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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Starlink operator SpaceX is fighting Virginia’s plan to deploy fiber Internet service to residents, claiming that federal grant money should be given to Starlink instead. SpaceX is already in line to win over $3 million in grant money in the state but is seeking $60 million.
Starlink is poised to benefit from the Trump administration rewriting rules for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program. While the Biden administration decided that states should prioritize fiber in order to build more future-proof networks, the Trump administration ordered states to revise their plans with a “tech-neutral approach” and lower the average cost of serving each location.
i hope elon dies and starlink goes bankrupt
I hope some hero gives him the UnitedHealth CEO treatment.
Green hat good
Sig heil bad
I’d rather Starlink just be independent from Musk. There are people who just can not get a good Internet connection and rely on it, and other Satellite Internet companies are awful.
I hate Musk as much as the next person, but Starlink is brilliant and works well. If they got rid of Musk and stopped being dicks like they are with this, it’d be okay.
I don’t know how much Musk can be separated from Starlink. Not only because Starlink, as part of SpaceX, is privately held but also because the main reason they now have a superior service to offer is that they got fucktons of money from government customers, which is also tied to Musk’s action
A big part of Musk’s involvement with politics is because everything he does, from EVs to rockets to, now, big energy-guzzling datacenters for AI, needs a lot of government backing, if not in terms of direct contracts at least in terms of regulation and incentives.
Even his direct involvement with Trump wasn’t because he suddenly became a Nazi (he’s probably always been one, according to his own family) but in order to become even more entangled with government investments, even trying to control NASA directly.
And not only US governments. I remember Musk suddenly being everywhere in Europe pitching Starlink. Meloni’s government in Italy was grilled for allegedly agreeing on a big contract with Starlink.
Id rather all this space trash burn up and we just spend the money on providing internet via land.
It’s still a good thing for cell coverage in remote areas for hiking emergencies though. The few satellites that currently do that are stupidly annoying and expensive to use. You have to carry specialized equipment, and if you use Garmin, you pay a yearly fee for the privilege of signing up for the low tier plan, then a monthly fee for the service, and then pay by the text message after the first few. Starlink just added T-Mobile so if you have a newer phone and use T-Mobile you can skip all of that and message out in emergencies without all that nonsense. Hopefully more brands will be added soon, but I don’t know.
Not just for hiking emergencies.
Many of us in reasonably functioning democracies have had a few decades to forget that sometimes people want to destroy your civilian infrastructure. Far fewer of those people have the capability to disrupt a satellite grid.
Life is not safe. Adventure even less so. The loss of the night sky and the risk of Kessler syndrome is not outweighed by a slight convenience allowing influencers to stream video and hit social media while pretending to get away from it all.
What a weird hill to die on. Is it about letting people die or about influencers livestreaming?
What about comms during catastrophies? Small villages or off-grid houses? Remote research installations?
I swear, Lemmy is becoming more reactionary by the day.
It’s not for streaming. As far as I know it’s just text messages. Absolutely agree we should not be using screen time when out and away. We just need that little bit of safety.
There are also hand held radios, strobelights, flares, and PLBs that do not require more satellite infrastructure.
People being lost in the wilderness is not a new problem. It often happens because people don’t bother to consider that they might get lost and plan appropriately.
Sorry, but not everyone gets to come home, especially if they don’t do a little planning.
Ehhh agree that it frequently happens from poor planning, but I think we should do what we can to improve safety rather than blame victims. Learning about and paying for obscure satellite tech only helps those people who already know a lot about hiking, whereas this could bring the tech to everyone with a phone.
But also I think they could do it with a lot fewer satellites than this. They don’t need absolutely great coverage. Just a message service. The government could provide this on an emergency basis.
People should learn to navigate if they’re going into the wilderness, and face the consequences if they don’t. People will call for additional safety until we all live in padded cells. Frankly, people could stand to face a lot more danger in this world. Maybe then idiots will stop trying to pet the bears at Yellowstone. There’s no need to litter the sky with satellites so that the incompetent can live a bit longer.
Or we could just make satellite phone service more accessible? Without the need for thousands of pieces of space trash put into LEO? Nobody needs tiktok when they are climbing a mountain in a remote area.
but not in this order, the reverse would be so much more satisfying