SpaceX is one of the RDOF Auction Winners

[edzieba]

In other words, the government requirements would have prevented people from getting service instead of helping them.

Damned if you do, dammed if you don't. Set very low (100mbps down 30 mbps up IIRC) minimum service requirements, be accused of setting requirements too high, don't set minimum service requirements and be accused of GEO SATCOM/dialup/GSM providers receiving funds for doing little to nothing.

Sadly, regulatory capture means that proposing an actual solution (funding of last-mile link installation, and mandating Local Loop Unbundling) which would allow actual direct competition, would disrupt the current commercial monopoly model that US ISPs operate under, so is a non-starter without regulatory reform.

The requirements were 100/20, and that is not "very low" when you consider that the vast majority of the areas Starlink bid on have zero providers offering service meeting the old 25/3 FCC standard. Starlink, even if it isn't quite at 100/20 on average yet, is still a massive upgrade.

And they had till 2025 to hit 100mb average, and are trending higher, yet the govt says they are trending lower (despite the data)

Because Starlink service started out well above the threshold (400mbps achieved in some cases), and dropped down below it over time as service was rolled out to more subscribers and the fixed amount of bandwidth available per cell saturated. The only way average available bandwidth per user can rise back above the threshold again is either by throwing subscribers off the service not not letting them back on, significantly increasing the number of satellites in orbit (essentially, doubling the number of satellites of the same design is required to double the bandwidth), and/or replacing the existing satellites with the same number of new satellites with more bandwidth available.

So the question then becomes whether the FCC expect Space can roll out enough new and/or replacement satellites to fill the shells required to bring available cell bandwidth comfortably above the threshold (because if they're just barely meeting the threshold for existing subscribers, they can't onboard any new subscribers, defeating the purpose of the funding for rollout to new subscribers) by 2025. Presumably the threshold takes into account the ability to meet that threshold whilst servicing some minimum proportion of the population within each cell (because only being able to offer the guaranteed service to 0.1% - for example - of users per cell is the problem they're trying to solve). Their current determination is that SpaceX is not capable of meeting that, hence the judgement.

[RedLineTrain]

Their current determination is that SpaceX is not capable of meeting that, hence the judgement.

The Wireline Competition Bureau's current determination, mind.  These folks can be expected to be skeptical of wireless, which is why the Commissioners should have evaluated this for themselves, asked around the Space Bureau staff, and reversed the determination based on SpaceX's growing constellation buildout momentum.

It's indefensible on its merits.  That the vote was on a party line basis rightfully raises eyebrows.  The pound of flesh for this vote should be extracted.

[envy887]

If the FCC is gonna hold them to that standard, they're also checking on the other RDOF participants and their adherence to said standard, right?

Eventually they will be checking, but there is no penalty for underperforming until 2026.

[cpushack]

Citizens are petitioning the FCC's decision which has VIASat worried enough to file legal opinions against it.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/viasat-tries-to-stop-citizen-effort-to-revive-fcc-funding-for-starlink

[DistantTemple]

Tongue in cheek - but not impossible.
With SX's RDOF "cancelled", alternative providers will not be able to provide an appropriate quality of service - or perhaps any service to some of these unconnected citiczens.
In rural  locations somebody could become the "last mile provider" somehow using an RDOF award (money that would have gone to SX).
However that somebody (local government/last mile provider/Starlink competitor) would need to buy one of SpaceX's new "Private Ground Stations" .... thereby paying SpaceX to do the real work, and restoring it in a roundabout way to a rightful place in the program.
(Unlike several others on NSF I am NOT a communications engineer!)

[raptorx2]

Not sure if this was posted before?

OT RDOF - Starlink Plans to Join Affordable Connectivity Fund Subsidy Program

https://broadbandbreakfast.com/2023/12/starlink-plans-to-join-affordable-connectivity-fund-subsidy-program/

[raptorx2]

Citizens are petitioning the FCC's decision which has VIASat worried enough to file legal opinions against it.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/viasat-tries-to-stop-citizen-effort-to-revive-fcc-funding-for-starlink

Or a change in Administration.