I know exactly what power-constrained application you have in mind, Oleg, and I like it.
There are alternatives if you only need short range, or if you can tolerate high latency. And of course there are fire-and-forget cruise missiles that don't need communications at all.
But there aren't all that many other options. Historically, satellite internet companies like Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic have not fared well.
It only gained packed-switched data with the second generation satellite network, but data rates are still very low (think hundreds of kbps, and I believe even that needs high-gain antennas).
edit: it was Viasat not Iridium, I got them mixed up.
Hell we let Russia freely execute dissidents (Skripal or the Berlin Tiergarten murder come to my mind) and tolerated a land-grab war by little green men in 2014. Either of these actions would have warranted serious consequences, the Crimea/Donbas grab would be a casus belli if you ask me. But again, we were too busy sucking Putin off for cheap gas.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki#Death
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Nawar_al-Awlaki
So the US will downplay or ignore some amount of aggression from Russia to do so.
If the US wanted to go to war with Russia, we would be playing up some rather minor thing, like sending a missile system into "Europe" or something.
When that Ukrainian SAM fell in Poland and killed a farmer, there was a late night emergency meeting between a lot of very important people from NATO countries to decide WTF to do. If the west wanted to fight Russia, that meeting would have resulted in an Article 5 declaration of some sort.
Russia is behind the sabotage/blowing up of a Czech Republic arms depot. If the west wanted to go to war with Russia, that could have also been an instigating event.
Russia will continue to get passes for "minor" acts of war as long as the west does not agree with sending citizens to die in a war.
That we don't equip Ukraine with more than enough war material to do whatever they are capable of, however, is fucking stupid.
Welcome to geopolitics.
The thing came with a clear limit "this thing works in these cells of this big hex grid". And they drove it off that hex grid. Plan and simple.
Its like if the US-supplied HIMARS came with some built-in limit that it cannot be used to target known Russian nuclear installments, and they'd try to do that.
It's not that those things are unquestionable, but they are limits that would need US consultation as US obviously doesn't want the thing to escalate from being a defensive war to something else.
And Musk did exactly that per numerous reports. Given his erratic behavior since around 2018, it's not hard to believe. The other day he was literally threatening to stop Dragon launches for NASA.
The geoblocks are quite hard. The only situation where Russians have managed to use them for a short while is when they've managed to capture a terminal, and it hasn't been cut off because it's been unclear who was in control of it, and Ukranians benefit more of them as they've built a lot of things and process around them as it such a massive battlefield advantage if used right.
>Given his erratic behavior it's not hard to believe
Congratulations, you've managed to slip in to a sea of misinformation and media spin. Place a check on this in 5 years, these things tend to be silently put under the rug. It's like you're saying it wouldn't be a surprise if all future Falcon 9 rockets just blew up because they've done so at testing and because Starship does so too. Learn some distinction.
This isn't possible unless they are hacked and are at the border.
No one is using Starlink in Moscow.
I know more than you do. Go spread hate and misinformation somewhere else.
This is where the hex grid was previously on. Wayback machine doesn't seem to work as it's a web app https://www.starlink.com/map
The author's youtube channel also contains a video of him doing a speedtest on a starlink mini while driving on a highway.
Unless there's a software limit built in that turns them off, or the drone's doing some crazy high-G-force acrobatics.
Also as I understand, satellites do not work over Russian territory so guess where this can be used.
Aren't starlink have some kind of geolock?
> to have a reliable bypass of pathetic russian firewall
All data shows that Russia have one of the strongest and best firewall in the world, in many aspects even better than in China. And all the Russians I spoke with say that VPN is not blocked and any service for a couple of bucks does its job.
i know that it wasn't permitted.
somewhat assumed that they will block dishes from most of russia
Almost certainly impossible and doubly illegal
Perhaps. Apparently, it isn't applied in RV mode
> All data shows that Russia have one of the strongest and best firewall in the world
If you have a pile of shit in the world right in front of your house, it is pathetic, even if it is the biggest and the stinkiest pile of shit in the world.
> And all the Russians I spoke with say that VPN is not blocked and any service for a couple of bucks does its job.
I am Russian. This is not true. All regular vpn protocols (OpenVPN, Wireguard) are outright blocked. Shadowsocks is blocked on most ISPs, including all major mobile ones. VLESS works, for now, mostly, but sometimes the IP address of the server I run become unavailable.
Wouldn't publicity paint a target on one's back?