only a defense if you can float a navy on
| them. The British Islands got invaded a couple of
| times... until they built a big navy.
|
| Having _two_ oceans is great, but now you need at least
| two fleets.
|
| Nukes are only worth something if you have a lot of them
| and can credibly delivery them in multiple ways. Now you
| need subs, long-range bombers and the fighters to protect
| them, and missile silos.
|
| Now add in reliance on a global supply chain (many types
| of oil and minerals, grades of steel not made in the US,
| TSMC), and all of a sudden you need to be able to help
| protect your partners on the other side of the world.
|
| Now sprinkle in a couple of crazy dictators with nuclear
| arsenals and huge armies of their own, and it's starting
| to make sense why the US military needs constant re-
| investment.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Don't forget satellites and SIGINT (which just might
| involve crazy submarines and big "scientific" radio
| astronomy dishes). Or cover stories about ships and
| manganese extraction worthy of James Bond.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| The FCC didn't even give Starlink a chance to run late or
| underdeliver, they assessed the program and capability and
| decided it wasn't where they wanted to spend grant money. So
| they aren't being punished, they are being passed over for a
| better option.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| What is the better option?
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| The FCC originally didn't want to include fixed wireless
| or satellite internet for RDOF consideration, so from
| that fact alone I believe they were intending it to be
| fiber optic. A fiber plant is pretty immutable, even if
| you end up upgrading the things connected to the fiber
| for higher speeds. Once it's buried, it's pretty reliable
| (unless a passing herd of excavators get hungry and smell
| the fiber buried underground) while a satellite system is
| hard to upgrade and subject to the unpredictability of
| space. For example, mission Group 4-7 deployed 49
| satellites and a geomagnetic storm killed all but 10 of
| them.
|
| The risk is just much higher with satellites than with
| buried fiber. If the FCC is trying to build more
| permanent networks, fiber in the ground is much more
| permanent.
| jandrese wrote:
| Buried fiber is never going to happen for the rural folks
| serviced by Starlink. It's hard to get companies to put
| fiber down in well populated suburbs, getting them out
| into the country is pure wishful thinking, especially if
| you're only talking about a billion dollars.
| wizardwes wrote:
| Part of the issue is that some of these companies are the
| only companies in the US _capable_ of this scale of
| manufacturing, which is expensive to maintain, and only the
| government really uses. In other words, they 're too big to
| fail. If we penalize them, and they go out of business or
| even just downsize, and then we need something urgently,
| we're SOL. And so we keep ponying up so that, should we need
| it, we keep their manufacturing capabilities.
| bsder wrote:
| > So many boondoggles could be killed off before they spend
| money.
|
| This is, in fact, _precisely_ the issue with government
| contracting. But not in the way you think.
|
| For all practical purposes, every single government contract
| can be cancelled without warning and there's not a damn thing
| you can do about it. Consequently, every single government
| contract is executed with that in mind.
|
| This leads to all the pathological behaviors that everybody
| bitches about.
| hedora wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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"?
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Fiber can even run aerial on those same power lines. It
| doesn't _have_ to be buried, which could help some of the
| more remote areas that already have power.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Thats not what they said.
|
| <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
|
| If your ISP already took millions and didn't do what they
| said they would last time, that should disqualify them for
| another grant.
|
| >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.
|
| Sounds like starlink may make more sense for your home and
| community than fiber. There is obviously a density threshold
| where laying fiber is not cost effective.
| iav wrote:
| Hmm, I would like to see a citation on that second comment. You
| can look at Frontier's last earnings release, they spent $168M
| of build Capex to pass 332k homes, or $506/home passed in the
| last quarter. Note that "passing" a home is not the same as
| connecting a home, there is additional cost involved there. And
| Frontier has tremendous cost benefit from the fact that they
| already own the telephone poles that they can reuse and have
| been doing this for decades at massive scale.
|
| If you think the entire cost of laying fiber is just the cost
| of boring/digging, then you don't know what you are talking
| about.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| The thing is they keep saying it IS the digging that is
| hampering them (we know that to be false). The one I saw a
| few weeks ago they ran about 1000ft of cable in under an
| hour. Most of that was getting the machine off/on the trailer
| and reterminating the lines.
| arolihas wrote:
| eminent domain
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Of what exactly? You want the Feds to pay 100's of billions
| for SpaceX? Instead of Fiber?
| arolihas wrote:
| I don't want that. I don't think a lot of what OP made
| sense, but I was just correcting their typo since it's an
| understandable mistake and can be easily fixed.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in
| most places
|
| I'm sorry what? This part of your comment is so absurd that it
| calls into question anything else you might be saying here.
|
| I lived through a fiber roll out only a short year or so ago,
| it was an _entire summer_ of trucks, mostly contractors by the
| look of them, with trailers, with boring machines, stacks of
| boxes, and of course, spools upon spools of fiber and conduit.
| If that cost "essentially nothing" do you really assert that
| all of those workmen, all of those resources, all of those
| assets were simply brought forth from the void to perform their
| work and then sent back?
|
| And that's just the actual work, I'm sure there was months if
| not years of permitting, working with the city engineers to
| plan things out, the logistics behind all of that shit, for
| actual months of work that was barely completed before snow hit
| the ground.
|
| Holy fuck people. Infrastructure is HARD. It's one of the
| hardest things you CAN BUILD.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I love how the cost of directional drilling is completely
| discounted here. It's an expensive process that requires a ton
| of skilled (often union) labor.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>It costs essentially nothing to lay fiber in the ground in
| most places
|
| How to tell us you know absolutely nothing about the costs of
| running fiber, without actually saying you know absolutely
| nothing about the costs of running fiber
| tekla wrote:
| Highly recommend actually reading the FCC reports. I know that is
| a high bar.
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-reaffirms-rejection-nearly-...
|
| I'm pretty convinced that this ruling was a bit horseshit.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Care to summarize why for those of us who don't want to read
| the FCC report?
| jcranmer wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The RDOF has a testing and deployment timeline.
|
| It's supposed to only cover deployments under the award
| itself.
| jupp0r wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| ciarlill wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why does arch-capitalist Musk want to be beholden to the
| socialist policies of state-subsidies?
| rpmisms wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Except for X, most of his companies have involved large
| government subsidies or contracts. Tesla, SpaceX, Boring,
| Hyperloop.
| pmorici wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is consistent with the original decision. LTD Broadband,
| another big 2020 recipient is no longer eligible.
| https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-rejects-ltd-broadband-starl...
| wnevets wrote:
| This is precisely why anyone trying to tie this to Twitter is a
| political dunce.
| ejb999 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The FCC canceled Starlink's welfare check on August 10,
| 2022.
|
| Elon took over Twitter on October 27, 2022.
|
| Where is the coincidence exactly?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| LTD broadband couldn't raise the cash.
| downvotetruth wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| rohansingh wrote:
| OK, but that was far from the only reason. From the actual
| decision:
|
| > While Starlink faults the Bureau for relying on the most
| recent available data at the time of its decision to evaluate
| is existing network performance, Starlink does not explain what
| other data source the Bureau should have used in lieu of using
| the most recently available data. When the Bureau's decision
| was made, the most recent available evidence showed that
| "Starlink's performance had been declining for download speed,
| upload speed, and jitter test performance." In other words, it
| was not only failing to meet the RDOF public interest
| obligations, but also trending further away from them.
|
| (edited to fix formatting)
| shdwbannd1234 wrote:
| Amazing the arguments people make up when the obvious is well
| documented -- just another hoax people -- just another
| russian psyop -- it's all just so laughable. The us
| government has collapsed and lost all legitimacy and I'll be
| called the 'conspiracy theorist' or somen other inane
| response (if its even given one, likely shouted down or
| removed by the Mods on whatever flimsy pretext).
|
| We no longer live under the rule of law, there is no equality
| brfore it, nor do the gears of justice turn without bias,
| lady justice isnt blind.
|
| But yeah, we can all pretend and lie and make up bullshit
| excuses that will change on whim. Again, we have so much
| extensive documentation and people keep pretending it doesnt
| exist. Perhaps like my comment, does it exist for you?
| rideontime wrote:
| Polite disagree.
| alwa wrote:
| I don't understand what you're saying here. What is obvious
| and well-documented here, from your perspective? And of
| what do we have extensive documentation? The regulatory
| data at the time the decision was taken, or something in
| Starlink's defense?
|
| I didn't find the article especially clear on this point,
| but it sounds like Starlink says that if the decision were
| taken today rather than in 2022, the performance data
| wouldn't look so dire, and the FCC might have more faith in
| their promise to launch high-performance payloads with
| Starship during the grant's required timeframe, is that
| what you mean?
| valianteffort wrote:
| It's clear the government has been actively attacking
| Musk and his companies for any and all reasons it can
| find. During the past couple years of this administration
| the following has happened and it's just what I can
| recall:
|
| 1. Tesla gets no invite to whitehouse EV summit despite
| being the sole reason for the current EV movement
|
| 2. Tesla model 3/Y initially barred from new EV subsidies
|
| 3. SpaceX being investigated by justice department for
| not hiring foreigners (literally illegal due to ITAR)
|
| 4. NASA awards blue origin more than it awarded SpaceX
| for lunar lander despite them having zero orbital rocket
| experience or even a proper roadmap to orbit
|
| 5. FAA drags heels on approving starlink tests preventing
| progress on the requirements they say were failed to have
| been met today
|
| 6. Today's news about FCC revoking subsidy for the only
| company that actually cares to provide highspeed internet
| to rural Americans, which congress has appropriated
| funding for several times in the past two decades, and
| rewarded companies have failed to deliver on
|
| It's safe to say any kind of bullshit can be justified
| (with even more bullshit reasons), so it's hard to
| believe actions like this are made good faith. I'm not
| just going to trust criminals because they're robbing
| someone I don't like.
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| > 1. Tesla gets no invite to whitehouse EV summit despite
| being the sole reason for the current EV movement
|
| Why would Tesla be at a summit on union-made EVs? If you
| look at the actual speech Biden gave at the event, a lot
| of it is pretty counter to Tesla's anti-union stance:
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-
| remarks/20...
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > We no longer live under the rule of law, there is no
| equality brfore it,
|
| Anybody else but Trump would be in prison already for what
| he has done (urging his followers who he knew to be armed
| to "go to the capital and Fight Like Hell"). So it is true
| that equality before the law is definitely lacking in
| action.
|
| Another thing that makes me agree with "there is no
| equality" is that when you follow the news you see things
| like Giuliani owes his lawyers over million dollars. So it
| seems you need over a million dollars to get justice. Or
| alternatively, you can try to avoid justice, by spending
| millions.
|
| Trump says he has "over $100 million in legal fees"
|
| https://thehill.com/regulation/court-
| battles/4282653-trump-s....
|
| So again it seems you need $100 million to get justice, or
| alternatively to escape from it. How can justice that costs
| $100 million be fair and equitable to all?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Is there any truth to the statement from two of the five FCC
| commissioners that SpaceX was not required to meet those
| benchmarks until 2025, and this is a political action?
| rohansingh wrote:
| I don't feel knowledgeable enough about the expected
| process to comment on that. Two points of speculation
| though:
|
| 1. It looks like the commission believes Starlink is
| trending away from the targets rather than toward them, and
| that can't help their case.
|
| 2. It's hard for me to see how there would _not_ be at
| least some political considerations here. The fact that
| this program exists at all is a political decision. So it
| 's part & parcel of the playing field -- which is probably
| why most leaders work hard to not piss off their
| regulators.
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| I think #1 is what really strikes me here.
|
| It's like standing in front of a train and not moving
| because you asked the conductor to stop.
|
| What happens when they reach 2025 and billions of dollars
| have gone down the drain? Why wait?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| There's fines and no evidence SpaceX was getting
| billions. The award amount is public and paid monthly
| CamelCaseName wrote:
| Sorry, I thought the award stated was annual, reading it
| more closely I see that it's not.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| The amount everyones quoting is the full fat amount over
| the life of the contract.
|
| You have to show you can do most of it yourself i.e raise
| the money.
|
| After a %age deployment the FCC checks if you've met the
| deployment timeline and checks your speeds then starts
| paying you and keeps testing as you deploy according to
| the timeline.
|
| You don't get a dime upfront.
| barbacoa wrote:
| The reason individual speeds were trending down is
| because the number of users is increasing. Now that the
| service no longer has wait-lists and is fully available
| to everyone, one would imagine speeds increasing as more
| infrastructure is brought online.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Service tiers, QOS, QCI
| qarl wrote:
| Well - I may be biased, but I've been seeing a lot of
| claims from Republicans lately which do not closely match
| reality.
|
| Until there's actual evidence, I would be inclined to
| dismiss them.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| You can read the requirements, then read the denial
| letter, the appeal (and denial) and dissents.
| qarl wrote:
| That doesn't much help. Their main claim is that it is
| not normal (and hence political) for a subsidy to be
| canceled based for failure to make progress.
|
| I've seen no evidence supporting that claim, and lots of
| evidence to counter it.
| dbeardsl wrote:
| Here's a dissenting opinion from FCC Commissioner Nathan
| Simington:
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
|
| > What good is an agreement to build out service by 2025 if
| the FCC can, on a whim, hold you to it in 2022 instead? In
| 2022, many RDOF (the award in question) recipients had
| deployed no service at any speed to any location at all,
| and they had no obligation to do so. By contrast, Starlink
| had half a million subscribers in June 2022 (and about two
| million in September 2023).
|
| And this scathing conclusion:
|
| > 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. -- FCC
| Commissioner Nathan Simington
| turquoisevar wrote:
| As with all government projects, it's a highly technical
| (in the bureaucratic sense) process. You can find the
| relevant documents on their website[0].
|
| That said, how the dissenters characterize it is nowhere
| near how it works. They'd like you to believe that you won
| a bid, and from then on, it's "OK, talk to you at the
| deadline, enjoy our money!"
|
| Instead, it seems to me that it's a continuous process
| where you must present plans along the way, and progress is
| measured, as it should be because we're dealing with
| billions in public funds.
|
| The idea that this is exclusively targeted at Musk is also
| just nonsense. This article[1] states that Terrestrial
| telco LTD Broadband also lost their allotment of subsidies,
| and a cursory glance at the documents on the FCC website
| shows that many other companies lost theirs either due to
| withdrawing or having "defaulted" (i.e., not followed
| through on the promises/requirements).
|
| But none of that is compatible with the victim narrative of
| Musk et al., of course Musk _was_ the biggest in the
| subsidies; the other companies won smaller projects.
|
| 0: https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904
|
| 1: https://spacenews.com/fcc-upholds-denial-of-
| starlinks-900-mi...
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| LTD broadband couldn't show they had the money.
|
| RDOF requires speed testing of the devices deployed under
| RDOF, not the entire network.
|
| If say you have a 900Mhz network and you plan to deploy
| 5GNR for fixed wireless, they don't get to tell you you
| can only achieve 1 Mbps right now.
|
| You don't need to start deployment till you get the
| money. And there's deployment and testing steps.
| altairprime wrote:
| Please don't use code-formatted space-indent for quotes, your
| paragraph looks like a sawtooth on mobile with an indent
| every other sentence.
|
| Instead, use > *quote*. It'll be unindented but readable,
| which is an improvement over being indented but unreadable:
|
| > _While Starlink ..._
| rohansingh wrote:
| Thanks, struggled to find the correct formatting. Corrected
| it now.
| why_at wrote:
| The part that makes me question the legitimacy of this
| decision is the fact that there are still other companies
| receiving the subsidy.
|
| Quote from the article:
|
| >Starlink is the only company actually solving rural
| broadband at scale! They should arguably dissolve the program
| and return funds to taxpayers, but definitely not send it
| (to) those who aren't getting the job done
|
| Are these other companies meeting the targets? If not then it
| seems pretty arbitrary to reject just SpaceX for not doing so
| yet.
| turquoisevar wrote:
| You forgot to attribute the quote to Musk, arguably the
| least reliable person in our lifetime.
| why_at wrote:
| Fair enough I guess, this could be total BS. FWIW the
| dissenting FCC commissioners made similar arguments.
|
| >In 2022, many RDOF recipients had deployed no service at
| any speed to any location at all, and they had no
| obligation to do so
|
| Maybe this is just more spin from people who want to turn
| this into another political battleground. It's not
| entirely clear to me, but it seems like there is room for
| doubt.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >the uncertain nature of Starship's future launches could
| impact Starlink's ability to meet" its obligations
|
| Lol, what is the FCC on? No one else comes even close to their
| launch record [1].
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He
| ....
| stephenr wrote:
| You do understand that "Starship" is the literal name of a
| prototype space craft that is currently in development, but
| has not yet made a successful launch to orbit, rather than
| just a generic term, which may include the earlier, well-
| proven Falcon 9, right?
|
| SpaceX themselves have said that the future of their
| satellite internet business essentially depends on being able
| to put up a bigger model to replace the current ones, so much
| bigger that they can't feasibly use their existing, well-
| proven rockets to launch them.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Sure, but if you were to bet on a company to achieve that
| goal and it comes down to SpaceX vs. <literally who>?, it's
| not far fetched to go with the first.
| stephenr wrote:
| "Well it looks like no one else is going to achieve what
| _you_ said you could do, and you got kinda close so fuck
| it, keep the money " doesn't really sound like how you
| should expect a government subsidy to be managed.
|
| For the record: I'm not commenting on whether the
| government was right or wrong to cancel the subsidy for
| SpaceX. I'm simply explaining why SpaceX's inability (so
| far) to get Starship to orbit is referenced, and more
| specifically, why the launch reliability of Falcon 9 is
| specifically not relevant in a sentence that says
| "Starship".
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm not necessarily happy with the outcome here but the FCC
| never compared their current generation vehicle launch record
| to anyone else's. They're saying SpaceX planned to launch
| 12,000-42,000 satellites within a certain timeline using new
| vehicles to keep up with demand but are currently at ~5,500
| with Starship's start not going as smoothly as SpaceX planned
| for. Starship (or a Starship class vehicle) will get there
| eventually, almost certainly IMO, but the point here is it is
| uncertain if it'll get there in time to meet the obligations
| (part of which is timing) Starlink has made.
| toss1 wrote:
| >> : "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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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).
| hnburnsy wrote:
| "Hyundai and Kia are recalling more than 3 million
| vehicles and advising owners to park them outside due to
| risk of fire in the engine compartments."
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/09/27/1202075844/kia-hyundai-
| recall...
| toss1 wrote:
| >> 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).
|
| Right. And the issue is the ratio of popularity to
| supply. A neighbor near a family cabin in rural Maine,
| where the service is only copper ~10mbps down/1 up and
| more expensive that FIOS at home just installed two
| Starlinks. They're generally satisfied, but the first
| thing they mentioned is occasional slow speeds.
|
| The officials in charge of the contract must ensure that
| the required service level will be met. Granting nearly a
| Billion dollars to provide a level of service, and then
| having them say "sorry, it's too popular and everyone is
| slow" will not cut it. Everyone (I hope including you)
| would be screaming about wasting taxpayer dollars on a
| service that did not provide the service.
|
| I'm sure one fix for Starlink would be to offer a
| prioritized service level for all of the rural broadband
| customers. Yes, this could mean that RVers might just
| wind up with no service at some times and locales, but if
| Starlink really wants that contract, perhaps they should
| offer that assurance.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| They can offer an RDOF specific plan. Think internet
| essentials from Comcast.
| oittaa wrote:
| How do I block/mute these trolls on this website? I tried
| searching the FAQ but didn't see anything.
| belltaco wrote:
| Dissenting statement by one of the FCC commissioners.
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| skissane wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| jsight wrote:
| 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.
| belltaco wrote:
| > 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.
| jsight wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Perhaps not billion dollar, but shouldn't it give some
| participation trophies? How else to entice innovation in
| certain areas, especially when the interest rates are
| killing small tech outfits.
| lolbase wrote:
| No, it should not.
| intrasight wrote:
| Agreed. The FCC shouldn't be giving out any funds. They
| should stick to their role as regulator. Starlink as a
| properly grounded libertarian outfit should have lobbied
| to have any subsidy role by the FCC discontinued.
| Starlink should have just competed in the broadband
| marketplace - as should have everyone else. In such a
| level playing field, I think Starlink would do just fine.
| jsight wrote:
| I agree with this. But we have to operate in the world
| that exists and not necessarily the one that we wish to
| exist.
| jn1234 wrote:
| I'd think it would be because SpaceX probably argued that the
| trajectory with Startship launching 10s of thousands of
| satellites that it would meet the program requirements.
| ren_engineer wrote:
| >If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink
| cannot provide, then this makes sense?
|
| no, because the only reason Starlink doesn't currently hit the
| metrics is due to them having so many users joining. They could
| hit the metrics by temporarily halting signups, cutting off
| users, or delaying the Pentagon's massive deployment project.
|
| Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US military
| admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink capacity
| that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up their
| internet
|
| >U.S. defense officials had previously estimated that the
| annual cost for Starlink in Ukraine, which Musk mostly had been
| donating, will be hundreds of millions of dollars.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/01/...
|
| The tech is proven to work, the FCC is just playing politics.
| kredd wrote:
| > due to them having so many users joining
|
| I'm actually curious, what is their userbase and where can I
| find the info?
| danbruc wrote:
| Wikipedia has some numbers [1] according to which they
| passed 2M users in September 2023 and are growing pretty
| consistently by about 100k users per month since mid 2022.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Subscribers
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| > Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US
| military admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink
| capacity that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up
| their internet
|
| Satellites in LEO over Ukraine can't provide service to the
| US. (and because of the way orbits work a LEO satellite that
| spends time over the US will also spend time over Ukraine)
| 2devnull wrote:
| Is there not internet bandwidth involved? Bandwidth for one
| person means less bandwidth for another, doesn't it?
| ianburrell wrote:
| Internet bandwidth in America and Ukraine are completely
| separate. Starlink is mostly bent-pipe, sending signals
| to station in view of the satellite. Over remote areas,
| the satellites need to talk to each other to relay
| signals. But my understanding is that goes to the closest
| ground station.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _no, because the only reason Starlink doesn 't currently
| hit the metrics is due to them having so many users joining.
| They could hit the metrics by temporarily halting signups,
| cutting off users, or delaying the Pentagon's massive
| deployment project._
|
| I admittedly don't know much about this process, but with a
| billion dollars on the line, why wouldn't they have presented
| these options? It's not like this came out of nowhere,
| Starlink knew that they were not meeting their obligations
| and was given a chance to present their case.
|
| I don't know, it just seems like it would be pretty easy to
| halt signups for a month, show that speeds increased
| drastically as my launches got ahead of my signups, and then
| explain to the FCC why this would be the normal state of
| affairs at some point in the future. Or, don't even actually
| halt signups, just make a convincing case about why halting
| signups would drastically increase speeds, and by 2025 you
| plan to do whatever you need to do to hit that 100/20 metric,
| but right now you're trying to do the most good for the most
| people, which means more signups and lower speeds.
|
| For a billion dollars, these all seem like easy & obvious
| arguments to make if they were at all viable.
|
| Anyway, I think that if Starlink can prove that they're
| making progress towards their commitment, they become
| eligible for the subsidy again, so if halting signups is
| really a viable strategy and they really care about the
| billion dollars then it seems like they should do that.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Ah, but here you assume that the FCC is acting in good
| faith. Assume no good faith, and follow the same trail.
| ianburrell wrote:
| What Pentagon deployment project? I can't find any news
| stories about military rolling out Starlink. The only news is
| US paying for Ukraine's access; cutting off Ukraine would not
| be good for SpaceX. The military doesn't need Starlink with
| all their communications satellites. They are looking at it
| for polar use where Starlink has better coverage.
|
| Are you talking about the SDA Starshield constellation? That
| isn't launching yet, the contract is for development.
| Starshield has nothing to do with Starlink except using the
| same platform and taking up launch slots.
|
| I like how you didn't mention that Starlink could solve
| capacity problems by launching more satellites.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Starshield
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| > Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US
| military admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink
| capacity that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up
| their internet
|
| That doesn't sound right. Satellites over Ukraine cannot be
| reached anywhere from the US and they also wouldn't use the
| same gateways. So I could see the use of starlink in Ukraine
| possibly slowing service in Europe. But I cannot see how it
| would affect customers in the US.
| danbruc wrote:
| Starlink is nothing that you deploy and then you are done. When
| you have launched the last satellite, then the first ones
| launched will have reached the end of their lifespan and you
| essentially have to start over, deploy the entire constellation
| once again as the satellites reach the end of their lifespan
| one by one. With a lifespan of say 5 years, you will have to
| deploy the entire constellation once every 5 years, with 12k
| satellites you are looking at replacing 200 satellites each
| month, forever. That sounds possible without Starship but I can
| also imagine that being able to use Starship is necessary for
| the economical viability in the long run.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Their lifespan when active is longer than 5 years because
| they have thrusters. 5 years is if they're dead and left to
| decay
| danbruc wrote:
| All the numbers I have seen were 5 to 7 years of
| operational lifespan but I can not find a primary source
| from SpaceX at the moment. I think I also read that there
| are plans to increase the lifespan eventually with larger
| satellites, deployed using Starship.
| Faark wrote:
| 5 years to deorbit passively is correct, but the expected
| service life is in somewhat similar. Best quote i've got on
| hand right now is wikipedia:
|
| > "...implement an operations plan for the orderly de-orbit
| of satellites nearing the end of their useful lives
| (roughly five to seven years) at a rate far faster than is
| required under international standards.
|
| Obviously there are many unknowns in factors like hardware
| reliability or fuel consumption.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I've got news for you about Earth-based networking gear. You
| don't just install it and forget about it forever - you
| replace and upgrade, almost continuously, and lifespans are
| frequently significantly less than five years.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| A 1000Gbps cable laid down in the ground will be able to
| support 1000Gbps even 50 years from now provided that it
| doesn't get truncated by accident or Earthquake
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| a cable is pretty useless without all of the other
| hardware
| oittaa wrote:
| That "cable laid down" is vacuum of the space in this
| situation. It's not going to disappear.
| pid-1 wrote:
| Tell that to your local telco carrier. I bet my ass they
| have network equipment runnning with zero updates for well
| over a decade.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| It's hard to tell due to the redactions, but it seems like
| Starlink brought Starship into the discussion as part of the
| explanation of how it would have the technical capability to
| deliver the service.
| alwa wrote:
| I'm an unqualified casual observer and working from memory,
| but I seem to remember capacity and throughput promises
| related to the "Starlink 2.0" satellites, which Mr. Musk
| claims are "an order of magnitude better" than the current
| birds on unspecified measures [0], and without which Starlink
| couldn't credibly deliver the promised service to the
| promised number of households in the promised time to earn
| the subsidy [1].
|
| The new satellite designs got a bit mired in regulatory
| complications until December of 2022, but it turned out to be
| moot since they're too big and heavy to get up to orbit
| without Starship's lift capacity and Starship isn't there yet
| (and might not be within the period the subsidy
| contemplated). After the decision to cancel the subsidy
| (which is on appeal here) was taken back in 2022, Starlink
| seem to have rejiggered the 2.0 satellites into a "2.0-mini"
| configuration suitable for launch via Falcon 9 [2].
|
| Apparently they would like for the FCC to reconsider the
| subsidy decision in light of them engineering around the
| Starship dependency?
|
| [0] https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/spacex-
| starshi...
|
| [1] https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/starlinks-current-
| pro...
|
| [2] https://starlinkinsider.com/starlink-gen2-satellites/
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| do you mean v3 instead of v2? I thought they already had v2
| in service but just weren't able to launch very many of
| them on falcon
| axus wrote:
| I feel like it's a fair decision, they had certain criteria.
| Even so, more broadband competition in rural areas would be
| better than subsidizing the incumbents.
| dbeardsl wrote:
| An FCC commissioner indicates that the FCC is yoinking the
| award because it thinks SpaceX won't hit the 2025 targets, yet
| many other award recipients have _no_ service and _no_ rollout
| and _no_ speeds to even measure:
|
| > What good is an agreement to build out service by 2025 if the
| FCC can, on a whim, hold you to it in 2022 instead? In 2022,
| many RDOF recipients had deployed no service at any speed to
| any location at all, and they had no obligation to do so. By
| contrast, Starlink had half a million subscribers in June 2022
| (and about two million in September 2023). The majority's only
| response to this point is that those other recipients were
| relying on proven technologies like fiber, while SpaceX was
| relying on new LEO technology.
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| ezfe wrote:
| They also revoked LTD Broadband's award
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| LTD broadband couldn't raise cash
| alephnan wrote:
| > yet many other award recipients have no service and no
| rollout and no speeds to even measure:
|
| Unfortunately, most of the public won't know or care about
| this blatant corruption and crony capitalism
|
| The revolving door between regulators and industry keeps on
| turning
| constantly wrote:
| As far as I can tell in a cursory reading, SpaceX Starlink
| applied for subsidies with enumerated requirements. They
| cannot meet those requirements, so the subsidy is
| rescinded.
|
| Seems straightforward and doesn't seem to matter, as far as
| I can tell, how many other companies couldn't meet the
| requirements or don't have the hardware to meet those
| requirements or whatever.
|
| Unclear why this is "blatant corruption" or "crony
| capitalism" and in fact seems to be based in facts. Can you
| explain?
| jsight wrote:
| I'm getting the impression that some of the competitors
| haven't built anything to test yet. Based upon that,
| using the current performance of Starlink and comparing
| it to the hypothetical performance of others might not be
| fair. If Starlink is losing an award because of
| supposition, that's bad.
|
| But I must admit that I haven't read all of the history
| here.
| pmorici wrote:
| 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.
| ortusdux wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-
| 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.
| pmorici wrote:
| Seeing as they offer service basically everywhere in the
| US right now and the only quibble is that the average
| speed is only 75 Mbps instead of 100 Mbps I'd say they
| are well ahead of 40%.
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| That isn't a quibble, the 100/20 requirement was a key
| requirement they set themselves.
|
| Regardless though, I was wrong about the buildout
| reasoning. The FCC just doesn't believe, based off the
| information provided by Starlink, they had a strong
| enough likelihood of success with the plan provided to
| stay in the running.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Starlink hasn't gotten any money, so they aren't subject
| to build requirements
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| Yeah I messed that up. After reading more the denial was
| focused on the fact that Starlink didn't refute they were
| not consistently delivering speeds and latency that
| matched the tier they bid on, and their plan to bridge
| that gap wasn't convincing to the reviewers or the
| Commission.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| The argument is if they had paid on time would they have
| been able to deliver to the particular customers by 2025?
| i.e not everyone. Just RDOF subsided users in the awarded
| areas
|
| The Dems say no. Evidence is current state of network and
| absence of starship.
|
| SpaceX says yes. V2 is already launching on Falcon. We
| don't need starship to meet our obligations but it will
| make it faster.
|
| Republicans say both of you are talking nonsense. Until
| 2025 you can't find out. And there's a process for
| getting there. You only test devices that are under the
| RDOF plan, not everyone. And since SpaceX hasn't been
| awarded, you can't do any testing that's relevant.
|
| Imagine SpaceX got awarded say Diomede and you're
| bringing up speeds in LA and Seattle or the Midwest.
|
| SpaceX will sue and lose due to Chevron deference
| pardoned_turkey wrote:
| I'm in a rural location. Not that rural, about five minutes
| away from a town of 10,000 people. I have exactly three
| internet choices: old-school satellite (with 600 ms latency),
| unreliable 10 Mbit DSL for $150/month, or Starlink for
| $120/month. Many of my neighbors aren't as lucky and don't
| even get DSL.
|
| My DSL provider received hundreds of millions in government
| subsidies and did nothing to improve the service in the
| region, and brazenly lied about it to the FCC. I know that
| it's fashionable to criticize Elon Musk, and it's often
| justified, but Starlink is far more deserving of government
| funds than most of the grifter ISPs who actually get the
| subsidies.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| If you start a WISP and service your neighbors, the FCC
| would probably be happy to provide you a subsidy now that
| they have an extra $1 billion that isn't going to Starlink.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| That's not how this works.
|
| Under this program there's no option of another org
| replacing a denied org. Who's stepping up for LTD
| broadband for example?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| There's a fixed pool of money ($16 billion), so everyone
| who gets some of it does replace a denied org.
| jcims wrote:
| This is dependent on the cell you're in. I've been on
| Starlink since Feb 2021 and dipping below 100 down is very
| rare. It' averages about 140 down and 20 up with about 30ms
| latency.
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| For this grant the 100/20 needed to be consistently
| available in specific geographic areas. So if the cells
| bring down the performance averages are concentrated in
| those grant areas, it makes sense for them to fail to meet
| the program criteria while still having a product that hits
| those metrics elsewhere.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| The denial doesn't quote speeds in those areas
| Deprecate9151 wrote:
| It doesn't, I'm just expanding on why a specific cell
| meeting the program specifications "usually" wouldn't
| really move the need for the FCC analysis.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I don't really see how it's embarrassing that the FCC set out a
| clear requirement for a low-latency, 100/20M rural service and
| Starlink (having failed to show a plan to achieve that) is not
| accepted into the program.
|
| Which part is embarrassing to the FCC, exactly?
| pmorici wrote:
| Because if you use the service you know it is capable of that
| and more today. SpaceX is also capable of providing
| differentiated service speeds so looking at what an average
| user is getting today is not indicative of what could be
| provided if they were under some minimum speed obligation.
| The FCC's rational is clearly them twisting themselves into
| knots to try and get to the decision they want to satisfy
| their preferred politics.
|
| When a government agency that is supposed to be impartial and
| fact based is clearly making decisions like this on a
| political basis that undermines it in the long term due to
| public mistrust.
| baseballdork wrote:
| > Because if you use the service you know it is capable of
| that and more today.
|
| If you use their service, you know that it's capable of
| serving X amount of people at Y up and Z down with N
| latency? C'mon...
| pmorici wrote:
| Yes, but that is a function of satellite density or so
| the argument seems to suggest. SpaceX is launching
| rockets multiple times a week and has put more satellites
| into orbit that any entity in the history of human kind
| by an order of magnitude or more. Betting they won't be
| able to meet these speed goals is not a rational
| conclusion.
| rrook wrote:
| If you read through the decision, the reasoning is all
| there, it's absolutely rational. What's _not_ rational is
| preferring personal anecdotal experience over the
| aggregate analysis.
| pmorici wrote:
| The reasoning that is there is all subjective.
| bmitc wrote:
| If the service is so awesome, why does it need a billion
| dollar subsidy, i.e., free money paid for by taxpayers?
| pmorici wrote:
| It doesn't. This was originally legislated as a hand out
| to legacy telecom companies that lobbied for it. Seeing
| as it exists though I would rather the money be spent
| with the best option instead of it being used as a
| political retribution fund.
| bmitc wrote:
| So the requirements set out however long ago that
| Starlink agreed to and now isn't meeting is political
| retribution? How so?
| nicce wrote:
| Some other company could take it happily and increase the
| competition. Maybe even provide better results, while it
| might take some time.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| Heavy emphasis on maybe, do you think legacy telecoms
| have a history of actually delivering on rural broadband
| deployment promises?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| So if all this is true, the embarrassing part is that
| _SpaceX_ couldn 't make a compelling presentation of the
| facts that support them. I'm sorry but "OK, yes, we are
| missing the target performance goals and trending further
| away from them but _awesomeness_ " is ... not compelling.
|
| This isn't like cable or fiber where the technology is
| already mature and it's simply the business case.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _Because if you use the service you know it is capable of
| that and more today._
|
| The numbers show otherwise and the FCC made it clear that
| Starlink presented no numbers to the contrary. This isn't
| even a case of the FCC's numbers saying one thing and
| Starlink's numbers saying another.
|
| I totally believe that some places give you consistent
| 100/20 speeds, but aggregate numbers don't show that and
| Starlink made no attempt to argue otherwise.
| pmorici wrote:
| Today your speed tier is based on what you pay. If you
| pay for the priority or business tier service you
| absolutely get over 100Mbps consistently, a lot more. If
| you pay for the basic service tier then yeah you might
| only get 3-4x DSL speeds which is still phenomenal for
| the purpose being discussed here.
| altairprime wrote:
| If your basic service tier is lower than 100/20, you
| would be disqualified for the subsidy.
| pmorici wrote:
| That's not how it works, they just need to offer a
| service tier that provides a service with the required
| minimums by a particular date, it is obviously possible
| unless you are blinded by revenge politics.
| altairprime wrote:
| I see. I've misunderstood the broadband auctions, and
| have reviewed https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904 to
| determine more correctly what's going on here.
|
| All, please disregard my comment and refer instead to
| this top comment instead:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38628276
| enraged_camel wrote:
| The question isnt whether it is phenomenal. The question
| is if Starlink is meeting the obligations outlined in the
| grant, and if so, why they didn't bother to dispute the
| numbers FCC showed.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| No one else is even close to being able to offer 100/20M
| rural service.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| That's the point of the subsidy: to make the equivalent of
| fiber runs to rural areas (and presumably local WISPs)
| cost-effective. The main intent of the subsidy was not to
| subsidize the development of new, uncertain technologies.
|
| Musk still managed to slide in and loot a few billion
| dollars before they realized that Starlink can't meet their
| definition of "broadband." No other satellite internet
| could either.
| pmorici wrote:
| "Musk still managed to slide in and loot a few billion
| dollars before they realized that Starlink can't meet
| their definition of "broadband.""
|
| That's false. SpaceX doesn't appear to have actually
| received any money from the FCC for this program yet, and
| now won't assuming this decision holds.
| karpatic wrote:
| It sounds as though these new mitigating standards were
| brought out after the grant was already awarded which is
| where accusations of political malfeasance come into
| play.
| cavisne wrote:
| Starlink is basically a WISP with an actually scalable
| business model, just the towers (and soon a lot of the
| backhaul) are up in space.
|
| WISPs rely on a local enthusiastic person to make it
| work.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| By no means does the program make the claim "to make the
| equivalent of fiber runs". You're just making claims up
| to rationalize what in all likelihood, was politically
| driven. Even the votes from the FCC members were along
| party lines.
|
| There were speed targets of 100Mbps available to 20M
| households. They're currently at a median of 65Mbps [1]
| and they already have more than 99% of the U.S. covered
| [2]. It's an egregious, questionable, partisan claim by
| the FCC that they can't reasonably be expected to hit the
| speed target by 2025.
|
| [1] https://www.ookla.com/articles/us-satellite-
| performance-q3-2... [2]
| https://www.starlink.com/map?view=availability
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| Where did you get this idea spacex has been paid any
| money? This article is a denial of said subsidy
| a2tech wrote:
| In my parents county (very rural), the local electric coop
| is running fiber on all their poles. Its possible that my
| parents living 10 miles from the nearest town (2 4-way
| stops, a grocery store and a couple of gas stations) will
| get gigabit fiber before my friends that live in a well off
| suburb in a dense urban area will.
| kyralis wrote:
| About 5 years ago I moved from Silicon Valley to rural
| Vermont. I have 750 symmetric fiber on my dirt road, and
| have had more reliable internet here than I did in the
| South Bay for the decade I lived there.
|
| Where politics doesn't impede the growth of municipal and
| co-op internet solutions, it is absolutely possible for
| rural communities to end up with very capable internet
| access.
| ejb999 wrote:
| same here. - I don't live far from you, in a town of less
| than 1000 people - and more than 40 miles from even a
| modest-sized city - and we now have 1GB symmetrical
| fiber-to-the-home for less than $100/month - and it
| hasn't gone out even once in over 2 years.
|
| It can work.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| In my parents not-so-rural any longer home (although it
| was when I was a kid), despite being located less than a
| mile from a 100K+ population community, they still cannot
| get more than 1.5 Mbps and DSL is the only wired option
| available to them. They have an AT&T hotspot card that
| they use, but it gets throttled (dramatically) after 30GB
| of data usage, and itself has to be positioned in very
| specific areas of their house in order to get 1 or 2 bars
| to eke out a 10Mbps connection speed.
|
| It's nice that your parents have a co-op that is actively
| rolling out such infrastructure. That's not the rule
| though, and the U.S. has massive swaths of low density
| population areas with substandard internet speeds.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| There's some kind of disconnect here, because 85% of the
| service areas covered by the RDOF have winning bidders
| committed to providing at least 1000/500M service.
| pardoned_turkey wrote:
| The embarrassing part is how they have been allocating
| subsidies to ISPs that don't provide rural connectivity
| improvements nearly as significant as what Starlink managed
| to actually pull off. A competent agency would do whatever
| they can to support Starlink's efforts or replicate them
| elsewhere. Instead, they're cutting off the one ISP that
| actually revolutionized rural internet access after 20 years
| of government-bankrolled stagnation and grift.
| jsight wrote:
| Their goals are only 100/20mbps? I'd say that part is
| embarrassing. Given the amount of money involved, I'd have
| expected them to push for higher than that.
| nixgeek wrote:
| The FCC is pushing here and wants to see 1000/500 speeds
| but the lobbyists are pushing back.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/cable-lobby-
| to-f...
| literalAardvark wrote:
| 100/20 average is spectacular for those living in the US
| boonies. And they're the target.
|
| No one else comes even close. You can't run fiber there,
| can't mount towers everywhere.
| jsight wrote:
| It is certainly better than a lot of existing options,
| but so is Starlink. I'd have expected an option that
| excludes Starlink to be something fairly future-proof.
| And, IME, people in those remote areas are using Starlink
| pretty successfully now.
|
| Instead, these standards are so low that it makes me
| wonder how Starlink doesn't qualify. The fact that they
| are just out of reach of Starlink in just enough areas to
| disqualify them does make the whole process a bit suspect
| looking.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Starlink, when originally launched, did hit the
| performance targets. It seems pretty clear that Starlink
| could've produced a plan that would've restricted user
| onboarding in a way that showed a commitment to continue
| hitting the targets. Instead, they added subscribers to
| the point that service deteriorated below the standards
| and was trending worse.
|
| I don't know whether this was a purely commercial
| decision to generate mass adoption prior to building out
| the constellation and the rest of the required
| infrastructure, or whether there was some kind of
| underperformance vs engineer plan or whatever.
|
| In either case, it's not a good look. Particularly if it
| was a commercial decision, then it's a case of "decisions
| have consequences".
| jsight wrote:
| I can understand that, but are they measuring Starlink's
| competitors by the same standard? Overloading backhaul,
| at least temporarily, is hardly a new problem.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| They're using (AIUI) Ookla Speedtest data, rather than
| taking anyone's word for anything.
| Dig1t wrote:
| It's obvious to anyone who actually used the service or lives
| in a rural area how much good the service is doing. In many
| rural places there are literally no other options, or the
| options are so bad that it is laughable. This is one of those
| letter of the law vs spirit of the law things. Yes
| technically the speeds you currently get are not exactly at
| the promised level yet, but the service is a monumental
| success and is providing service that is definitely in line
| with the intent behind the subsidy.
|
| I could see this making sense if there was any real
| competition or someone else who was realistically going to
| provide the service. But the only competition for this money
| are companies with a poor track records and that are
| notoriously bad.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Starlink success, and to that extent, SpaceX, are arguably tied
| to government money.
|
| I would say that not getting almost $1B _may_ impact their
| operations quite a bit.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Starlink has 2 million customers, likely with >$1000 ARPU and
| is growing quite rapidly. $1B annually would be material. $1B
| as a one time payment is significant but seems unlikely to
| affect viability. Musk has said that Starship and Starlink
| are each $5B-$10B investments.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| > Starlink has 2 million customers, likely with >$1000 ARPU
| and is growing quite rapidly. $1B annually would be
| material.
|
| This suggests that they are in the black, which they are
| not. They are losing a lot of money.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| SpaceX was profitable last quarter.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/elon-musks-spacex-turns-
| pro...
| rapsey wrote:
| VCs are falling over themselves trying to get in on SpaceX.
| If there were to go public they would immediately be worth
| hundreds of billions. It will likely be one of the biggest
| IPOs in history. They are not that strapped for cash.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| Then what's the deal with government funds?
|
| For a company that doesn't need money, they seem quite
| upset that they aren't getting much of it.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| When your competition gets funds and you don't it puts
| you at a disadvantage.
|
| You can see NEVI as an example.
| rpmisms wrote:
| "Oh look, free money to provide the service we're
| _already providing_ "
| sangnoir wrote:
| > They are not that strapped for cash.
|
| Exactly - because they were/are getting boatloads of cash
| from the government. There is no shame in that.
| grecy wrote:
| > _Starlink success, and to that extent, SpaceX, are arguably
| tied to government money._
|
| Citation please.
|
| The government are paying SpaceX as a customer, they're not
| giving them free money.
|
| Also note they're paying them a lot less than they pay ULA
| for the same things
| jrflowers wrote:
| This is a good point. So long as you define "government
| money" as "something other than money from the government",
| SpaceX does not rely on government money.
|
| You can see that this is true with other businesses as
| well, no business relies on getting "customer money"
| because "customer money" means when customers donate to you
| in exchange for nothing, not money that they pay in
| exchange for goods or services.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Ineptly retracting a subsidy that isn't needed or even
| impactful?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| In defense of the FCC, barely anyone survives the lobbying
| power of entrenched ISPs.
| colechristensen wrote:
| 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.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| If starlink would be a success regardless, why should it be
| subsidized with tax payer money. Isn't the point of subsidies
| to support things that would otherwise not be a success?
| convery wrote:
| As commissioner Brendan Carr's dissent wasn't included in the
| article:
| https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/173469670679577812...
| hnburnsy wrote:
| And...
|
| DISSENTING STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER NATHAN SIMINGTON
|
| https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A3.pdf
| akamaka wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Biden is not the Pentagon.
| freejazz wrote:
| But he's the FCC? They are both the executive branch.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Sure, but that runs against the argument that was being
| made, which is that Biden isn't the pentagon but he's the
| fcc...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| He said it's good enough for the military but apparently not
| good enough for the FCC chair who Biden appointed. How is
| that hard to understand?
| Coder1996 wrote:
| I wonder who was ultimately approved for RDOF at my house. How do
| I find that out?
| ciarlill wrote:
| 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-2...
| paxys wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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-a...
|
| Crimea is under occupied territory and didn't have Starlink
| activated, so it's wrong to say they deacivated it.
| rapsey wrote:
| Starlink would literally be breaking the law if they were to
| provide connectivity to Crimea.
| literalAardvark wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Have you tried using a FAANG product with a Crimean IP address?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| They did reject another broadband company - that company just
| doesn't have a cult of fans to throw tantrums online for them.
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| 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.
| memish wrote:
| Bizarre complaint of someone who has delivered far beyond what
| anyone thought possible. Starlink, rockets, millions of EVs
| have been provably produced, not just promised.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| SpaceX can't launch? Then who got the money?!
| LukeLambert wrote:
| 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/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...
| plumeria wrote:
| What are you using to run the automated speed tests?
| jamroom wrote:
| Not sure what they use but I've used Speedtest CLI:
|
| https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli
|
| works good.
| LukeLambert wrote:
| Yep! speedtest -f json -I eth0
|
| I also test the WISP connection on eth1
| dubcanada wrote:
| 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.
| spurgu wrote:
| I wonder if the satellites fly in a pattern that repeats
| every 24 hours...
| LukeLambert wrote:
| Note that the timestamps are UTC, while Texas is UTC-6:00
| during Standard Time and UTC-5:00 during Daylight Saving
| Time. There's definitely a dip during prime streaming hours.
| ejb999 wrote:
| Before starlink my only option was 3MB DSL from Verizon, it was
| literally life changing as a WFH person to get the 100-200Mbps
| downloads that Starlink gave me (for $99/month).
|
| Fast forward and now I have 1GB symmetrical fiber-to-the-home.
|
| Really nice to have that, but the leap from DSL to Starlink was
| life changing, the leap from Starlink to fiber was merely a
| minor improvment.
| atlgator wrote:
| It's also possible that you would not have gotten fiber in
| the same timeframe if Starlink hadn't competed for your
| business. Companies like Windstream are notorious for gaining
| regulated monopolies in rural areas, gobbling up government
| subsidies, only to deliver low bandwidth, saturated service
| to customers.
| stusmall wrote:
| Huh. It's really nice to see actual metrics. I live in a rural
| area and get my internet through a fixed wireless provider. For
| a while I'd been wondering if it was worth giving Starlink a
| try
|
| While this is usually a bit more bandwidth than I get, that
| isn't consistent and the ping is much worse. I pretty
| consistently get 50/15 with 15ms ping at about $90/mo after
| tax+fees. Based on some of the hype and press Starlink gets I
| assumed it would have had much better bandwidth, even if the
| latency is about inline with my expectations. Thanks for
| gathering and sharing this.
| nikanj wrote:
| Is there any sort of data capping on their plan? Speed tests
| burn through quite a bit of data
| sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
| Maybeeeeeeee Musk shouldn't be conducting personal foreign
| policy?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| So he shouldn't have sent dishes in February 2022 or allowed
| use in the frontline thereafter?
| sertbdfgbnfgsd wrote:
| 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?
| chung8123 wrote:
| 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.
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is all being superseded by IIJA anyway. A lot of fiber is
| going to go in the ground.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| asylteltine wrote:
| Elon "over promise and under deliver" Musk
|
| FSD is coming any day now right?
| goodguy29495 wrote:
| you can try it out in any post-2018 Tesla with the option
| package.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Beta test it, if you're eligible, and if you paid for it.
| asylteltine wrote:
| You mean you can BETA test this in a life or death
| situation and put non-consenting individuals at risk
| because you want to flex your toy right? It's demonstrably
| dangerous and shouldn't be allowed on public roads.
| brianpan wrote:
| What you can try out today is "fully" self-driving with
| limited capabilities in limited scenarios. Hardly fully
| anything.
| akho wrote:
| It's very obviously a military project. I don't see what you
| expect to be different wrt funding.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| How is it "maintained afloat" by government money, when it
| receives no subsidies? The only government payment for starlink
| that I am aware of is for the terminals in Ukraine.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| If it recives no subsidies then not getting a $900M subsidy
| shouldn't be a surprise!
| belltaco wrote:
| The comment said "continue to extract..". Try again.
| grecy wrote:
| Starlink was never designed to be faster than fibre, and it was
| certainly never designed or intended for use by people that ave
| access to fibre (or cable, or LTE for that matter).
|
| SpaceX have re-iterated this on many, many occasions.
|
| Anyone who things otherwise simply doesn't understand the
| product.
|
| Starlink is designed for people who live in remote areas that
| have no access to any of that.
|
| Go out right now and see how life changing it is for those
| people. All across Northern Canada & rural Australia I've met
| dozens of people who previously had access to dial-up AT BEST
| in 2022, and now have solid broadband connections.
| TheAlchemist wrote:
| It was. The V2 that they are deploying is supposedly
| communicating directly between satellites, making it faster
| than fiber over long distances.
|
| Elon advertised that in 2019 or something already.
|
| I don't deny it is life changing for those people ! All I'm
| saying is that it's not economically viable to provide that
| to those people. And the only way it is, it's because it's
| either a business bleeding money, or supported by the
| government.
| grecy wrote:
| > _It was_
|
| No. It was never designed or advertised to offer "faster
| than fibre" connections to end users, and all along Musk
| and maintained it makes absolutely no sense for a person to
| use Starlink if they already have access to a ground-based
| option like fibre or cable or LTE.
|
| > _All I 'm saying is that it's not economically viable to
| provide that to those people. And the only way it is, it's
| because it's either a business bleeding money, or supported
| by the government_
|
| Those are wild claims.
|
| Please post citations about how it's bleeding money or is
| supported by the government.
| alsodumb wrote:
| You are obviously giving very biased answers without any
| substantial proof.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| The proof is everywhere when you look at products
| manufactured by Musk companies
|
| They are all based on re-inventing the wheel (quite
| literally) for political purposes and government money
| extraction.
|
| You'll never find the guy developing something that
| customers really want such as self-checkout system that
| doesn't suck, because there is no Government money to be
| extracted from it.
| alsodumb wrote:
| Let's see, Tesla is reinventing the wheel for extracting
| government money extraction? They make a solid profit on
| each car they sell. You gonna bring up the loan. But that
| loan was repaid in full by Tesla, ahead of time, where as
| Ford and other who also got similar loans defaulted on
| it. You going to bring up EV subsidies - but that's open
| to every automaker and Tesla is probably the only company
| that can make a margin on their car even without EV
| subsidy.
|
| Now let's talk SpaceX - people who are not familiar with
| the space industry don't realize how much SpaceX
| fundamentally changed the industry - before SpaceX it was
| like two players in the space launch area, and they used
| to charge government a shit ton of money for each launch,
| often using Russian engines. SpaceX made it so cheap that
| it was hard for anyone to compete, and their offerings
| are so cheap when compared to anyone else (and sometimes
| they are the only launch option US) that even competitors
| are compelled to use SpaceX. You being a Musk hater would
| argue that all the government launch contracts to SpaceX
| are 'subsidies' but nope, they launches were gonna happen
| whether SpaceX existed or not. SpaceX only saved
| government tens of billions of dollars by reducing the
| launch costs.
|
| I can keep going on but it wouldn't matter to you.
| Customers really wanted SpaceX. Everyone who uses
| Starlink really wants it, go talk to actual users. Just
| because the products the guy is developing doesn't align
| with your notion of what customers really want doesn't
| mean if it's something useful.
|
| Starlink would exist without this subsidy from the
| government. That doesn't mean that Starlink should not
| try to get a share of the subsidy that government offered
| to all the players in this market. If you have a problem
| with the subsidy complain about the government, not one
| of the many beneficiaries just because you hate the guy
| that owns the company.
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| Tesla is the signal that the American Empire is
| collapsing, it's a company that is based on the political
| idea that it's necessary to change the transportation
| pollutant from oil to lithium.
|
| It's the same old car ownership experience that our
| grandfathers experienced in 1970s, Tesla was founded in
| 2002 and I can find cars from that year on the used
| market which are more aestetically pleasing and have much
| better interiors quality and still beat Tesla cars (or
| should I say boats given how heavy they are?) around a
| racetrack which is the true measure of a car performance.
| Picture this , a 20 year old Mercedes or BMW with better
| interior and better looks can beat a brand new 2023 Tesla
| lap time around Laguna Seca or the Nurburgring , and also
| it will be able to go around the track for hours and
| hours whereas the Tesla would overheat and leave you
| stranded on lap 2.
|
| We are going backwards in the name of politics, that
| cannot be accepted quitely, it's stupid and un-American.
| Solely done in the name of politics and Government money
| extraction.
|
| > > Customers really wanted SpaceX
|
| 90% of global population lives in urban areas, that's
| only going to increase, so that's 90% who will never need
| SpaceX. You have to go and pick your sample with a
| searchlight to get the result you want, and even then
| only about 30% are going to be happy with the service
| considering that SpaceX is cutting their download speed
| all the time compared to what they clocked at the time of
| first installation, that's predatory.
| laverya wrote:
| > making it faster than fiber over long distances
|
| This does not mean you should use it if you have fiber
| available at your house. This means you should pay for
| transit over it if you need to have low-latency overseas
| connections, for instance for HFT or piloting drones.
| gruez wrote:
| >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.
|
| That's a nice story, but can you do some math to substantiate
| it? For instance, is there some fundamental limit between how
| much bandwidth a satellite can provide, how much it costs, and
| how much the monthly subscription is?
| UltimateFloofy wrote:
| do reporters not use spellcheck anymore? the number of spelling
| mistakes in that article was ridiculous.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| 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
| devindotcom wrote:
| that's an interesting point, I hadn't thought about that if
| there's a failure for whatever reason, the infra burns up.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| Now if the FCC was actually principled when when choosing when
| to " sticking to its requirements" because ti seems large
| traditional companies can just do what ever the hell they want
| and get subsidies.
| spurgu wrote:
| You have to be on good terms with people high up.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| 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.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Tangent off a tangent: I'm new to the south shore area, do you
| have a favorite beach spot?
| tehjoker wrote:
| > 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...
| adolph wrote:
| 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-biog...
| notyourwork wrote:
| 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?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The government shouldn't be funding internet anyways.
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