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Not advocating for either side here, but the ability for US gov to control/influence internet access on a global scale is, to me, the main driver behind Starlin
by zyf 11mo ago
Not advocating for either side here, but the ability for US gov to control/influence internet access on a global scale is, to me, the main driver behind Starlink. tinfoil hat off
- shellfishgene 11mo agoIsn't the percentage of the world population that gets internet via Starlink very low? Also, how was the US government involved in the creation of Starlink?
- boringg 11mo agoAgree with you - Starlink doesn't have a government connection. In fact the reason it was successful is that it didn't have one. The government connected internet was the landlines that the cable companies were trying to deploy in the rural America for high cost tax paying dollars. It is a US company though - but I think this is very tin foil hat territory here.
- jeromegv 11mo ago> Starlink doesn't have a government connection. US DOD is contracting Starlink in Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrainian_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...
- boringg 11mo agoOriginally on inception -- sorry should have clarified for the purposes of the speculation purposes that it is US gov controlled.
- Mountain_Skies 11mo agoStarshield is a very important revenue stream that helps fund Starlink overall.
- Jeremy1026 11mo agoThere is an argument that could be made that if the government didn't provide SpaceX contracts they'd never have the capital available to put Starlink into operation.
- bdamm 11mo agoThat's not a supportable argument. The US government has been extremely fickle about their support of SpaceX's Starlink. Witness the revocation of the funding for rural communities. If you're referring to NASA and other government agencies contracting for launch services, well sure, but that too was an open market that SpaceX won on clear merit. In my community, Starlink is very popular, because the local DSL (the only option) is terrible. Fiber projects exist, but they are totally blocked by processes requiring the approval of native tribes if trenches dug for fiber discover piles of shells left behind by tribes hundreds of years ago. In entirely different areas, I see Starlink terminals popping up on every mining and forestry contractor's truck. I suspect Starlink's popularity among those who roam widely is just as important, if not moreso, than any funding the federal government has provided, because that is a clear and sustainable revenue that is entirely based on practical industrial applications.
- lofaszvanitt 11mo agoOh watch as the new phones get satellite access for cents......
- whynotmaybe 11mo agoThe gov is kinda involved because every rocket launch from US soil must be approved by a gov agency, including the payload manifest.
- ectospheno 11mo agoI want you to seriously imagine a world where any idiot can launch a rocket into space carrying anything they want. You think the FDA is over reach too?
- beefnugs 11mo agoYou are right, only the real men who throw HEILs while k-holing should be able to do it
- alt227 11mo agoHow do Starlink IP addresses work with Geolocation? Does Starlink have access to IP address blocks for all coutnries and issue them out based on registration and/or GPS data? Or do all starlink customers worldwide get issued US IPs?
- fluoridation 11mo agoNote that there's no such thing as "US IPs". GeoIP works by induction: "OK, this operator is in France, so all addresses in this range are probably in France; these ones are probably close to Paris, which is where this internal router is;" etc. If I had to guess, you probably get the address of the base station whose signals reflect off the satellite, which is probably not very far from you, given the satellites are in LEO. EDIT: I meant to say that you get an address in the ground station's subnetwork. I don't know if Starlink uses NAT.
- alt227 11mo agoI hadnt even considered that there were multiple ground stations. I just assumed the Starlink satelites would just all bounce the signal back to base in the US.
- pixl97 11mo agoThat would have a decent amount of latency as you'd have a space trip around the world, then a ground trip to any EU/Asia site.
- alt227 11mo agoAs opposed to a ground trip to a local base station and then a trip around the world on the ground? Sounds like it would be the same to me.
- roywiggins 11mo agoThe first Starlink constellations didn't have inter-satellite links at all: https://wccftech.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-laser-test/ https://wccftech.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-laser-test/ Also, people in Europe don't want to have to take a round trip to space via America just to pull up IKEA's website hosted next door. That's a lot of pointless latency when you could bounce it down to a nearby ground station instead.
- bloppe 11mo agoThere are some things that the US does heavily control on a global scale, but internet access is not one of them. It's much easier for countries to create walled internet gardens than to create walled finance gardens. Many of them have been doing it for a long time.
- wat10000 11mo agoIt will never be cost competitive with terrestrial connections in places where most people live. It’s great for remote areas. It will never be able to control a large portion of global internet traffic.