The slap fight between Donald Trump and Elon Musk has highlighted the absurdity of keeping so much of our space program and satellite internet infrastructure in the hands of a single oligarch.
They’re just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that’s something.
The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we’re talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth’s atmosphere, not being recycled.
Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
I didn’t realize how temporary and disposable Starlink’s satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here’s a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn’t seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.
You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don’t even make it to 4 years.
However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it’s basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.
It’s insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn’t a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.
Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.
It might! But the article I linked also suggests it might destroy ozone and have a net warming effect. We just don’t know. The upper atmosphere has never before had this level of direct pollution injection.
Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They’re never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.
They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn’t a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.
There’s a reason it’s as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.
I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it’s still a net positive. It’s not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it’s probably the best option we have at this time.
The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn’t meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn’t think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
Edit: extra details.
Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I’d said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.
Yeah I mean the tax payers have literally already paid for all of both SpaceX and Starlink. The public paid for it, the public should own it.
They’re just following in the footsteps of Comcast. The FCC gave SpaceX/Starlink $885.5 million to provide rural broadband after they gave Comcast over $1 billion less than 5 years ago to do the same thing. Starlink actually works out there from what I understand, so I guess that’s something.
The main problem is that starlink is not a viable ISP like Comcast. Relying on low earth orbit is extremely wasteful as you need to constantly launch more and more satellites. Starlink gives their satellites a 5 year lifespan where fiber can go on for 40 years or more. There are 7,500 starlink satellites, so we’re talking a constant replacement of satellites all falling into earth’s atmosphere, not being recycled.
Starlink is literal space trash waiting to happen.
I didn’t realize how temporary and disposable Starlink’s satellites were. They incinerate 4 or 5 a day by de-orbiting them into the ozone. Here’s a pretty good CNET article that talks about how they “dispose” of them. IDK, doesn’t seem sustainable. They also mention the bandwidth gains are being diminished with the influx of new users, so their solution is more temporary satellites.
Yeah, if they want to make satellites last longer, they could go a bit higher in their orbits. The option is there.
You are right in how wasteful it is, especially since it turned out a lot of those satellites don’t even make it to 4 years.
However there is zero risk of space trash with Starlink. They orbit so low, it’s basically within the atmosphere still. They need to constantly boost themselves, otherwise they fall down and burn up. So these satellites are coming down within years all on their own, even without any controlled disposal.
It’s insanely wasteful, but it keeps SpaceX in business launching every week, which is kind of the point. But at least there isn’t a Kessler syndrome waiting to happen.
Even though it’s not a space trash problem, it is a regular upper atmosphere polluter of aluminum oxide ash. We don’t yet know the long term consequences.
It’s not enough, but I would bet it might have a cooling effect as it reflects more light in the upper atmosphere.
But we should really still make sure, and more importantly not trust Elon with any data flowing over those satellites.
It might! But the article I linked also suggests it might destroy ozone and have a net warming effect. We just don’t know. The upper atmosphere has never before had this level of direct pollution injection.
Starlink provides service to areas where fiber is impossible. Like the middle of the ocean and actual rural areas where fiber runs could be tens of miles or more between homes. Those are area where no one will build out fiber unless the homeowner is paying for it themselves, the various government programs would never cover those actual rural areas despite what they claim. At best they might cover city outskirts for new infrastructure, where fiber nodes are already relatively close by. They’re never adding fiber to existing rural farms and ranches.
They are not a 1:1 service comparison. You would need to compare It to other satellite providers, and there isn’t a comparison because all of those are dogshit in comparison to Starlink.
There’s a reason it’s as popular as it is so quickly despite satellite internet in general not being new. The low earth satellite constellation means a massive difference in capability compared to conventional geostationary satellites. Multiple second latency, slow downloads nowhere near advertised double digit Mbps speeds, single digit Mbps upload speeds and often monthly data limits as low as 50GB per month are what the conventional satellite providers offer.
i dont feel the cost and waste of all the rocket launches and debris justifies remote areas having satellite Internet
I think if you consider the cost to manufacture then bury a fibre optic cable for everyone who lives 10km from a town centre, I think it’s still a net positive. It’s not great for sure, but amortised over a huge population it’s probably the best option we have at this time.
Only short term, long term the repeated rocket launches can’t win out over a ditch digger.
I doubt the Ukrainians would agree with you
Those places can get internet from satellites outside of low earth orbit that is simply slower with higher latency.
If only we could adjust the plot of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes to where it’s mostly just cleaning up dead starlink satellites.
In any case, highly recommended as a fantastic anime. And for those that haven’t seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESIHA0qK3U
That’s a dubbed trailer, but those of you looking for a Japanese language trailer know where to find it or probably have already watched it lol
I’m checking this out!
The FCC revoked that award before the money was handed over because starlink wasn’t meeting the speeds they needed to meet for the deadline 3 years in the future and they didn’t think they would make it. The speeds that money was supposed to help them achieve launching the satellites required to meet it.
No one else had that made up requirement put on them in advance.
The goal that was 3 years in the future, which would have been around now or early 2026, required them to meet their speed (100d + 20u) and latency (<100ms) goals for 40% of the 650k rural users.
They had 1.5 million US customers at the start of 2025, not sure how many are part of this rural 650k but id imagine the majority are, and only 260k of the rural ones have to meet the requirements.
Ookla did a post about starlink in Maine where it shows many of the users are meeting those requirements
https://www.ookla.com/articles/above-maine-starlink-twinkles
Median DL: 116.77 (over the required 100)
Media UL: 18.17 (just shy of the required 20)
90th Percentile DL: 250.96
90th Percentile UL 27.17
If Maine is a representative example, then they are probably meeting their 40% target of 260k rural users despite not getting the money which would have accelerated things and made launches more focused on meeting the goals.
Edit: extra details.
Edit: I was just looking up more info on the program, and the deadline to report would have been in January 2025, so it would have been with the 1.5 million users they had at the start of the year, not around now, or 2026 as I’d said. That Ookla report was December 2024. We should get a report from the FCC (this summer?) that outlines how many others met their respective 40% target.