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Comment by verzali | Hacker News Reader

This is naked corruption. It's way worse than just stealing the contract, it essentially means Starlink will get a free antenna on every airplane in the country (at taxpayer expense?) and will then have the airlines as captive customers. Musk is going to make way more than $2bn out of this.

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I'm gonna say this every time this comes up: These people should be in PRISON. They are criminals. If we care about law and order, we must remove them immediately from office. End of story. I am sick and tired of apologists for these people, if you believe they are conducting themselves legally, you do not believe in our Republic, you are complicit, you are a traitor to our country and to the American project. We will find you with our pitchforks, it is only a matter of time.

The US government put itself up for sale. Musk bought it. Now he's reaping the rewards of his investment.

Starting to feel like Russia’s fire sale to oligarchs after the fall of the USSR.

He paid $270M or something to be the de-facto President. An excellent deal.

Don't forget the 44 billion USD he paid to control one of the world's largest vehicles for dissemination of information, transforming it into a superspreader of disinformation and propaganda.

"He". There are Russians and Saudis behind the funding (to no-one's surprise), the same countries that have bankrolled Trump for decades.

Does it strike anyone else as sadly funny that the country which has meddled in other countries for so long, has finally had a foreign puppet + stooge installed in itself?

There's no Russian money, and no new Saudi money there.

Not to mention Starlink is further cemented as critical infrastructure and less liable to be sanctioned by future administrations.

Starlink is also one low earth orbit detonation from ceasing to exist.

Unfortunately the article (and you additionally) are being misleading about the details.

The antenna on every plane is provided by Iridium/Inmarsat and is a totally different thing from this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43206833

Here's this FAA video about the matter. Keyword relevant to Starlink is RTIR https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...

What does "free antenna" mean here?

Obligation to have a starlink terminal on the plane to enable communication with the radio tower. This comes with the added bonus of enabling Elon to sell Starlink internet in-flight.

Prescribed users will get access to net and non-users will get forked as per-usual. But with an Elon branded fork instead.

I also expect he's eager to make it proprietary. That way it would then force all other airlines that route through the USA to have a Starlink terminals too.

I use a mini in-flight. I welcome anything to bring the price down (currently $250/mo for 50 GB)

However, this "fix" not being put out for bid is ridiculous. That's not how competition and the market works. This feels like African-style "whatchu gonna do about it" big man corruption.

The story is misleading and the commenter adds extra nonsense.

Is the only hope to resolve this Verizon fighting this out in court?

Yeah, which they won't. They'll settle for half the price and walk away from.

Just another asset they don't have to manage. It's not like they're short of money.

Yeah, unfortunately the list of federal judges skews heavily towards team Trump.

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