US House panel probes FCC decision to deny Starlink nearly $900M

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-house-panel-probes-fcc-decision-deny-starlink-nearly-900-million-2024-10-07/

by jayantbhawal • 2 years ago

22 14 2 years ago

justin66• 2 years ago

The FCC is quoted in the article as indicating Starlink would require rural customers to purchase a $600 dish to start service. That's fine, but what the heck do they need $900M for if they're not subsidizing that equipment cost? Their satellites will be flying overhead anyway. Normally when the federal government throws gobs of money at internet providers it's in the name of building out physical infrastructure. (on some occasions it even gets built) Here... it's for what?

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, a Republican, asked the FCC in a letter Monday to turn over documents by Oct. 21 on the decision. The committee seeks to ensure the FCC "followed established processes and is not improperly using the regulatory process for political purposes."

There's a potential for comedy here, at least. James Comer, for people who aren't familiar, makes the Alaskan senator who once compared the internet to "a series of tubes" look like Isaac Newton by comparison.

josefritzishere2• 2 years ago

The 900M was earmarked to build infastructure as any terestrial ISP would have had to construction costs to build out services. For Starlink it would basically be money for nothing. A planned program to give consumers free routers and dishes would not even necessarily ISP-facing. That could be done directly with consumers either as tax credits, or the like.

inemesitaffia4• 2 years ago

You're mistaken.

RDOF in particular required installation and battery backup.

It's not money for nothing and ground stations aren't free.

The plan was to deliver a free to the customer bundle with telephony

inemesitaffia4• 2 years ago

These plans are delivered to the ends user free of charge, including installation and battery backup.

No one's states that in their application because it's a given so this $600 nonsense is misplaced.

And there's other middle mile infrastructure

jqpabc123• 2 years ago

Who will insure that this panel is "following established processes and not improperly using the regulatory process for political purposes" in order to appease one large donor?

acover• 2 years ago

The requirements they failed was meeting 100mbps down and 20 up. They were measured at 90/9.

Starlink meets the intent of fast internet, if not their arbitrary line. Everyone I know who has one loves it.

https://spacenews.com/fcc-commissioner-criticizes-starlinks-...

slenk• 2 years ago

9 up is abysmal.

init2null• 2 years ago

Yes, everyone loves it, but it fails the surprisingly sane criteria. Try uploading a video to YT on 9. Or even do a cloud phone backup. Why do we tolerate connections that force us to be nothing but consumers online? Creation needs real upstream bandwidth.

Starlink is also painfully expensive. I've sent them several customers, but I know what it is: a last chance for rural people who've been abandoned to rotting DSL lines. That being said, line of sight is impressively competitive both on bandwidth potential and the most important factor to casual users, cost.

lxgr• 2 years ago

For anything wired I fully agree, but radio-based connections are sometimes power limited (as opposed to bandwidth limited) in the uplink path.

You don't want your mobile phone to drain even faster than it already does, or a Starlink antenna exceeding microwave radiation limits for anyone walking past it (I've seen many of them installed on the ground or at least below eye level).

_fs• 2 years ago

In my major metropolitan san diego suburb, I have one option for high speed internet. No fiber in the ground. (Closest is about 2 miles away) and I live in a canyon, so 5g is very hit or miss. I get Spectrum Cable. And they give me ~200 Mb down, 10 Mb up for 80$ a month. The upload speed is hard limited. Its abysmal. If I need to back up my server, I pack it up and take it to work. It's literally faster to move my server to a new location then try to back up 10Tb of data.

josefritzishere2• 2 years ago

The original intention of these rural internet subsidies was to build rural infastructure. It's historically similar to rural electrification in the 1930s and 1940s. Starlink provides this service without local infastructure, and below the speed guideline. Making an exception for them would be a violation of public trust.

inemesitaffia4• 2 years ago

There's rural infrastructure

inemesitaffia4• 2 years ago

Pointless effort IMO. Good luck delivering

7e• 2 years ago

Elon Musk is a subsidy vampire, I see it continues here.

US House panel probes FCC decision to deny Starlink nearly $900M

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