<story><title>US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-agency-will-not-reinstate-900-mln-subsidy-spacex-starlink-unit-2023-12-13/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jandrese</author><text>I find it impressive that the government is actually punishing a project for running late and underdelivering.  They should expand this to all parts of the government.  Can you imagine if the F-35 was cancelled the first time it fell behind schedule?  The Space Launch System?  The Littoral Combat System?  The USS JFK?&lt;p&gt;So many boondoggles could be killed off before they spend money.  Maybe contractors would have to start properly estimating costs up front.  Or maybe nothing would ever get done again.&lt;p&gt;I do wonder what the FCC is planning to do with these funds if they aren&amp;#x27;t funding Starlink.  Are they going to go towards a &amp;quot;safer&amp;quot; project like Project Kuiper?  Or maybe dumping it into Inmarsat?</text></item><item><author>I_Am_Nous</author><text>When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25&amp;#x2F;3, Starlink applied for 100&amp;#x2F;20. When they didn&amp;#x27;t reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; because they didn&amp;#x27;t hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100&amp;#x2F;20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the FCC was required to assess if Starlink was reasonably, technically capable of supplying those speeds by 2025. Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. As of yet Starship hasn&amp;#x27;t had a successful launch. On top of this, the statistics that were available at the time showed that Starlink transfer speeds were already trending down and the network is a lot less utilized than it would be in 2025. There are technical challenges that need to be solved before Starlink is remotely capable of meeting that obligation and the challenges don&amp;#x27;t appear to be resolved yet. Giving Starlink money is a gamble and the FCC would rather play it safe.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;RDOF rules set speeds of 25&amp;#x2F;3 Mbps as the minimum allowed for broadband service delivered by winners. However, participants were permitted to bid at four different performance tiers: 25&amp;#x2F;3 Mbps, 50&amp;#x2F;5 Mbps, 100&amp;#x2F;20 Mbps and 1 Gbps&amp;#x2F;500 Mbps. When the auction closed, the FCC noted 99.7% of locations were bid at 100&amp;#x2F;20 or higher, with 85% bid at the gigabit tier. That means Starlink will need to provide speeds of at least 100&amp;#x2F;20 in order to meet its obligations.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fiercetelecom.com&amp;#x2F;broadband&amp;#x2F;what-do-starlinks-latest-ookla-results-mean-its-886m-rdof-winnings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fiercetelecom.com&amp;#x2F;broadband&amp;#x2F;what-do-starlinks-la...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;attachments&amp;#x2F;FCC-23-105A1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;attachments&amp;#x2F;FCC-23-105A1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lesuorac</author><text>I think you may not understand what the government is.&lt;p&gt;The government is a collection of individuals. It is not a single borg instance. Some individuals within that collection are going to act different than other ones.&lt;p&gt;Also the government does a lot of funding through different mechanisms. Many miltiary programs are a cost+ program where they pay the contractor the cost of development plus a profit% so the initial budget is a bit moot since the point is to pay for a capability. That obviously doesn&amp;#x27;t apply here and the FCC wasn&amp;#x27;t offering a Cost+ program.</text></comment>
<story><title>US agency will not reinstate $900M subsidy for Starlink</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/us-agency-will-not-reinstate-900-mln-subsidy-spacex-starlink-unit-2023-12-13/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jandrese</author><text>I find it impressive that the government is actually punishing a project for running late and underdelivering.  They should expand this to all parts of the government.  Can you imagine if the F-35 was cancelled the first time it fell behind schedule?  The Space Launch System?  The Littoral Combat System?  The USS JFK?&lt;p&gt;So many boondoggles could be killed off before they spend money.  Maybe contractors would have to start properly estimating costs up front.  Or maybe nothing would ever get done again.&lt;p&gt;I do wonder what the FCC is planning to do with these funds if they aren&amp;#x27;t funding Starlink.  Are they going to go towards a &amp;quot;safer&amp;quot; project like Project Kuiper?  Or maybe dumping it into Inmarsat?</text></item><item><author>I_Am_Nous</author><text>When applying for RDOF you say what service tier you are targeting and instead of shooting for the minimum 25&amp;#x2F;3, Starlink applied for 100&amp;#x2F;20. When they didn&amp;#x27;t reach those speeds[1], they were ineligible but not &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; because they didn&amp;#x27;t hit the required speeds on their existing network. There are more details here[2] but the jist is that Starlink bid to supply 100&amp;#x2F;20 internet to over half a million subscribers and the FCC was required to assess if Starlink was reasonably, technically capable of supplying those speeds by 2025. Starlink reportedly argued that once they can properly launch Starship, they can surely hit the required speeds. As of yet Starship hasn&amp;#x27;t had a successful launch. On top of this, the statistics that were available at the time showed that Starlink transfer speeds were already trending down and the network is a lot less utilized than it would be in 2025. There are technical challenges that need to be solved before Starlink is remotely capable of meeting that obligation and the challenges don&amp;#x27;t appear to be resolved yet. Giving Starlink money is a gamble and the FCC would rather play it safe.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;RDOF rules set speeds of 25&amp;#x2F;3 Mbps as the minimum allowed for broadband service delivered by winners. However, participants were permitted to bid at four different performance tiers: 25&amp;#x2F;3 Mbps, 50&amp;#x2F;5 Mbps, 100&amp;#x2F;20 Mbps and 1 Gbps&amp;#x2F;500 Mbps. When the auction closed, the FCC noted 99.7% of locations were bid at 100&amp;#x2F;20 or higher, with 85% bid at the gigabit tier. That means Starlink will need to provide speeds of at least 100&amp;#x2F;20 in order to meet its obligations.&lt;p&gt;1. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fiercetelecom.com&amp;#x2F;broadband&amp;#x2F;what-do-starlinks-latest-ookla-results-mean-its-886m-rdof-winnings&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.fiercetelecom.com&amp;#x2F;broadband&amp;#x2F;what-do-starlinks-la...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;attachments&amp;#x2F;FCC-23-105A1.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.fcc.gov&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;attachments&amp;#x2F;FCC-23-105A1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>atty</author><text>To be fair, defense is an existential risk for the US and its allies. NATO can’t really afford to not have a reasonably up-to-date combat jet. They also need to continually feed money into the military industrial complex so that suppliers don’t go under&amp;#x2F;downsize too much&amp;#x2F;etc.&lt;p&gt;Not disagreeing with your sentiment, just think that certain fields like defense, healthcare, etc have slightly different priority lists.</text></comment>