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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.


Original Submission

Related Stories

SpaceX and 385 Other Entities to Compete in U.S. FCC Auction for Rural Broadband Funding 29 comments

SpaceX gets FCC approval to bid in $16 billion rural-broadband auction

SpaceX is one of the 386 entities that have qualified to bid in a federal auction for rural-broadband funding.

SpaceX has so far overcome the Federal Communications Commission's doubts about whether Starlink, its low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service, can provide latency of less than 100ms and thus qualify for the auction's low-latency tier. With the FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) set to distribute up to $16 billion to ISPs, the FCC initially placed SpaceX on the "incomplete application" list, which includes ISPs that had not shown they were qualified to bid in their desired performance and latency tiers. The FCC also said that LEO providers "will face a substantial challenge" obtaining approval to bid in the low-latency tier because they must "demonstrat[e] to Commission staff that their networks can deliver real-world performance to consumers below the Commission's 100ms low-latency threshold."

[...] SpaceX's Starlink service is in a limited beta and appears to be providing latencies well under the 100ms threshold. SpaceX still isn't guaranteed to get FCC funding. After the auction, winning bidders will have to submit "long-form" applications with more detail on how they will meet deployment requirements in order to get the final approval for funding.

The $16 billion available in the auction will be distributed to ISPs over ten years, paying all winning bidders combined up to $1.6 billion a year to deploy broadband in specified areas. SpaceX satellite service could theoretically be made available anywhere and doesn't require wiring up individual homes, so this funding won't necessarily expand the areas of availability for Starlink. But satellite operators can use FCC funding as subsidies allowing them to charge lower prices in areas that lack modern broadband access.

[...] The $16 billion in funding will be directed to census blocks where no provider reports offering home-Internet speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. The list of approved census blocks contains 5.3 million unserved homes and businesses.

See also: SpaceX, Hughes and Viasat qualify to bid for $20.4 billion in FCC rural broadband subsidies

Previously: Ajit Pai Caves to SpaceX but is Still Skeptical of Musk's Latency Claims
SpaceX Starlink Speeds Revealed as Beta Users Get Downloads of 11 to 60Mbps
SpaceX Seeks FCC Broadband Funds, Must Prove It Can Deliver Sub-100ms Latency


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:24AM (9 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:24AM (#1006211) Journal

    The great saviors of humanity, discussing the letter and not the spirit of the law.
    RURAL BROADBAND, two very nebulous terms, that some hyeroglyphs expert may or may not have deciphered.
    Fucking clowns.
    The spirit of the law says it's for rural broadband, fullstop.

    The law itself is shit because the state that 1. decides what is necessary 2. determines who gets the tax money, will eventually grow ipertrophic and corrupt.
    Again, the correct course would be an easy protocol for people to put their own fiber. A consortium where each family is a little ISP. Some way to keep count of packets for peering purposes, and you can have internet basically for free, all you need is to balance in and out packets, or even get some money out of it. But noooo, DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN people won't ever accept this, it hurts their own cronies.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:01AM (8 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:01AM (#1006215) Journal

      Again, the correct course would be an easy protocol for people to put their own fiber.

      And the people to build their own road and sewage, right.
      Look, it may work inside the rural area of Vatican (grin), but won't work in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of kilometers from your nearest neighbor.

      But NOOOO, reality doesn't matter, the Bot is an expert in all types of rural; so he has the simple, neat and wrong solution to the Internet problem everywhere.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:11AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @10:11AM (#1006226)

        Yeah fiber wouldn't work but radio links with directional antennas and not so tall towers would technically work, but it would make it hard to cens... eerrrmm remove harmful content so politically cannot be accepted.

        • (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].

          • (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.

            --
            Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday June 11 2020, @03:48PM (2 children)

        by Bot (3902) on Thursday June 11 2020, @03:48PM (#1006332) Journal

        You are arguing about details, which is sad given the importance of the matter. I dunno over there but here communication is a right and the current system makes it hard to exercise it. Governments do not take your side either.

        --
        Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:02PM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:02PM (#1006356) Journal

          You are arguing about details, which is sad given the importance of the matter.

          And you are coming with inane technical solutions, which is sad given the importance of the natural laws in humanity life.

          Governments do not take your side either.

          And you are happy that the government takes your side? That should be a first.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:07PM

            by Bot (3902) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:07PM (#1006423) Journal

            A protocol is a political solution. When I said "your side" I meant you as a citizen so any government that doesn't take your side is a traitor if its mandate. Pretty common yet still wrong.

            --
            Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:49PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:49PM (#1006505) Journal

        but won't work in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of kilometers from your nearest neighbor.

        Hell, doesn't everybody out there have their own Ditch Witch? They can all meet half way...

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:45AM (7 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:45AM (#1006237)

    From East Coast US

    ping 8.8.8.8 (google): ~ 29ms

    ping my cheap ass Canadian web host: ~60ms

    ping baidu.com: ~255ms

    From an instance in Google Cloud US East 1

    ping 8.8.8.8: ~1.2ms

    If Starlink has good re-entry point routing, 100ms should be easy.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:56AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:56AM (#1006240)

      From Germany,

      ping to 8.8.8.8, is 12ms
      to my cheap host: 12ms
      to pravda.ru: 60ms
      to kernel.org: 150ms
      to baidu.com: 300ms

      but wait, what are we trying to prove here? Link latency or internet routing times? Because if you are trying to show link latency, the ping time is your provider on other side of modem, not stuff on internet. For me that is 10-12ms. I know that in places in Canada, with long DSL lines, you are happy with 30-40ms just to the provider.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by richtopia on Thursday June 11 2020, @02:25PM (2 children)

        by richtopia (3160) on Thursday June 11 2020, @02:25PM (#1006295) Homepage Journal

        I think we are demonstrating the threshold ping of 100ms is reasonable. To generalize, a ping to your same continent is less than 100ms. If Starlink can demonstrate that, then they qualify for these incentives.

        • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:48PM (1 child)

          by Osamabobama (5842) on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:48PM (#1006666)

          Has anybody posted the time for two RF round trips to Starlink satellites? That's got to be about 6 milliseconds, one-way, with the satellite directly overhead at 1100 km. That brings us to 32 milliseconds, plus processing time, best case for a two-way round trip. Maybe that gets worse by a factor of two before the next satellite is in position (I just made that up). So if they can do the non-RF part of the ping within 36 ms, it should be achievable.

          --
          Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:02PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:02PM (#1006355) Journal

      ping my cheap ass Canadian web host: ~60ms

      I thought that was supposed to be "shiny metal".

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:53PM

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:53PM (#1006508) Journal

      re-entry is a dirty word in the satellite business

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:47AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @11:47AM (#1006238)

    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."

    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."

    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

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 11 2020, @12:07PM (#1006243) Journal

      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)

      by bussdriver (6876) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:25PM (#1006480)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:46PM (#1006585)

        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

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday June 12 2020, @04:30PM (#1006934) Journal

        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..
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @12:58PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @12:58PM (#1006264)

    X is the least of his problems and he appears not to know it.

    He knows law but not technology.

    His job is to regulate an industry that knows many tricks for manipulating both to their advantage.

    So, what is this latency stuff? One way or two way and from where to where and when idle or busy?
    How much wiggle room is in what the FCC is requiring?

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by Immerman on Thursday June 11 2020, @01:18PM

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 11 2020, @01:18PM (#1006270)

      >So, what is this latency stuff?
      Isn't that the delay between the bribe and the handout?

    • (Score: 2) by theluggage on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:01PM (1 child)

      by theluggage (1797) on Thursday June 11 2020, @04:01PM (#1006353)

      One way or two way and from where to where and when idle or busy?

      Irrelevant at this stage - If anybody claims that their geostationary satellites in 35,000km orbits can beat 100ms (spoiler: speed of light = 300,000 km/second) then there's nothing more you need to ask (apart from the name of the Scottish gentleman who gave them the design in return for building a fish tank) before throwing them out along with the perpetual motion hawkers and Brooklyn bridge salesmen.

      Musk & co, however, are using a swarm of satellites at only ~600km so they could feasibly beat 100ms without breaking the laws of physics. Doesn't mean that they will beat it - but there's no justification from stopping them from trying.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 12 2020, @04:41PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday June 12 2020, @04:41PM (#1006940) Journal

        We just have to entangle our new Quantum™ Computers. Then you will be talking about lead times! It will be like Jeopardy, the answer will show up before you ask the question.

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:50PM (#1006587)

      Pai doesn't care about the technology or the law. He's an industry shill.

  • (Score: 2) by tizan on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:08PM (8 children)

    by tizan (3245) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:08PM (#1006424)

    What killed satellite based cell phone is how cheap it is to maintain and upgrade a bunch of cellular towers in rural areas

    Question why is it not cheaper to put a series of wifi relays (just like WISPs do ) and connect it to fibre when there is one available ? The hardware is cheap ...should be cheaper than receiving from LEO ...100km vs 1000 km (and on earth you can pump as much power in the emitter as physics allow as compared from a satellite which is solar panel driven). Ok it is not as cool as bouncing your signal to LEO but i suspect it should be cheaper and easier to maintain and upgrade... Unless the cost of putting towers with power is more expensive than putting satellites in LEO (and replacing them every 5 years or so).

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:48PM (6 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 11 2020, @05:48PM (#1006445)

      My understanding is that cellular towers themselves still need to be wired up - so it's a huge infrastructure reduction compared to wiring every house, but still a LOT of infrastructure to reach, say, rural Africa or South America, and I'm pretty sure providing access to such severely under-served areas is part of Musk's stated mission. Presumably with something akin to cellular towers distributing the orbital signal across villages using much cheaper radio hardware, but without the expense of laying hundreds of km of hardware to connect to the outside world.

      Cellular towers also aren't a particularly viable option in terrain with lots of mountains or valleys, where the necessary line-of-sight is extremely limited so that each tower can only serve a very small area. Pretty much everywhere has good line-of-sight with the sky.

      Finally, cellular towers don't offer one of the big "money-maker" features that Starlink is expected to provide to "premium" customers - extreme low-latency communications around the world. Current ocean-crossing fiber-optic cables were mostly funded by high-frequency traders, parasites skimming billions of dollars from the stock markets due to their ability to make purchases and sales a few ms faster than the competition. Orbital communication can potentially provide a HUGE latency reduction there, since the speed of light is almost twice as fast through vacuum as through cable - the increase in signal path is more than compensated by the faster signal speed.

      • (Score: 2) by tizan on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:45PM (1 child)

        by tizan (3245) on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:45PM (#1006501)

        Might be in the mission statement....I can't imagine people in rural Africa or South America cares about latency unless it is a hospital where they are doing remote surgery....most people care about bandwidth and any connectivity....if somebody is offering 50 MBit/s for $10 with 2s delay or 50 MBit/s with 2ms delat for $80...guess what remote area people will buy.
        Just like the military bailed out the satellite phone business ...i suspect it will be them again who will be the target customers ...too few normal customers in Southern Indian Ocean.

        Just like cell phones my guess is all the money is made with earth bound technology because the people (60% of world population ?) who want broad band internet connectivity are in urban areas...including Africa, Asia etc...Rural areas is subsidized by government or has military purposes

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:40PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:40PM (#1006547)

          Sure, different features will attract different customers. The high-frequency traders are the big cash-cows, and latency is pretty much all they care about.

          Rural people in wealthy countries will have another option which may well outperform terrestrial services, and will collectively be another huge chunk of income.

          The military is an obvious customer - for remote bases, sure, but even more significantly, having high-seed low-latency internet infrastructure already in place from the moment they deploy has *immense* tactical value - especially given their increasing dependence on drones remotely-operated by soldiers in the US.

          As for the rest of the rural world - don't think "broadband internet" so much as "any internet". Whether you're in the South Pacific, Eastern Russia, Northern China or India, most of Africa, heck, even much of Canada and Australia... all those parts of the world that are dark at night ( https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/earthday/gall_earth_night.html [nasa.gov] ) your internet options are somewhere between "slim" and "none". And Starlink is going to have a whole bunch of satellites overhead that are just sitting idle until they get back over populous areas. They can provide high-speed internet to those areas practically for free, and still make a profit.

          You make a good point about rural areas being subsidized though - and even with subsidies they're still grossly under-served. But that's one of the beauties of satellite service: it perfectly complements terrestrial services since it actually sucks for urban areas - too many customers too close together all trying to share a handful of satellites. Urban areas are prime candidates for wired service, with a minimum of infrastructure needed per customer, and wireless is really only an advantage for mobility.

          You overstate the case about about latency though, even if people don't actually know they want it. Try browsing the internet with a 2s (round trip) latency - you'll often be looking at 10-20 seconds before the page "settles down" since so very many things today have "page loads X, which loads Y, which loads Z..." each of which adds another 2s delay, and all of which has to complete before the final layout can be determined. Heck, even a simple page would take a minimum of six seconds to appear after you click the link: 2s to convert the domain name to an IP address, another 2s to start receiving the web page, and a final 2s to start getting the images used on the page.

      • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday June 12 2020, @07:43AM (3 children)

        by pTamok (3042) on Friday June 12 2020, @07:43AM (#1006790)

        Terrestrial infrastructure can be cheap compared to satellite, so long as it is left alone to do its job.

        Unfortunately there are people who regard property ownership as fluid concept who regard terrestrial infrastructure as a resource to be mined for profit. So fuel for power backup generators is siphoned off, the backup generators are resold (sometimes for parts) without the original owners consent, electrical items have their copper reclaimed without the original owners consent, and so on. If money can be made from unattended infrastructure by repurposing it in way that the original owners are unhappy with, it will be. Some such infrastructure requires permanent guarding (Not only the 'towers', but also the power cables over long distances, and fibre-optic cables over long distances. Opportunistic thieves will steal/damage fibre-optic cables because there is a possibility that they contain copper). This is expensive.

        It becomes rather challenging to supply a (reliable) telecommunications service, or indeed any telecommunications service when your carefully installed infrastructure is purloined. It's also difficult when idiots and ignoramuses set fire to it because they believe 5G infrastructure causes COVID-19.

        One benefit of satellite-delivered communications is that it is difficult for terrestrial-based resource-strippers to practise their art. For people in poorly served regions, an available connection (even at a high, but affordable price) is better than no connection at all.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @01:24PM (2 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 12 2020, @01:24PM (#1006847)

          >Terrestrial infrastructure can be cheap compared to satellite
          It can be, but much depends on the specific situation, and the cost of launch. If you're in a region where a cell tower will only cover a few dozen to a few hundred people, either due to rough terrain or extremely low population density, the economics of land-based infrastructure become a lot less attractive. Most of the world has less than 20 people per km2: http://www.luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen, [luminocity3d.org] and in much of those areas people are lucky to earn a few dollars per day - it makes the economics of providing internet access... unappealing. Unless of course they can piggyback on the same infrastructure that's serving more wealthy and populous areas.

          >Unfortunately there are people who regard property ownership as fluid concept
          What, not everybody supports an artificial concept specifically invented to allow a handful of people to lay claim to a majority of the wealth? (a.k.a. strong property rights) Baffling!

          • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 12 2020, @04:57PM (1 child)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday June 12 2020, @04:57PM (#1006948) Journal

            Unless of course they can piggyback on the same infrastructure that's serving more wealthy and populous areas.

            Well, that's the rub, isn't it? Access to that infrastructure has to be wide open, unfettered. We can't let political sanctions and such get in the way of that. Gonna tell Iran, or anybody else they can't hook up? A system like this, in the hands of any single entity, is too vulnerable to attack from too many angles

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @08:36PM

              by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 12 2020, @08:36PM (#1007065)

              Why would we tell Iran they can't hook up? Every government in the world is online, even North Korea, where the government are the *only* ones online.

              I see the ability of the government to control the access of their subjects to be a much bigger threat - and that is done *everywhere*.

              Having only one such system is indeed a vulnerability - with Starlink being US based, it will probably be subjected to US censorship and surveillance, which is something every potential user around the world should consider. But they're just the first, they already have a couple wanna-be competitors. And if you're not in the US (and not in a militant or other political group of interest to the US), then that surveillance is probably far less of a worry for you than the surveillance your own government is likely doing via your domestic ISPs.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @08:56PM (#1006590)

      What killed satellite phones was the size of the antenna and the battery required to power it. They also don't work well in high density urban environments.

  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:56PM (7 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday June 11 2020, @06:56PM (#1006513) Journal

    Check who has the "off" switch. Or make sure there isn't one

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:43PM (6 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:43PM (#1006551)

      There's always an off switch. Usually it's in the hands of both your ISP, and your government. One of the advantages to Starlink will likely be that (outside the US) your government would likely have very little leverage over your ISP.

      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:52PM (4 children)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:52PM (#1006557) Journal

        One of the advantages to Starlink will likely be that (outside the US) your government would likely have very little leverage over your ISP.

        That's supposed to be better? The ISPs aren't in opposition to the government, they are a tool of the government, a vital tool to protect you from things you shouldn't see or hear.

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @01:42PM (3 children)

          by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 12 2020, @01:42PM (#1006852)

          Well, since it's physically impossible to remove the off switch from the hands of the people providing the service, we're stuck with them. But do you really think Starlink will give a $#%! about what some two-bit dictator wants in some country nobody has heard of? They have no leverage over Starlink, unlike every terrestrial ISP serving that country.

          When we get into larger markets such as China... that will be interesting. Starlink would by default completely bypass the Great Firewall, so their choices will likely be either voluntarily re-routing all China-based traffic through government nodes, or letting China try to stop them - presumably by banning their subjects from doing business with Starlink and trying to make it stick. Maybe drone patrols looking for people using illegal Starlink tranceivers? I doubt they'd be detectable from the ground. And I suppose anti-satellite weapons might not be completely off the table, though the international political ramifications might be more than they're willing to face.

          • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 12 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday June 12 2020, @04:22PM (#1006930) Journal

            I think signal jamming will play a bigger role in blockage. We need a more neurotic network, with lots of alternative paths

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @08:44PM

              by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 12 2020, @08:44PM (#1007069)

              Well, every terrestrial path will be easily subverted by the government. And if you're jamming satellites so they can't hear ground stations, it's not going to matter how many satellites operated by how many companies there are. Either they play ball, or they get jammed. But that's likely to be an ongoing international incident since you'll also be jamming the signal for all nearby nations. And it's not like you can easily jam the ground antennas - they're all focussed almost directly upwards and will mostly ignore any ground-based jammer.

          • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 13 2020, @06:35PM

            by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday June 13 2020, @06:35PM (#1007511) Journal

            https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-china-threat-2016-11 [businessinsider.com]

            "Obviously, any given country can say it's illegal to have a ground link. [...] And from our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast," Musk said during the event. "I mean, I'm hopeful that we can structure agreements with various countries to allow communication with their citizens, but it is on a country-by-country basis."

            So what if SpaceX continued to broadcast uncensored internet over China, despite not being given permission?

            "If they get upset with us, they can blow our satellites up, which wouldn't be good," Musk said. "China can do that. So probably we shouldn't broadcast there."

            SpaceX may simply disable Starlink sats while they are above China.

            China has the right to manage the radio spectrum in its territory. Retaliation doesn't need to involve blowing up sats. They could just kick Tesla out of the country.

            Smuggling in user terminals won't help if SpaceX doesn't broadcast over China. I'm not familiar with the details of the centralized ground links (are they optional?) but that could also be a major stumbling block.

            --
            [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:00PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @09:00PM (#1006593)

        And then who will protect me from the US government? The abuses my own government inflicts are all at the insistence of the USA.

  • (Score: 2) by Revek on Friday June 12 2020, @01:20AM (1 child)

    by Revek (5022) on Friday June 12 2020, @01:20AM (#1006704)

    Reese's pieces doesn't do shit unless he get his bribe.

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    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 12 2020, @08:45AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 12 2020, @08:45AM (#1006798) Journal

      FCC already had some control over Starlink's fate because they have the authority to approve/deny those tens of thousands of satellites. The decadal ISP cash handout is a different matter though. FCC would definitely have been sued if they had outright rejected Starlink, and I think Pai wants to avoid more scrutiny than usual.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @01:29AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 12 2020, @01:29AM (#1006706)

    i remember seeing "telex" machines in offices when i was a kid...
    now (or soon anyway) every point (virgin or green or brown) on earth surface will be connected to every other point (via pizza box sized equipment) on the surface. that's pretty amazing!
    even if we found "neutrino coms" which shots neutrino beams from (big) beer can sized devices straight thru the earth, these will probably be super highly directional and need very very precise alignment and won't be usable when moving?

    methinks the only thing that allows "lazy isps" aka cow-milking-isps aka government owned telecoms to sleep at night now is the hope that starlink will now have the customer capacity. else there is now (soon) a alternative ISP for in the sky, tongue out emoji, errr ... : P

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 12 2020, @08:41AM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 12 2020, @08:41AM (#1006797) Journal

      In the long run, neutrino-based communications (which has been demonstrated, albeit crappily [physicsworld.com]) seem like the best option possible unless an ansible is invented. But it might never be possible to get to that beer can size if connection quality depends on having neutrinos interfere with matter. Maybe you could put the beer can's contents under extreme pressure? But that's a lot less safe than SpaceX's pizza box antennas.

      It will be interesting to see how many users Starlink can support, but it can be easily scaled up if it is making a ton of money, including improved versions of the individual satellites that can do better than 20 Gbps or whatever it is. The FCC rural broadband cash pile is a potential shortcut to getting there.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @02:13PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 12 2020, @02:13PM (#1006867)

        It does seem kind of unlikely that you're going to be able to build a conveniently sized neutrino detector capable of detecting a beam that passed through the entire Earth mostly unimpeded, at least not unless the beam were *incredibly* powerful. And considering the mind-boggling pressures present deep inside the Earth, I really doubt any can-pressurization would have a noticeable effect - gasses are really the only thing whose density changes appreciably with pressure, and their density is so low to begin with that I doubt anyone would ever try to build a detector with them.

        It does sound like coherent recoil detectors can be made pretty small (32lb), but for now at least they had to put the thing right next to a powerful neutrino source to detect anything: https://www.ornl.gov/news/worlds-smallest-neutrino-detector-finds-big-physics-fingerprint [ornl.gov]

        Not to mention trying to fit a tightly-focused neutrino generator into the same convenient package if you want two-way communication like browsing the web.

        As for detecting neutrinos that aren't interacting with matter... I don't think there's even any theoretical basis for doing so - they have no charge or magnetic field, in fact it sounds like their only interaction is via the weak nuclear force, which operates operates at such incredibly short range that you have to actually be passing directly through a nucleus to be within range. But hey, maybe new physics will someday change that.

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