The FCC decided it wouldn’t be the “best” use of limited funds.
    • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      76·
      1 year ago

      It’s not a scam. Satellite internet was extremely expensive and slow last time I checked a few years before starlink. Yeah , musk is garbage but starlink is actually helping a lot of people worldwide.

        • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
          40·
          1 year ago

          The money would have come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (RDOF), but the FCC writes that Starlink wasn’t able to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” and that giving the subsidy to it wouldn’t be “the best use of limited Universal Service Fund dollars.”

          The FCC decision sounds like a good thing in this case, also because Starlink isn’t being managed responsibly

          The technology itself is cool, and I hope some other companies can build off that work to meet that need. There are a lot of existing companies that take advantage of those living in rural areas, many of which don’t have other options or much disposable income

        • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
          12·
          1 year ago

          Starlink is currently the only internet functioning for the Ukrainian army.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          1 year ago

          ITAR…go look it up. And the UA still uses it for good and so does everyone there, they just cannot use it as a direct weapon. Get off the musk hate dick… it’s clouding you and apparently a bunch of people’s judgement.

          • Buelldozer@lemmy.todayEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            Like most people on the Internet they don’t want to hear about laws that cause outcomes different than what they want. The Musk hate over UA and StarLink is just another example of it. ITAR has been around a long time and for DAMN good reasons.

            • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              I can’t stand the guy either, but there are way more valid reasons to hate on him than what people love to bitch about.

    • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
      2·
      1 year ago

      How about that CGI car in orbit in front of a swim screen? There are still a lot of people who haven’t figured that one out yet.

      What it accomplished is manifold, but mainly to get investors to pony up, and creditors to extend credit, and the fan boys to fan the flames.

      CC: @misk@sopuli.xyz

  • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.eeEnglish
    86·
    1 year ago

    TIL: The majority of Lemmys have never lived an hour from the nearest population center, down a dirt road, on a few hundred acres of wilderness. I fucking HATE musk and I still have an RV kit in my basement so when I’m traveling around hours from anywhere, Starlink works perfectly.

    • Takumidesh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      50·
      1 year ago

      Today you learned that the majority of people don’t live in the middle of nowhere?

      Of course they don’t, by definition, if a bunch of people lived there, it wouldn’t be the middle of nowhere.

      • blazeknave@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        Lmao you’re being a pedantic dick bc you know what they meant… and I’m cracking up enjoying everything about it

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, Musk has gone insane, anyone can see that.

      But Musk aside, LEO satellites are still really the only viable and economical solution to the problem of broadband in rural areas, and Starlink seems to work great.

      Also, the objection that resulted in pulling this funding looks pretty bullshit. Several other broadband providers are getting these same funding deals for doing basically nothing.

      • misophist@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        1 year ago

        Brother, we have wildly different definitions of “nowhere” if you get 5G. When I lived in a rural shithole in the US, I had to drive 100 miles to start picking up 5G signals (though that was just before the pandemic, so maybe 5G coverage has improved greatly in the past 3 years).

    • Salad_Fries@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      My partner’s family lives on a dirt road between a corn field and cow pasture… a full 1.5 hour drive from the nearest mid-sized city… they have gigabit fiber…

      Not saying that their situation is currently typical, but id argue it is indeed a sign that good internet is slowly but surely coming available to everyone.

      • limelight79@lemm.eeEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        Yeah, I’ve always seen at least 20 down, never as low as 1 Mbps the grandparent comment claimed. I usually see roughly 100 Mbps down, though.

        That’s based on using it in a few different places in our RV over the summer, some with obstructions from trees in some spots. Regardless of the actual speed, my wife and I were both able to telework and hold conference calls simultaneously without an issue - and my wife would use video (I kept it off, but she used it).

      • namelessdread@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        1 year ago

        I had Starlink too and it was definitely unreliable. It’s also absolutely atrocious in any kind of weather like heavy rain or snow.

        It’s better than nothing for sure, but definitely look into it more, especially if you’ll be relying on it for work.

          • gaiussabinus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            1 year ago

            It’s faster than my old fiber connection through Telus up here in Canadia and also means I can look at any hamlet with power as a viable place to live now. We are never down for more the 2 seconds a day.

          • namelessdread@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Absolutely, but Musk specifically said weather wouldn’t be a problem like regular satellites, which was just not true from my experience.

            Overall though, I just think people should be aware that it’s not a good replacement for if you already have access to other Internet services. I’ve seen people discuss how they want to ditch Comcast for it. It’s a lot more expensive and definitely not as consistent. Again, it totally has an audience and purpose, pros and cons.

    • JoJoGAH@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      I was shocked when he got a gov’t contract after he admitted to all that fuckery in Ukraine. Wtf is happening in gov’t???

    • Joelk111@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      My parents had it. Average was about 40mbps over a 60gb download, minimums were in the low 20s, and it topped out at around 80-100mbps. A fuck of a lot better than 10mbps down 750kbps up, their only other option. I hate Elon as much as the next guy, but starlink is awesome.

    • nutsack@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      i imagine that’s a product of the technology and not so much the company. the problems with satellite internet are just physics. it’s probably stupid to go with something like this in an area that has fiber available.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      That stock chart is nothing terrible. Sideways on the 6 months and the 5-year is pretty good. I don’t think he’s suffering.

  • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
    24·
    1 year ago

    musk is one of the richest man alive, why does he need subsidies to do his job??

    • Kage520@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      1 year ago

      This isn’t really a great argument. Subsidies are there to promote the things we want to come to fruition. Want your people to have solar? Subsidies for putting one on your roof. You want more electric cars on the road even though more expensive? Subsidies.

      You want a billionaire to help a new technology reach people he wouldn’t bother with? Subsidies.

      • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        So we do that by giving them even more fucking money, instead of taking it away when they do a shitty thing, like ruin our atmosphere with fossil fuels.

    • firefly@neon.nightbulb.net
      6·
      1 year ago

      musk is one of the richest man alive, why does he need subsidies to do his job??

      Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor. Next question …

  • notannpc@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    1 year ago

    Aside from the bit of personal enjoyment I get from seeing Elon take an L… Starlink only meets the classification as “broadband internet” in optimal conditions. The average experience just plain doesn’t qualify and it is openly acknowledged that performance will get worse with more traffic. It may be better than nothing for some, but it is clearly not sustainable. The money would be better spent running lines because at least that would be consistent and long lasting even if it is more expensive.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    The money would have come from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund program (RDOF), but the FCC writes that Starlink wasn’t able to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service” and that giving the subsidy to it wouldn’t be “the best use of limited Universal Service Fund dollars.”

    That was the same reason the FCC gave when it rejected Starlink’s bid last year, which led to this appeal.

    SpaceX had previously won the bidding to roll out 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload “low-latency internet to 642,925 locations in 35 states,” funded by the RDOF.

    “This applicant had failed to meet its burden to be entitled to nearly $900 million in universal service funds for almost a decade.” FCC commissioner Brendan Carr dissented, writing that “the FCC did not require — and has never required — any other award winner to show that it met its service obligation years ahead of time.”

    But his funding plan was slashed by the time it became law, with the final version offering no money for locally-run internet service.

    Christopher Cardaci, head of legal at SpaceX, writes in a letter to the FCC that “Starlink is arguably the only viable option to immediately connect many of the Americans who live and work in the rural and remote areas of the country where high-speed, low-latency internet has been unreliable, unaffordable, or completely unavailable, the very people RDOF was supposed to connect.”

    The original article contains 296 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 21%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    Quite excited to see what some competition will do in this space (no pun intended) with Amazon’s upcoming deployment.

      • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        That’s significantly less of a concern than assisting in elevating a few billion people out of poverty

          • SCB@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            My post said:

            Quite excited to see what some competition will do in this space (no pun intended) with Amazon’s upcoming deployment.

            You hate Musk, we get it. Now, try to stay on topic

          • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            Bruh, are you really going to prioritize a singular type of hobby photography over access to a vital service such as the internet for millions of people? That’s prime NIMBYism.

            They’ve done plenty to help mitigate issues with terrestrial observatories. You could just as easily argue their rocketry advancements have made space much more accessible for the human race, which offsets any remaining harm to research telescopes.

              • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                How are we fucking up our ability to go to space with these LEO satellites? That’s quite comical coming from someone calling other people’s statements a “smooth-brained take.”

                It absolutely is NIMBY when you sit here on the internet arguing that rural folks should have their internet access revoked because it’s “spoiling your view.” What difference would it make to any of your listed points if it were an international endeavor rather than a private one?

            • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Yes, I think millions of people around the world shouldn’t have their access to a public good limited by the decisions of two billionaires from one country. I don’t think that’s a particularly strange take?

              If there are going to be tens of thousands of satellites fucking up everyone’s views of the sky, that should be at least be done with some attempt to gain a social licence first.

          • lefty7283@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            At least for us amateurs satellite trails get completely rejected out during image stacking. They’ll definitely be more of a problem for professional observatories, especially large survey scopes like Vera Rubin

  • Rapidcreek@reddthat.comEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    For an operating company that’s the kiss of death. I predict Starlink will be bought by the US government and there won’t be a hell of a lot of profit.

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      When Musk cut off Ukraine, the Pentagon informed him that they were immediately purchasing a minor controlling stake in the, currently, private company. Service to Ukraine was restored the next day.

      That’s how “capitalism” works apparently.

      I also assume that’s why NVidia did it’s sudden about face and fell right in line when the generals threatened to own them the next day.

      It’s all just rich people getting reminded they’re only rich, or alive, because the government allows them to be.

      • circuscritic@lemmy.caEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        I’m honestly at a loss with trying to discern whether you just honestly don’t understand the situation and how corporations/defense contractors and government work, if you’re unwittingly repeating a source of intentional disinformation, or if you’re actually maliciously trying to pump some counterfactual narrative.

        I think it’s a mixture of the first two, which is unfortunate because the word count that is required to correct all of that bad information is a lot more then I’m willing to type out on my phone screen.

        So, I’ll just point out you can either own a controlling interest, or a minor stake, but the two are mutually exclusive, and at no point was either on the table for purchase from the Pentagon.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        They didn’t cut off Internet to Ukraine. They had to stop the military from using it in an offensive way, which is ITAR, it wasn’t even musk who pulled the plug, it was a bunch of lawyers that had to make that call.

      • Rapidcreek@reddthat.comEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I don’t know that Iridium is still working. I think it’s been decommissioned. But, the US military has been looking for its replacement for years. Now, they could launch their own, or buy a network. Musk not getting RUS funds and losing a thousand satellites from orbit a year makes Starlink a prime candidate.

    • circuscritic@lemmy.caEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      Unlikely that it’ll be purchased by DoD, but death’s kiss was given when Elon held satellite internet access of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hostage while they were engaged in a hot war and being supported by DoD. That’s not how the Defense Industry operates. If you’re in for a penny, you’re in for a pound.

      I can pretty much guarantee you that the Pentagon immediately started a lot of conversations with established contractors about rapidly expediting their own LEO constellations, and promising help on the regulatory side.

      It may not have been immediately apparent, but it was there. It honestly wouldn’t have mattered as much for the business, except for the fact that SpaceX is entirely dependent upon government contracts, and the military is a huge part of that.

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        He didn’t hold it hostage.

        He didn’t turn it off, it was never on. He didn’t intervene in an attack, he just did nothing.

        It’s even questionable if he can legally allow Ukraine to drop one on a boat and use it as a weapon, and it was against the terms of use.

        The DoD failed to sign an agreement with SpaceX which left them in that awkward position. The DoD has now done so and it’s a non issue now. The DoD is the one allowing all these combat uses now as it should have been from day 1