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posted by chromas on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the I-ping-in-your-general-direction dept.

Ajit Pai caves to SpaceX but is still skeptical of Musk’s latency claims:

The Federal Communications Commission has reversed course on whether to let SpaceX and other satellite providers apply for rural-broadband funding as low-latency providers. But Chairman Ajit Pai said companies like SpaceX will have to prove they can offer low latencies, as the FCC does not plan to "fund untested technologies."

Pai's original proposal classified SpaceX and all other satellite operators as high-latency providers for purposes of the funding distribution, saying the companies haven't proven they can deliver latencies below the FCC standard of 100ms. Pai's plan to shut satellite companies out of the low-latency category would have put them at a disadvantage in a reverse auction that will distribute $16 billion from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

But SpaceX is launching low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites in altitudes ranging from 540km to 570km, a fraction of the 35,000km used with geostationary satellites, providing much lower latency than traditional satellite service. SpaceX told the FCC that its Starlink service will easily clear the 100ms cutoff, and FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly urged Pai to let LEO companies apply in the low-latency tier.

The FCC voted to approve the updated auction rules yesterday. The final order isn't public yet, but it's clear from statements by Pai and other commissioners that SpaceX and other LEO companies will be allowed to apply in the low-latency tier. The satellite companies won't gain automatic entry into the low-latency tier, but they will be given a chance to prove that they can deliver latencies below 100ms.

[...] SpaceX met with commission staff over the last few days of May, telling them that its broadband system "easily clears the commission's 100ms threshold for low-latency services, even including its 'processing time' during unrealistic worst-case scenarios." We contacted SpaceX today about the low-latency change and will update this story if we get a response.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:20AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:20AM (#1006234)

    Yeah fiber wouldn't work but radio links with directional antennas and not so tall towers would technically work

    Those not so tall towers will still need power, and $$$ to install, and negotiation with how many other land owners to accept a tower on their property?
    But, yeah, right; the love of freedom of libertardians will conquer all, one just needs the trifle discovery of a way to extract unlimited energy from thin air [wikipedia.org].

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:36PM (#1006391)

    No no, you put tower on your own property and antennas directed for neighbours who want interwebs and to someone on edge of nowhere (if on hill even better) who has fiber to rest of the world. Aeons ago there used to be Telecom operators who did just that with MIMO WiFi and directional antennas. Distance to horizon for observer at 10m is 11km (which means next tower could be 22km away), they need power and so does your normal modem. Are there problems with electricity in your parts of the world or what, what other ancient technology is no longer available? Equipment existed for years and isn't that expensive compared to satellite equipment.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:04PM

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:04PM (#1006419) Journal

    Fuckin hell, guys, pick one, either you have neighbours and all you need is fiber or small transmitter or you are in the middle of the fucking nowhere and you put a tower and there is nobody to complain. According to the mindset in this part of the discussion any cellphone network is an impossibility. A pity it exists.

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