FCC doubts ability to provide high-speed, low-latency service in all grant areas.

SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant::FCC doubts ability to provide high-speed, low-latency service in all grant areas.

  • Uglyhead@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1034·
    11 months ago

    Starlink’s grant was intended to subsidize deployment to 642,925 rural homes and businesses in 35 states. The August 2022 ruling that rejected the grant called Starlink a “nascent LEO [low Earth orbit] satellite technology” with “recognized capacity constraints.” The FCC questioned Starlink’s ability to consistently provide low-latency service with the required download speeds of 100Mbps and upload speeds of 20Mbps.

    That’s Phony Stark for ya, everytime: Overpromise and Underdeliver. And then get angry when called on his bulkshit.

    • Marcbmann@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1216·
      11 months ago

      The grant requires applicants to meet these benchmarks by 2025. Only SpaceX came close to meeting this standard and only SpaceX is being denied the grant for not yet meeting this requirement.

      • kalleboo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        32·
        11 months ago

        "RDOF rules set speeds of 25/3 Mbps as the minimum allowed for broadband service delivered by winners. However, participants were permitted to bid at four different performance tiers: 25/3 Mbps, 50/5 Mbps, 100/20 Mbps and 1 Gbps/500 Mbps"

        If SpaceX had bid on a lower tier of service that they were actually capable of delivering, they would have been fine.

        This grant was not designed to fund the development of new technology, it was designed to build infrastructure (fiber, 5G, WISPs, etc) and they were originally going to exclude satellites from the bidding completely. The companies who would have used the grant to build fiber or set up point-to-point wireless would have had no problem meeting the requirements since it’s all proven technology.