SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant::FCC doubts ability to provide high-speed, low-latency service in all grant areas.
SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant::FCC doubts ability to provide high-speed, low-latency service in all grant areas.
I love shitting on Elon but starlink is one of the most important things that has come out of the US. It made remote work possible for thousands. It provided real internet access for so many rural areas. The FCC needs to fix this.
In rejecting SpaceX’s appeal, yesterday’s FCC order said the agency’s Wireline Competition Bureau “followed Commission guidance and correctly concluded that Starlink is not reasonably capable of offering the required high-speed, low-latency service throughout the areas where it won auction support.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has acknowledged Starlink’s capacity limits several times, saying for example that it will face “a challenge [serving everyone] when we get into the several million user range.”
Isn’t it Starlink that should fix this?
Maybe we should invest in another company that will actually deserve it.
The problem is that this company doesn’t exist.
Mr Beast has done more for impoverished people in a year than Elon has done in a lifetime
Okay?
The fuck are you talking about…
In Iowa, at least, the state had a pre-existing fiber network that got expanded to a shit-ton of rural communities and local (often municipal) ISPs. It’s more expensive than what you’d get in the cities, but much better bang for buck than Starlink.
The only people still struggling to get service are those who live way, way outside those communities – the kind of people for whom “neighbor” means somebody who lives a significant fraction of a mile away. And, outside of comfortably wealthy individuals, those people are a dying breed, at least in Iowa.
If Iowa of all places can pull something like that off, I figure it’s not out of reach of any state (or nation, for that matter) whose inhabitants give a nano-fuck about access to technology.
Rural Iowa has phone lines and can easily put up p2p wireless as long as it’s above the tree line . It’s also easy to trench cable through most of the state . I used to live there.
Many places in the US are much more difficult.
Verizon offered me 3mbps/1mbps dsl for $60/mo 4 years ago and it was their best and only option. I had their LTE service and it was flakey due to mountain interference and distance from tower. Two p2p wireless services exist but 1 had 20% packet loss across all of their customers and after 2 years still refused to fix it and the other was offering single-digit speeds for $100+ per month.
Verizon put up a sign 3 years ago that said “high speed internet coming soon!” The sign has since deteriorated and blew away. It’s symbolic.
The fcc needs to support LEO so that areas like mine are serviced. Starlink doesn’t compete with any other terrestrial service. It’s for the people that don’t have another option, and there are a lot.
Iowa is pretty flat. It’s all farmland that’s been plowed a million times (making trenching much easier, and a lot more opportunity for things like directional drilling/conduit drivers).
Try running cable through somewhere with harder ground/rocks, trees, mountains, swamp (Mid Atlantic, Florida, Alabama, Minnesota, etc) dealing with right-of-way, over-populated poles, etc, etc.
Then there’s the connection rate. In a more populated area there would be many more final connects, which can drive the cost a lot more than running the mainline. If you run fiber across 20 miles with no connects (just point to point), there’s minimal hardware infrastructure along the way. Add in needing switching for 5 communities, now you need buildings, power, termination, switching, runs to houses, etc, etc.
It’s not really a good comparison.
Removed by mod
Hi from me, a Starlink customer in rural Australia. It’s a premium service but greatly outperforms the alternatives.
Sorry the only way you can get good speed internet is by paying the worlds biggest and one of the richest douchebag republicans. Hopefully things change for you. It’s not like it’s impossible to run a cable, it just also costs money. He will never see a cent from me.
Well, the world’s richest douchebag Democrat has provided no internet for them, so…
so what? Are you gonna finish your thought or did you realize you were going nowhere with that and added … to make it seem like you said something substantial?