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.
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.
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
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.
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%.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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'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.
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.
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.
Indeed, satellite or long haul fixed wireless will be the only option for some locations. I have been to rural Montana and Wyoming, but not Alaska.
Customers will have to pay for their own StarLink where the FCC won’t. Perhaps we should not be subsidizing folks where it costs $1M to deliver terrestrial connectivity to you. Cheaper to pay them to move.
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.
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.
Outside of truly rural areas the question with fiber is how long is the payback period, not "will it be profitable". Especially if deployment is integrated with routine highway re-pavement projects (roads need torn up and redone roughly every 30 years, after all), the majority of the cost becomes the fiber bundles themselves - perfect for even a smaller county or city government to handle with a modest bond issue.
> the question with fiber is how long is the payback period, not "will it be profitable".
The "payback period" might well be infinite (with non-zero interest rates), in which case we're talking about a subsidy, not an investment. (Which might still be a good idea! It won't "pay for itself", though.)
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.
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.
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.
The simplest and best way to ensure change is to fund a competitor who has a different approach. Not wanting to mindlessly throw money at the same people forever isn't giving up.
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.
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.
(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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.