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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:47AM (4 children)
What FCC said is prove it or shut up. If SpaceX can prove that they can provide 100ms connection, then no problem. You don't need to sell anything now, just prove based on the data from your lab. Like intermittent connection (because no satellite as there is no constellation) that is consistently relatively low jitter and low latency.
For GEO orbit, you have 35k km, so physics say you get latency of 235+ms. For 1000km distance, the two-way latency is going to be less than 7ms. So physics is not obstacle here. But GEO latency can be much larger than the physics dictate, so SpaceX needs to prove their latency, not hand-wave at speed of light.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday June 11 2020, @12:07PM
Luckily they have been launching satellites at an aggressive pace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#2020 [wikipedia.org]
Starlink 7 launched on June 4, Starlink 8/9/10 planned for June 13, June 22, and July 3.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Touché) by bussdriver on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:25PM (2 children)
Skeptical is corrupt politician speak for "bribe me" with something. When they talk about even allowing you to prove something it's not about wasting their time to verify your proof. When you please them they'll tweak the testing methods and thresholds so you pass or worst case they'll make a whole new classification scheme; that is, before just ignoring or changing laws.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:46PM
And if you don't pay they will tweak the testing methods and thresholds or reclassify things so that you can't pass, and even if you somehow manage it despite that they will just ignore or change the law to deny you.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 12 2020, @04:30PM
Skeptical is corrupt politician speak for "bribe me" with something.
Yeah, well, you know, we reelect only the best. We like bacon
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..