Which part is embarrassing to the FCC, exactly?
When a government agency that is supposed to be impartial and fact based is clearly making decisions like this on a political basis that undermines it in the long term due to public mistrust.
If you use their service, you know that it's capable of serving X amount of people at Y up and Z down with N latency? C'mon...
This isn't like cable or fiber where the technology is already mature and it's simply the business case.
The numbers show otherwise and the FCC made it clear that Starlink presented no numbers to the contrary. This isn't even a case of the FCC's numbers saying one thing and Starlink's numbers saying another.
I totally believe that some places give you consistent 100/20 speeds, but aggregate numbers don't show that and Starlink made no attempt to argue otherwise.
All, please disregard my comment and refer instead to this top comment instead:
You seem to consistently ignore that SpaceX didn’t even make that case, and I’m confused why they didn’t, or why you know their business and fit better than they do.
Musk still managed to slide in and loot a few billion dollars before they realized that Starlink can't meet their definition of "broadband." No other satellite internet could either.
That's false. SpaceX doesn't appear to have actually received any money from the FCC for this program yet, and now won't assuming this decision holds.
WISPs rely on a local enthusiastic person to make it work.
There were speed targets of 100Mbps available to 20M households. They're currently at a median of 65Mbps [1] and they already have more than 99% of the U.S. covered [2]. It's an egregious, questionable, partisan claim by the FCC that they can't reasonably be expected to hit the speed target by 2025.
[1] https://www.ookla.com/articles/us-satellite-performance-q3-2... [2] https://www.starlink.com/map?view=availability
Where politics doesn't impede the growth of municipal and co-op internet solutions, it is absolutely possible for rural communities to end up with very capable internet access.
It can work.
It's nice that your parents have a co-op that is actively rolling out such infrastructure. That's not the rule though, and the U.S. has massive swaths of low density population areas with substandard internet speeds.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/cable-lobby-to-f...
No one else comes even close. You can't run fiber there, can't mount towers everywhere.
Instead, these standards are so low that it makes me wonder how Starlink doesn't qualify. The fact that they are just out of reach of Starlink in just enough areas to disqualify them does make the whole process a bit suspect looking.
I don't know whether this was a purely commercial decision to generate mass adoption prior to building out the constellation and the rest of the required infrastructure, or whether there was some kind of underperformance vs engineer plan or whatever.
In either case, it's not a good look. Particularly if it was a commercial decision, then it's a case of "decisions have consequences".
How are you getting phone/power?
I could see this making sense if there was any real competition or someone else who was realistically going to provide the service. But the only competition for this money are companies with a poor track records and that are notoriously bad.
The only point I’d like to point out is that the minimum requirement is 25/3Mbps with the option to bid for a higher tier that comes with more subsidies but also locks you into the higher requirement.
Starlink made a bid for the higher tier that requires 100/20Mbps and now it turns out that its plans don’t sufficiently establish how they’re going to meet those requirements.
While Starlink was able to achieve 100Mbps down in some areas (albeit not consistently), it is nowhere near 20Mbps up.
But with everything this man is involved in, he has a loyal army of fans who will carry water for him, no matter how much the facts say otherwise.
Who knows, maybe if I’ve spent $600 on a dish, I too will try to rationalize it by becoming a cheerleader.
Talk about embarrassing.
Starlink success, and to that extent, SpaceX, are arguably tied to government money.
I would say that not getting almost $1B may impact their operations quite a bit.
This suggests that they are in the black, which they are not. They are losing a lot of money.
https://www.reuters.com/business/elon-musks-spacex-turns-pro...
For a company that doesn't need money, they seem quite upset that they aren't getting much of it.
You can see NEVI as an example.
Exactly - because they were/are getting boatloads of cash from the government. There is no shame in that.
Citation please.
The government are paying SpaceX as a customer, they're not giving them free money.
Also note they're paying them a lot less than they pay ULA for the same things
You can see that this is true with other businesses as well, no business relies on getting “customer money” because “customer money” means when customers donate to you in exchange for nothing, not money that they pay in exchange for goods or services.
Looks like Starlink was supposed to be 40% built with their participation starting in 2020, that are consistent with their winning bid (in this case 100/20). It seems they clearly failed by that metric.
Regardless though, I was wrong about the buildout reasoning. The FCC just doesn't believe, based off the information provided by Starlink, they had a strong enough likelihood of success with the plan provided to stay in the running.
The Dems say no. Evidence is current state of network and absence of starship.
SpaceX says yes. V2 is already launching on Falcon. We don't need starship to meet our obligations but it will make it faster.
Republicans say both of you are talking nonsense. Until 2025 you can't find out. And there's a process for getting there. You only test devices that are under the RDOF plan, not everyone. And since SpaceX hasn't been awarded, you can't do any testing that's relevant.
Imagine SpaceX got awarded say Diomede and you're bringing up speeds in LA and Seattle or the Midwest.
SpaceX will sue and lose due to Chevron deference
My DSL provider received hundreds of millions in government subsidies and did nothing to improve the service in the region, and brazenly lied about it to the FCC. I know that it's fashionable to criticize Elon Musk, and it's often justified, but Starlink is far more deserving of government funds than most of the grifter ISPs who actually get the subsidies.
Under this program there's no option of another org replacing a denied org. Who's stepping up for LTD broadband for example?
Where do people get this from?
Maybe there will be a future award. But there's no rollover here.
1. Money is fungible
2. Grant applications are still open
So money not spent on SpaceX can go to a future application.