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Comment by ren_engineer | Hacker News Reader

>If the goal is to get levels of performance that Starlink cannot provide, then this makes sense?

no, because the only reason Starlink doesn't currently hit the metrics is due to them having so many users joining. They could hit the metrics by temporarily halting signups, cutting off users, or delaying the Pentagon's massive deployment project.

Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US military admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink capacity that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up their internet

>U.S. defense officials had previously estimated that the annual cost for Starlink in Ukraine, which Musk mostly had been donating, will be hundreds of millions of dollars.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/01/...

The tech is proven to work, the FCC is just playing politics.

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> no, because the only reason Starlink doesn't currently hit the metrics is due to them having so many users joining. They could hit the metrics by temporarily halting signups, cutting off users, or delaying the Pentagon's massive deployment project.

I admittedly don't know much about this process, but with a billion dollars on the line, why wouldn't they have presented these options? It's not like this came out of nowhere, Starlink knew that they were not meeting their obligations and was given a chance to present their case.

I don't know, it just seems like it would be pretty easy to halt signups for a month, show that speeds increased drastically as my launches got ahead of my signups, and then explain to the FCC why this would be the normal state of affairs at some point in the future. Or, don't even actually halt signups, just make a convincing case about why halting signups would drastically increase speeds, and by 2025 you plan to do whatever you need to do to hit that 100/20 metric, but right now you're trying to do the most good for the most people, which means more signups and lower speeds.

For a billion dollars, these all seem like easy & obvious arguments to make if they were at all viable.

Anyway, I think that if Starlink can prove that they're making progress towards their commitment, they become eligible for the subsidy again, so if halting signups is really a viable strategy and they really care about the billion dollars then it seems like they should do that.

Ah, but here you assume that the FCC is acting in good faith. Assume no good faith, and follow the same trail.

> Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US military admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink capacity that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up their internet

That doesn’t sound right. Satellites over Ukraine cannot be reached anywhere from the US and they also wouldn’t use the same gateways. So I could see the use of starlink in Ukraine possibly slowing service in Europe. But I cannot see how it would affect customers in the US.

> Or Musk could cut off Ukraine's capacity, which the US military admits is consuming hundreds of millions in Starlink capacity that could be allocated to US consumers to speed up their internet

Satellites in LEO over Ukraine can't provide service to the US. (and because of the way orbits work a LEO satellite that spends time over the US will also spend time over Ukraine)

Is there not internet bandwidth involved? Bandwidth for one person means less bandwidth for another, doesn’t it?

Internet bandwidth in America and Ukraine are completely separate. Starlink is mostly bent-pipe, sending signals to station in view of the satellite. Over remote areas, the satellites need to talk to each other to relay signals. But my understanding is that goes to the closest ground station.

How Starlink works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs2QcycggWU

Its nearest ground station bounced off nearest satellite, or some inter-satellite laser links to make some hops, then to the user. It's optimized to be shortest route, just like routers with the wired internet you're using now: if you stream a movie, that request goes to in a short path from the server to you. You streaming doesn't slow down someone in China, because the data never approaches any equipment in China. Same with Starlink. Their data never approaches any starlink satellites in the US. When they get the whole grid laser link working, then it might, but it will still approach being optimal, with ground stations used as needed.

Ground vs laser is a latency thing, more than a bandwidth thing. No need to stream Netflix with low latency.

There are what 150 gateways/ground stations. That’s a finite number, no?

a ground station in the US can't see a satellite over Ukraine

Precisely. You need to build ground stations near your users.

> due to them having so many users joining

I’m actually curious, what is their userbase and where can I find the info?

Wikipedia has some numbers [1] according to which they passed 2M users in September 2023 and are growing pretty consistently by about 100k users per month since mid 2022.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Subscribers

What Pentagon deployment project? I can't find any news stories about military rolling out Starlink. The only news is US paying for Ukraine's access; cutting off Ukraine would not be good for SpaceX. The military doesn't need Starlink with all their communications satellites. They are looking at it for polar use where Starlink has better coverage.

Are you talking about the SDA Starshield constellation? That isn't launching yet, the contract is for development. Starshield has nothing to do with Starlink except using the same platform and taking up launch slots.

I like how you didn't mention that Starlink could solve capacity problems by launching more satellites.

Starshield

Starshield has nothing to with Starlink business. The only thing that might affect it is the military wants to launch lots of Starshield-based satellites and that keeps SpaceX from launching Starlink satellites. But then SpaceX would get paid lots of money for the launches. The military hasn't agreed to launch constellation; my suspicion is that they are waiting for Starship.

> Starshield has nothing to with Starlink business.

Yes it does. See [0]:

> SpaceX is providing a best effort and global subscription for various land, maritime, stationary and mobility platforms and users... The task order for Starshield services is provided by the Starlink satellite constellation but is differentiated from the commercial Starlink service based on unique Department of Defense terms and conditions that are not found in commercial service contracts.

Translating the bureaucratese, the US military is buying access to the existing Starlink constellation under the umbrella of "Starshield". They have a special contract and no doubt lots of additional paperwork and oversight of Starlink operations.

I can understand your confusion, because there's also SDA's plan to build its own in-space communications backbone, for which SpaceX has been contracted, and SpaceX's plan (under Starshield) to build custom satellites on a Starlink bus to host defense payloads, so it's easy to get the impression that there will be the civilian Starlink and military Starshield constellations and they'll be entirely independent.

But that's not the case, and it would be really dumb if it were. The Starlink constellation's sheer size provides an immense amount of resiliency and reserve bandwidth that is of great military benefit, and that's been funded by commercial customers. Just like how the DoD no doubt tunnels its secure networks over the civilian internet rather than laying its own transoceanic cables etc., there's no reason for it not to make use of the existing Starlink constellation and many reasons to.

[0]: https://spacenews.com/spacex-providing-starlink-services-to-...

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