Comment on SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant
ItsaB3AR@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
I still think Starlink can be a great service for rural areas, but it seems they need to improve their capabilities first. Which in a way makes a chicken-egg scenario. If they expand servers to handle all those people, they should be eligible for a grant, but they don’t wanna do it until they get the grant.
echo64@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s just not a sustainable idea. To expand service, they need to launch even more satellites. Which degrade and fall down after a year. The only reason it could exist thus far is because the US taxpayer paid for it with subsidies like this.
America has problems with getting cable companies to actually lay cable after giving them money to do that, which is a separate thing. But at least if you get cable laid, it is in the ground providing service for hundreds of years instead of 1 year.
A7thStone@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They could do it and make money too, but they are only thinking of short term gains. In my neck of the woods spectrum kept taking the money and barely putting up any cable until our state finally told them to pound sand. Fios then said we’ll do it, and they did. They have run thousands of miles of fibre in the last few years, and guess who everyone is paying for internet service because it’s the only service available up here.
Botanicals@lemmy.world 9 months ago
This is exactly it and everyone should keep it in mind even if it’s helped you individually in your rural area. Elon keeps taking shortcuts for a cash grab and shooting garbage into space is not a long term answer.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The SATs burn up after a few years. No trash in space, and if you think sats in space in large numbers is clogging up space. I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Do you crash into every house you drive past?
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Releasing all kinds of cool chemicals into the upper atmosphere, and no one really knows what kind of effect that will have. Cool.
The number of satellites Starlink plans to launch will quintuple the number of spacecraft in LEO.
It absolutely is clogging up LEO, and multiple space agencies share that opinion. NASA wrote a whole letter on the potential hazards Starlink presents, and the challenges it adds to critical missions.
The speeds these satellites are moving at make this comparison so bad it’s embarrassing. Starlink satellites have accounted for over half of all close calls since they’ve been in orbit, and when the constellation is done, it’s estimated that that number will grow to 90% of all close encounters.
variaatio@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Also not only would they need more satellites, but satellites more densely in any area with multitude of customers. Which eventually hits RF interference saturation.
Radio signal has only so much bandwidth in certain amount of frequency band. Infact being high up and far away makes it worse. Since more receivers hit the beam of the satellite transmission. One would have to acquire more radio bands, but we’ll unused global satellite transmission bands don’t grow in trees.
Tighter transmitters and better filtering receivers can help, but usually at great expense and in the end eventually one hits a limit of “can’t cheat laws of physics”
Marcbmann@lemmy.world 9 months ago
After 5 years.
SpaceX sells services. Just because they’re selling services to the government doesn’t make it a subsidy.
echo64@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Starlink is a service sold to you, not the American government. You seem confused. You don’t get it for free paid for by taxes.
You have to buy it, and the American government subsidies it to encourage private sector spending on low to no profit endeavours like Internet to remote regions
Marcbmann@lemmy.world 9 months ago
SpaceX has paid for starlink through selling flights on their rockets, not through “subsidies like this”
You seem confused if you’re flip flopping between starlink being paid for by consumers and subsidies.