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posted by janrinok on Monday November 29 2021, @07:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the where's-OUR-cut? dept.

India tells Starlink to stop offering satellite internet without a license:

SpaceX doesn't always get a warm reception when it expands Starlink. Reuters reports the Indian government has told Starlink to immediately stop "booking/rendering" satellite internet service in the country until it has a license to operate.

[...] Starlink is currently available in 21 countries in mostly public beta tests. However, SpaceX has a particularly strong incentive to serve India as soon as possible. India has a very large rural population (over 898 million, according to World Bank data). It's a prime market for satellite broadband, and the Starlink team hopes 80 percent of devices sold in India by late 2022 will serve rural areas. However, it's now clear India's government doesn't share that same enthusiasm.


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @08:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @08:45AM (#1200455)

    a lot of places block indian ips this just gets ahead of the race

  • (Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Monday November 29 2021, @12:05PM (2 children)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Monday November 29 2021, @12:05PM (#1200479)

    As a standard rule, most Indian IPs are blocked on my networks.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @12:53PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @12:53PM (#1200490)
      I would like to do the same for phone calls. Just a global block of any call originating from anywhere on the Indian subcontinent. Just too many scammers.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:59PM (#1200849)

        Blocking the Indian internet would put a huge damper on the Indian scammers.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SpockLogic on Monday November 29 2021, @01:06PM (2 children)

    by SpockLogic (2762) on Monday November 29 2021, @01:06PM (#1200493)

    The authoritarian Modi regime running India doesn't want the proles to have internet access they can't control.

    --
    Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Tokolosh on Monday November 29 2021, @03:45PM (1 child)

      by Tokolosh (585) on Monday November 29 2021, @03:45PM (#1200552)

      When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

      P. J. O'Rourke

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday November 29 2021, @05:31PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 29 2021, @05:31PM (#1200596) Journal

        The legislators are being bought and sold to prevent the incumbent ISPs from having competition in the skies above their heads.

        It is about a different kind of control.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 29 2021, @01:36PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday November 29 2021, @01:36PM (#1200503) Journal

    It's India. The bureaucrats want their bakshish.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday November 30 2021, @06:27AM

      by legont (4179) on Tuesday November 30 2021, @06:27AM (#1200797)

      India has cheap rockets too and their owners do have ways to influence their bureaucrats. I would go as far as to suggest they are better at it than Musk.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday November 29 2021, @01:46PM (4 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday November 29 2021, @01:46PM (#1200507) Homepage Journal

    I can't find it just now, but someone already asked him what countries should do, who don't want their populace to have access to Starlink. His answer was that they should "shake their fists impotently at the sky".

    More seriously: the only chance governments have, is to restrict the import and sale of the ground-based equipment. Otherwise, fsck'em.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @02:08PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @02:08PM (#1200514)

      The govt has options:

      It is already likely technically illegal to import or use a ground terminal transmitter without permission. (Just like in the US, the FCC has control of what radio transmitters are permitted.)

      As a physics exercise, how much RF power would be required to overload or even smoke a Starlink sat's uplink rx channel? (Or worse, the C&C path?)

      The solution is to get the population to tell the govt to find a way to let is happen. (The farmers have demonstrated that the govt is not deaf to the population yet.)
      What has Starlink done to build grassroots support. Is there some critical group of potential users signed up for service with a voice?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @02:32PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @02:32PM (#1200521)

        ISRO is space capable. If he pisses the Indians off enough they might lob a cargo of gravel into the appropriate orbit.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 29 2021, @04:05PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 29 2021, @04:05PM (#1200561) Journal
          It's worth noting that Russia may have already done the same [soylentnews.org] for similar reasons. The destroyed satellite in question was at a different altitude than the shells of Starlink satellites, but it does significantly increase the risk of collisions (and long term costs of Starlink and similar systems).
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @07:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @07:18PM (#1200943)

      That fists will reach the sky and knock one of those satellites into enough pieces to ruin your wet dream about musk.

      Musk thinks rest of the world is wild wild west for rich white boys do whatever they want. He and his fans are sooner going to learn or suck Xis balls.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 29 2021, @02:26PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 29 2021, @02:26PM (#1200518) Journal

    I have little idea how reasonable licensing requirements are. Has Musk's companies done their part to comply with the law(s)? Or, are they just playing Cowboys and Indians, doing whatever they like?

    There are surely three sides or more to this story.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday November 29 2021, @07:39PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Monday November 29 2021, @07:39PM (#1200649) Journal

      Or, are they just playing Cowboys and Indians

      I see what you did there. :-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday November 30 2021, @06:35AM

      by legont (4179) on Tuesday November 30 2021, @06:35AM (#1200799)

      Given that Musk has the nerve to sell self driving cars in the US legal environment without authorization and the total impossibility to get anything in India on such a short order...

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:13PM (#1200565)

    No, The Musky One just considers himself 'above' the law.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:17PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:17PM (#1200566)

    *sigh* a countries internet and railway system is only profitable for a country, if it is build, developed and implemented by their own people.
    if your shit only works because you buy it from another country, you don't have your own internet and railway and the (meager but valuable) profits go to the other country and you are the market for the other country ...
    like 3rd world countries remaining addicted to oil with "local native subdealers" with acces to the overlords perks ...

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 29 2021, @11:10PM (4 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 29 2021, @11:10PM (#1200731) Journal

      *sigh* a countries internet and railway system is only profitable for a country, if it is build, developed and implemented by their own people.

      Because why else would you have an internet and railway system except to make some profit for the right cronies?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @05:02AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @05:02AM (#1200786)

        Local ownership of local production intended for local consumption is always preferable for a national economy. Foreign ownership is always a net loss in that case. The difference here is that LEO satellites have an economy of scale that makes local ownership noncompetitive.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:01PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:01PM (#1200836)

          next up, warlordistan is outsourcing the nations military to [redacted] 'cause it's cheaper ...

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:53PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:53PM (#1200847) Journal

            warlordistan is outsourcing the nations military to

            Say like Germany outsourced a good portion of its military to NATO (particularly the US)? It certainly would be cheaper than a viable lone defense against the Eastern Bloc.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:50PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:50PM (#1200844) Journal

          Local ownership of local production intended for local consumption is always preferable for a national economy.

          Except when it isn't. See comparative advantage [wikipedia.org] for a class of reasons this isn't always true. And there's my corruption example where local ownership means local ownership by a crony.

          The difference here is that LEO satellites have an economy of scale that makes local ownership noncompetitive.

          Interesting how many of these unconditional statements are contradicted by the person who wrote them in a few more sentences. If your first statement was always true as asserted, then there would be no such difference to mention in this one! Is it really "always preferable" to have noncompetitive infrastructure as you describe here? Sounds like you don't think so.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @04:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @04:59AM (#1200785)

      Ground based services are inherently localized, which always favours local ownership, but LEO satellite services are inherently global, so they always favour globalization. Starlink only exists because rural areas, especially in poor countries, can't be served economically by ground based systems, so any large rural population is going to want in on it.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 01 2021, @05:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 01 2021, @05:57PM (#1201198)

    Have they fixed the thermal problems yet? Most places in India are quite warm. The places with air-conditioning probably already have reasonable access to the Internet.

    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/06/starlink-dish-overheats-in-arizona-sun-knocking-user-offline-for-7-hours/ [arstechnica.com]

    Officially, SpaceX has said that "Dishy McFlatface" is certified to operate from 22° below zero up to 104° Fahrenheit.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/2/india-severe-heatwave-northern-states-delhi [aljazeera.com]

    Daytime temperatures were above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) for the fourth consecutive day on Friday across the northern states of Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

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