SpaceX Internet Satellite Network: Starlink

[jerry33]

Elon's own reply says that it's not politicians going after Elon so much as companies using lobbyists to get government contracts. Companies lobbied to get a contract written such that they would be able to win it. Then they didn't win it. So they lobbied again to get it changed so that they could win it.

It's odd that the government could be convinced to create the contract, but not actually award it to the companies behind it. It says something good about the way the government works. It suggests to me that the politicians are honest, but perhaps too susceptible to the influence of lobbyists.

And now we'll have nearly a billion dollars being routed to a company that probably will buyback stock and issue a dividend.

So an honest politician is one who once bought stays bought?

 

[scaesare]

Elon's own reply says that it's not politicians going after Elon so much as companies using lobbyists to get government contracts. Companies lobbied to get a contract written such that they would be able to win it. Then they didn't win it. So they lobbied again to get it changed so that they could win it.

It's odd that the government could be convinced to create the contract, but not actually award it to the companies behind it. It says something good about the way the government works. It suggests to me that the politicians are honest, but perhaps too susceptible to the influence of lobbyists.

And now we'll have nearly a billion dollars being routed to a company that probably will buyback stock and issue a dividend.

Probably them too, but that Tweet was from Carr, who is actually at the FCC, and he said:

 

[JB47394]

The initial denial might possibly be due to technical folks envisioning a different solution than what Starlink offered and/or ignorance. But to continue that into the present time in the face of overwhelming evidence speaks of corruption. Either industry paybacks, or political ideology, or both.

Starlink speeds are going down, and Starlink acknowledges this. They say that they will go back up once Starship is deploying V2 satellites. But Starship isn't flying yet. The Bureau and, later, the FCC agreed that it didn't look good for Starlink to work out.

What I take away from that is that the government doesn't like risk, which is the diametric opposite of Elon's companies. I'm sure the contract winners will do something that caters to the nature of the government employees, makes them comfortable, and then they won't actually do much.

Probably them too, but that Tweet was from Carrr, who is actually at the FCC, and he said:

Yup. I read Carr's dissent, as well as Simington's. I ignored the section of Carr's dissent that you included because it's irrational heebie-jeebie stuff. I waited for some facts and figures. The meat of the dissention is that SpaceX was being held to 2025 standards three years early. I'm sure the majority FCC members would say that it's their job to consider how they think things will play out going forward, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to send money at a system that looks like it won't ultimately provide the claimed level of service. That's what they did for countless other bids that didn't win during the short-form phase.

Again, this is a disconnect between Elon's companies and the way the government works. If I was going to point the finger of corruption anywhere, then it would be at the age-old problem of lobbyists getting their hands on people at the Wireline Competition Bureau and the Federal Communications Commission. Not through bribery, but simply by having dinner with them every now and again, and repeating the message of "Starship is going to take forever to work. Starlink speeds are going down, not up." It's not a difficult thing to do.

 

[SO16]

Starlink speeds are going down, and Starlink acknowledges this. They say that they will go back up once Starship is deploying V2 satellites. But Starship isn't flying yet. The Bureau and, later, the FCC agreed that it didn't look good for Starlink to work out.

What I take away from that is that the government doesn't like risk, which is the diametric opposite of Elon's companies. I'm sure the contract winners will do something that caters to the nature of the government employees, makes them comfortable, and then they won't actually do much.


Yup. I read Carr's dissent, as well as Simington's. I ignored the section of Carr's dissent that you included because it's irrational heebie-jeebie stuff. I waited for some facts and figures. The meat of the dissention is that SpaceX was being held to 2025 standards three years early. I'm sure the majority FCC members would say that it's their job to consider how they think things will play out going forward, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to send money at a system that looks like it won't ultimately provide the claimed level of service. That's what they did for countless other bids that didn't win during the short-form phase.

Again, this is a disconnect between Elon's companies and the way the government works. If I was going to point the finger of corruption anywhere, then it would be at the age-old problem of lobbyists getting their hands on people at the Wireline Competition Bureau and the Federal Communications Commission. Not through bribery, but simply by having dinner with them every now and again, and repeating the message of "Starship is going to take forever to work. Starlink speeds are going down, not up." It's not a difficult thing to do.

The govt could mitigate this by forcing to give back funds if milestones are not met.

 

[scaesare]

Yup. I read Carr's dissent, as well as Simington's. I ignored the section of Carr's dissent that you included because it's irrational heebie-jeebie stuff.

It doesn't seem to be just their opinion... Carr's dissent does reference a WSJ article entitled, "The Harassment of Elon Musk: The Tesla CEO faces a remarkable number of government probes.", which is paywalled, but the opening paragraph says:

Does the Biden Administration have it in for Elon Musk? We’ve sometimes tussled over policy with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, but the volume of government investigations into his businesses makes us wonder if the Biden Administration is targeting him for regulatory harassment.

Would be interesting to read it all...

 

[JB47394]

The govt could mitigate this by forcing to give back funds if milestones are not met.

I would go with low interest loans to allow companies to pursue construction of desired services. So perhaps Viasat wants in on the rural internet access business, but doesn't have the money to build it out of pocket. They show what they plan to do, and the government loans them money. They're obliged to pay back the money, so the government isn't risking much.

Once the service is working at a proscribed level, pay an award to the company. So Viasat provided service to 10,000 locations across America, and that's worth a certain award. Keep the awards at a point where the company has to provide the service for multiple years, with award money coming each year.

The awards would also go down if many companies ended up providing the service. So if 1,000 locations have only one provider, then the government gives the full bounty to the one provider - because that one company is helping Americans there. If another 1,000 locations have five providers, then that area is probably pretty easy to service and/or profitable to the companies, and the awards can be split between the companies.

The natural abuse of this is to come up with service that only lasts as long as the awards are flowing. If the emphasis is on the loan system, with the award money just being a nice-to-have, then the only contracts that anyone would bid on would be for viable businesses. That, instead of making bidding on government contracts the business.

It doesn't seem to be just their opinion... Carr's dissent does reference a WSJ article entitled, "The Harassment of Elon Musk: The Tesla CEO faces a remarkable number of government probes.", which is paywalled, but the opening paragraph says:

I'm afraid that I won't buy into his comments just because he references a media article. Remember that media exists to draw eyeballs, so if they can find stuff that even hints at some impropriety, they're gonna run with it. Ultimately, we have to discuss facts, not perceptions, and I think Carr - as many Republicans are wont to do - went off the rails by playing the emotional card.

It may sound like I hate Republicans. If I do, it's only because I used to be one. I hate what the Republican party has become. Those bastards took over and ruined a good thing.

 

[Cosmacelf]

The meat of the dissention is that SpaceX was being held to 2025 standards three years early. I'm sure the majority FCC members would say that it's their job to consider how they think things will play out going forward, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to send money at a system that looks like it won't ultimately provide the claimed level of service. That's what they did for countless other bids that didn't win during the short-form phase.

Uh no. That isn't their job. The FCC erred when they decided to change the award rules. There is nothing in the award rules that allows the FCC to guess what will happen in 3 years time. That would be absurd. Starlink is compliant, yet they didn't get the award.

Edit. Do remember that the US military is using Starlink, as are various other US government agencies. If it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for rural Americans who have didly squat for Internet access.

 

[scaesare]

Uh no. That isn't their job. The FCC erred when they decided to change the award rules. There is nothing in the award rules that allows the FCC to guess what will happen in 3 years time. That would be absurd. Starlink is compliant, yet they didn't get the award.

Edit. Do remember that the US military is using Starlink, as are various other US government agencies. If it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for rural Americans who have didly squat for Internet access.

Oh , yeah.. back to the actual FCC issue. Not only what you stated. @Cosmacelf , but the dissent filing says:

the FCC denied it on the grounds that Starlink is not providing high-speed Internet service to all of those locations today. What? FCC law does not require Starlink to provide high-speed Internet service to even a single location today. As noted above, the first FCC milestone does not kick in until the end of 2025. Indeed, 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.

That doesn't seem to be what you are suggesting @JB47394 when you say: " I'm sure the majority FCC members would say that it's their job to consider how they think things will play out going forward, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to send money at a system that looks like it won't ultimately provide the claimed level of service."

The FCC awarded to Starlink based on the initial evidence it could. Now it appears they've moved the goalposts to require an arbitrary level of service today, when they never have before.

 

[JB47394]

That doesn't seem to be what you are suggesting @JB47394 when you say: " I'm sure the majority FCC members would say that it's their job to consider how they think things will play out going forward, and that it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to send money at a system that looks like it won't ultimately provide the claimed level of service."

The FCC awarded to Starlink based on the initial evidence it could. Now it appears they've moved the goalposts to require an arbitrary level of service today, when they never have before.

Now that I've read the ruling, the only bit in the entire document that matters is page 9. It's where the FCC says that the WCB looked at the performance of the system and found that it wasn't up to snuff. Starlink says that it will be by 2025.

At that point, it was a matter of whether the WCB believed Starlink enough to risk $900 million in taxpayer dollars. Because they're bureaucrats, they went conservative and said no. No doubt they've heard many promises from telecommunications companies through the years.

There's no unfair change of process here. No double standards. Starlink went through the short form, got a conditional thumbs-up, went through the long form and got a thumbs-down.

All the rest is song and dance. It just boiled down to whether the government was going to throw $900 million in taxpayer money at Starlink because they promised that they would provide the service down the road - when they weren't getting those rates today. If you want to get someone to believe in you, you make the initial deployment look great. You don't make it look okay and say "It'll get better".

Sadly, we don't have the (undoubtedly confidential) data that Starlink and the WCB were working from. So we can't be aghast at the WCB's intransigence, or sadly meander off when we see that we wouldn't give Starlink the money either, based on those numbers.

As an aside, I see that LTD Broadband won a $2.1 billion grant during the short-form and they lost it after the long-form. In fact, a fine of $21.7 million has been proposed for "defaulting on grant bids".

 

[Cosmacelf]

Now that I've read the ruling, the only bit in the entire document that matters is page 9. It's where the FCC says that the WCB looked at the performance of the system and found that it wasn't up to snuff. Starlink says that it will be by 2025.

At that point, it was a matter of whether the WCB believed Starlink enough to risk $900 million in taxpayer dollars. Because they're bureaucrats, they went conservative and said no. No doubt they've heard many promises from telecommunications companies through the years.

There's no unfair change of process here. No double standards. Starlink went through the short form, got a conditional thumbs-up, went through the long form and got a thumbs-down.

All the rest is song and dance. It just boiled down to whether the government was going to throw $900 million in taxpayer money at Starlink because they promised that they would provide the service down the road - when they weren't getting those rates today. If you want to get someone to believe in you, you make the initial deployment look great. You don't make it look okay and say "It'll get better".

Sadly, we don't have the (undoubtedly confidential) data that Starlink and the WCB were working from. So we can't be aghast at the WCB's intransigence, or sadly meander off when we see that we wouldn't give Starlink the money either, based on those numbers.

As an aside, I see that LTD Broadband won a $2.1 billion grant during the short-form and they lost it after the long-form. In fact, a fine of $21.7 million has been proposed for "defaulting on grant bids".

SpaceX contends the evaluation was based on a total of two tests. So that’s bogus.

Also the FCC is simply wrong. Anyways, enough of this dead horse beating. Elon will or won’t get the last laugh in the 2024 election.

 

[mongo]

Direct to cell version launching tonight

https://twitter.com/x/status/1735449116715487523

 

[bhzmark]

I've read the ruling, the only bit

The FCC website seems to be down. Here’s the ruling from the Internet archive.

Wayback Machine

copy of:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-23-105A1.pdf

 

[dhanson865]

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[mongo]

2.3 million users

https://twitter.com/x/status/1738025258089935219

 

[dhanson865]

Starlink V2mini stack viewed from the top of the stack

 

[Cosmacelf]

Is that the raw phased array elements?

 

[bxr140]

Yes. Size and spacing of the elements suggests it’s the D2D array.

 

[JB47394]

With apologies to @dhanson865, here's the full image from direct.starlink.com.

With commentary from a reddit post:

The size of the round elements on the top surface suggests that is it a phased array designed for a much longer wavelength than that of the Ku-band used for communicating with Starlink user terminals.

This supports the assumption that this satellite is meant to communicate directly with the mobile telephones.

The other things that we see in the picture are:

1. The two round devices with six "spokes" are reaction wheels used to orient the satellite in space. There are two more, probably on the other side.
2. The red covers in the front corner protect star trackers -- specialized cameras used to precisely determine satellite's orientation in space. There are several more in other corners.
3. The red covers next to it probably cover laser links.
4. The larger red cover between the reaction wheels likely covers the ion thruster, but that is not 100% certain.

 

[bxr140]

It’s likely the only user payload on that sat (and ostensibly, the stack of sats) is D2D.

 

[JB47394]

ostensibly, the stack of sats) is D2D.

Yes, looking down the left side of the stack, it seems like the top six satellites have tabs on them, while the rest of the stack does not. That suggests pretty strongly that they are the six Direct to Device satellites that just went up.