I'm keen to see Starlink deals with government censorship requests. Can a country even effectively enforce their requests? How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?
The reality distortion field around musk is insane...
First of all, SpaceX will not sell Firewall circumvention in China. They are an ISP and need to follow the rules if they want to officially sell there.
Second, even if somehow people got terminals and try to use them, SpaceX could block them. And even if they didn't, the government could locate these people, relativity easily.
Third, even if you assume the CCP is so 'diabolical' to attack Tesla, because of SpaceX. The are not a universal power, China has big plans to have their own car companies be exporters of EV and export batteries and be a major player in the battery supply chain. If they went after Tesla will some BS rules, I would suspect it would cause an international issue on the highest level and would lead to tit-for-tat style destruction on all sides potentially.
SpaceX will never be beholden to China, neither will Boring or Neurolink.
And if CCP simply starts attacking foreign auto-maker based on pretences based on pretences. Then the US have a significant interest in paying back China auto and battery makers in equal measure. And European car makers and companies also have to seriously ask them-selves when its gone happen to them.
The deals about how the car market is set up, is being made between countries and are part of international agreements.
That's true for the Model 3 for the first half of 2020 only, they were a long way behind in 2019 and were outsold by the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV in the second half of 2020. Most of their competitors sell multiple models as well meaning that in some of those months they sold more EVs than Tesla overall.
The Model 3 smashed it for a few months last year, but they're not the largest selling EV maker in China.
In terms of revenue generated overall Tesla easily beats everybody else. And Tesla just added the Model Y and they will likely be 1&2 on the market.
Of course only since 2020 as that is when the factory opened.
SpaceX may or may not decide to bring Starlink to China. But either they will bring it to China following the Chinese government's rules, or they will geofence it so it can't be accessed from Chinese territory.
The relevant part can be translated like this:
> (not complying with the law) entails the imposition of an administrative fine on officials in the amount of ten to thirty thousand rubles; On legal entities - from five hundred thousand to one million rubles.
For some reason the part about officials gets applied to simple citizens, which is completely incorrect in my understanding of the law.
So my guess is that you will not be able to legally to import Starlink receivers into Russia unless some kind of agreement will be achieved, but simple citizens owning such receiver will not be prosecuted (well, at least in the near future). Though they may be prosecuted under a different law if they'll try to share the unrestricted Internet access with other people. It's quite similar to VPNs, currently it's not illegal in Russia to use it to visit blocked resources, but it's illegal to provide such service (though any sane person would not use a VPN-service based in Russia to work around those blocks in the first place).
More interesting than China though are regional communications shutdowns. Will India be able to turn off communications in Kashmir? Will various countries be able to turn off the internet on national school entrance exam days? Will democracies for show be able to turn off the internet when the votes aren't as expected?
By filing legal complaints through the ITU (which is a UN agency), probably. I expect some international treaties probably come into play. Basically, China complains to the UN, the UN tells the US they can't provide Internet service in China unless they follow China's rules, and then the FCC tells SpaceX that if they don't comply the FCC will shut them down.
Of course, the US government could just decide to ignore China and let SpaceX do whatever they want. (This is all assuming that SpaceX wants to be the Robin Hood of the global Internet and take censorship from the powerful and give access to the poor and not worry about the geopolitical or economic consequences. They might just want to be a regular internet service provider that follows all the rules in whatever country they operate in and doesn't make waves. They could also just not offer service in China.)
It's kind of a weird situation. I mean, it's space, so you'd think you'd be outside of any legal jurisdiction and be able to get away with whatever, but actually satellites and radio communication are heavily regulated and subject to international agreements and treaties.
Basically: dear SpaceX, please switch off your sats over our territory, or we will do it for you.
I wouldn't be surprised if China just started their own state sponsored low orbit satellite internet.
Another decent, cheaper middle ground would be operating just the 'first-hop' satellites that ground units communicate with and adjusting the technology such that the dish units used in china are substantially different in terms of the actual RF. Then these China run satellites enforce the GFW and then route traffic to Starlink and other 'non-china' satellites.
The biggest downside I see to that setup is that this satellite technology has to in a non-geostationary orbit which means you need a lot more satellites to get 24 hour coverage in a specific location. This isn't a problem if you want to provide service to the entire planet but for country specific networks; the extra satellites are a bit redundant.
The even safer option is to make running a ground dish itself a government enterprise. Private/non-state ownership remains illegal but the state uses Starlink et al. as just another backbone in their state network. This is probably the most likely since it is far simpler to integrate and control.
Starlink's stance on the issue is probably enough to satisfy countries like the UK that have some unique internet laws but are still satisfied with using the normal western legal process to enforce their needs.
I'm not sure if China will let them operate though – nothing to do with censorship, to do with protectionism. They might want to reserve the Chinese market for a future Chinese controlled constellation.
Until such time as they are approved by the Chinese government to operate in China, they are going to geofence their satellites to refuse connections from terminals located on Chinese territory.
It's probably all moot as China would probably simply halt Tesla Sales, as they are not bound by the logics of legality.
Musk's biggest risk in China is the CCP confiscating the Tesla factory in Shanghai.
Not with rockets, but maybe with lasers? What damage can a single one do? Could a country deploy them at specific orbits to have enough coverage to destroy a sufficient amount?
They told me this about 20 years ago and I don’t know what’s changed since then. Presumably someone here knows if it’s still hard or if it became easy since 2001?
you'd need at least $400 of test equipment to check that the >$100 of parts were working right, and to diagnose any problems. not cost effective.
The SpaceX receiving dish (dishy) will just be on that list for certain countries.
I'm guessing there will be Starlink ground stations located in China that are subject to the same conditions as all the other local ISPs?