FCC cancels Starlink’s and LTD's rural development grants

Re:FCC cancels Starlink’s and LTD's rural development grants by theptip on Thursday August 11, 2022 @01:15PM (#32428875)

But they have ~500k users now, with 20% of satellites deployed, and there are something like 600k subsidized households if I’m reading correctly. I think it’s safe to say that in 2024 they will be able to handle 600k extra users. (If they actually try and don’t oversubscribe!)

The 100/20 was observed early on IIRC so they have demonstrated it’s possible if they don’t oversubscribe. (Which is more than can be said about previous satellite internet services.) But yeah, they certainly aren’t currently in compliance. Given Musk’s general approach to regulatory bodies I can’t blame them for applying skepticism here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FCC cancels Starlink’s and LTD's rural development grants by tsimionescu on Thursday August 11, 2022 @08:19PM (#32433442)

As far as I understand from other comments, they will have the option to re-apply of they achieve these speeds sometime before 2028.

> I think it’s safe to say that in 2024 they will be able to handle 600k extra users. (If they actually try and don’t oversubscribe!)

We'll have to see. It's important to note that so far they've been able to use whatever launch capacity they want to increase the constellation, but by 2024 they will have to start using a good portion of their launch capacity to re-build it, since the satellites launched today will have fallen down by then.

If they manage to launch Starship by then (not sure if that's looking likely or not), maybe they will have extra capacity to be able to both replace satellites and expand the constellation.

[ Parent | on HN ]