Starlink

[stumblinhorse]

Actually the FCC move to define broadband as 100/25 started back in 2014, and therefore greatly predates the Twitter acquisition. You might want to check your details before posting.

While I am sure that Elon did not blow up the SpaceX rocket to break a few quail eggs, I would suggest that it might fall under the general concept of needing to pay for damaging other people's property and the environment for which there are, yes, a few rules and laws. Just as a reminder, BP paid $4.5B in fines and over $65B in clean up for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf.

Deepwater Horizon oil spill - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

All the best,

Peter

Interesting than the subsidy was granted well after 2014. And subsidy just was rescinded this week. But it will only hurt people with starlink, since the price will have to go up…

Well little different than deep water horizon. It was 4 acres of a state park…. The other land was owned by spaceX.

 

[scootr]

Friday night 6 pm peak usage time. I'm getting 201.41 down and 30.72 up
thank you Elon and
F the FCC

 

[techman]

Satellite service is always going to be more expensive than a terrestrial solution. As mentioned the equipment cost is the highest of other solutions. Also due to the high per subscriber cost the government would be subsidizing more costs for a system that has inherently higher costs.

 

[LouNY]

Satellite service is always going to be more expensive than a terrestrial solution. As mentioned the equipment cost is the highest of other solutions. Also due to the high per subscriber cost the government would be subsidizing more costs for a system that has inherently higher costs.

No it should not be. It should also not be subsidizing wired systems either.

 

[BigBlue1]

Satellite service is always going to be more expensive than a terrestrial solution. As mentioned the equipment cost is the highest of other solutions. Also due to the high per subscriber cost the government would be subsidizing more costs for a system that has inherently higher costs.

That's an odd way to look at the situation. Since no ISPs' infrastructure was (or would be) built from the ground up for this effort the only net cost to extending Internet to rural areas is the infrastructure related to the actual extension. That is going to be cheaper by far for Starlink. The only cost is the user terminal and incremental user traffic on the main Starlink network (sat system and ground stations). For any terrestrial ISP the cost includes all the copper or fiber and switching stations to get the network extended to all users. At thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per mile that cost per residence is going to be WAY higher since most rural areas probably have only a couple people per mile.

And "high per-subscriber cost"?? Do you live in rural areas? The $90 I pay for Starlink is cheaper than any other rural ISP option out there. Even when I had DSL ("5 Mb/s", which was more like 3) it was $100/month. I've never had an ISP in the last 15 years, even when I lived in a metro area, that was more than a few dollars cheaper than Starlink. Probably never under $80/mo. One of our kids just signed up for entry level DSL in a city nearby and it is over $90/mo for 30 Mb/s. Starlink is competitive.

 

[plowhog]

Not sure if this has been mentioned. I saw Starlink for sale by Costco-- $2,499.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Satellite service is always going to be more expensive than a terrestrial solution. As mentioned the equipment cost is the highest of other solutions. Also due to the high per subscriber cost the government would be subsidizing more costs for a system that has inherently higher costs.

Imagine if the federal government quit subsidizing Amtrak because of the high per rider costs. It would cease to exist. I'm not in favor of either btw.

 

[WM75Guy]

Imagine if the federal government quit subsidizing Amtrak because of the high per rider costs. It would cease to exist. I'm not in favor of either btw.

Not going to happen anytime soon with the new government travel requirements for employees requiring train travel.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

I have pretty much given up using Starlnk. My daughter and granddaughter were here a few weeks ago and had brought her Xbox and connected through the Starlink. I watched the progress line as she tried to download a large file. It started out fast, but at about 33% it started to slow down. it was like somebody was turning off a faucet. By the time it got to 50% the data had stopped flowing. Tried it three times and failed. Switched to the local wireless ISP and it downloaded it flawlessly. It was initially a bit slower, but by the time it got to 25% it was obviously faster than Starlink at that point.
I've had the same problem streaming videos. After a while Starlink throttles the feed and I end up trying to watch an HD video on an 4K TV in 480p.

 

[Torvy]

Sounds like you have the discount version. I have had no download problems. The only issue at all has been the occasional dropped call using wifi calling. (Cell service is 0 inside our metal house and only 2 bars outside).