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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.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 12 2020, @02:13PM
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.