In acid?

Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They're never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.

They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn't a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.

There's a reason it's as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.

Yeah wait until we we have someone in power who gives a shit about science and then re-fund NASA and nationalize SpaceX under the NASA umbrella. (Pipe dreams, I know)

If only we could adjust the plot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes to where it's mostly just cleaning up dead starlink satellites.

In any case, highly recommended as a fantastic anime. And for those that haven't seen it:

That's a dubbed trailer, but those of you looking for a Japanese language trailer know where to find it or probably have already watched it lol

I didn't realize how temporary and disposable Starlink's satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here's a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn't seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.

Man, that was worth the wait!

i dont feel the cost and waste of all the rocket launches and debris justifies remote areas having satellite Internet

Giving companies to the state doesn't always work well. However giving companies to the workers does.

The humanity does. Well, maybe not “need” it but deserve it. Finding out about the world around us is what we exist for.

The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn't meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn't think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.

No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.

The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.

They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.

Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements

https://www.ookla.com/articles/above-maine-starlink-twinkles

Median DL: 116.77 (over the required 100)

Media UL: 18.17 (just shy of the required 20)

90th Percentile DL: 250.96

90th Percentile UL 27.17

If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.

Edit: extra details.

Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I'd said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.

Nationalization is so communist thing to do.

You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don't even make it to 4 years.

However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it's basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.

It's insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn't a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.

I'm checking this out!

Also every African despotic regime that has has ever existed.

Doesnt make it a bad idea tho

Never gonna happen under republicans... or dems as they are sell outs too.

don't threaten me with a good time!

Reverse accelerating space ship. I like the idea!

why stop there?

do it to meta, twitter, amazon, etc