Here are reports from two different sources:
SPACE NEWS yesterday
SpaceX loses $900 million in rural broadband subsidies
by Jason Rainbow — August 10, 2022
The FCC said Starlink and LTD Broadband failed to show they "could deliver the promised service” required for rural subsidies. Credit: FCC via Flickr
LOGAN, Utah — SpaceX has lost its bid for nearly $900 million in rural broadband subsidies for its Starlink broadband service.
The Federal Communications Commission said Aug. 10 that SpaceX had failed to show it could meet requirements for unlocking the funds, which aim to incentivize expanding broadband services to unserved areas across the United States.
“We must put scarce universal service dollars to their best possible use as we move into a digital future that demands ever more powerful and faster networks,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.
“We cannot afford to subsidize ventures that are not delivering the promised speeds or are not likely to meet program requirements.”
SpaceX was provisionally awarded the subsidies in December 2020 after competing in an auction under phase one of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).
SpaceX’s winning share was one of the largest among the auction’s 180 successful bidders, and covered nearly 643,000 homes and businesses in 35 states.
Auction winners were required to submit paperwork to the FCC to show how they planned to deploy services that meet RDOF conditions to receive the funds over 10 years.
For Starlink, this included providing 100 megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds.
Terrestrial telco LTD Broadband, which was provisionally awarded $1.3 billion in subsidies under the program, also failed to demonstrate it could “deliver the promised service,” Rosenworcel said.
“Starlink’s technology has real promise,” Rosenworcel added.
“But the question before us was whether to publicly subsidize its still developing technology for consumer broadband—which requires that users purchase a $600 dish—with nearly $900 million in universal service funds until 2032.”
Ookla speed tests showed median download speeds for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network improved 38% to 90.55 Mbps in the first quarter of 2022, compared with the corresponding quarter last year.
However, Ookla said upload speeds fell from 16.29 Mbps to 9.33 Mbps.
SpaceX has launched more than 2,700 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) to improve its service and coverage.
According to satellite broadband competitor Viasat, limitations in Starlink’s network architecture prevent it from meeting RDOF obligations even with more satellites.
“As the number of Starlink subscribers increases, the system will become even more capacity-constrained, which is likely to impair network performance and constrain speeds for end users,” Viasat told the FCC in a July 13 letter.
In a July 29 letter to the FCC, SpaceX said Viasat “is transparently attempting to have the Commission impede competition at all costs to protect its legacy technology.”
SpaceX and Viasat have a long history of battling it out over regulatory matters through FCC filings.
Viasat, which operates broadband satellites in geostationary orbit, was denied an attempt to bid for subsidies in the RDOF auction with a proposed LEO constellation.
Rosenworcel’s decision comes after she said last year that the FCC was taking steps to “clean up issues with the program’s design originating from its adoption in 2020,” following complaints about how some of the subsidies would fund broadband in parking lots and well-served urban areas.
These steps included letters to SpaceX and other winning RDOF bidders to withdraw funding requests for areas that already have service, or where “significant questions of waste have been raised.”
SpaceX has been raising billions of dollars to support plans to expand Starlink and its next-generation rocket Starship. The company raised $250 million in an equity round from undisclosed investors in July, bringing total funding raised so far this year to a reported $2 billion.
This article was edited Aug. 10 to correct a typo in Ookla’s upload speed figures for Starlink.
email-white sharing button Emailtwitter-white sharing button Tweet
COMMERCIAL SMALL SATELLITE CONFERENCE SPACEXVIASAT
More Like This
Starlink Screenshot
Viasat asks FCC to halt Starlink launches while it seeks court ruling
SpaceX Hangar Florida
SpaceX won’t seek U.S. rural broadband subsidies for Starlink constellation
Viasat wants FCC to review Starlink’s government funding
Falcon 9 Starlink 10 launch
SpaceX, Hughes and Viasat qualify to bid for $20.4 billion in FCC rural broadband subsidies
FCC rejects Starlink request for nearly $900 million in broadband subsidies
Officials aren't convinced SpaceX's outfit can fulfill its promises.
Jon Fingas
J. Fingas|08.10.22
@jonfingas
BRAZIL - 2022/05/02: In this photo illustration, the Starlink logo is seen in the background of a silhouetted woman holding a mobile phone. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Starlink can't count on a flood of government subsidies to help expand its satellite internet service. The FCC has rejected the SpaceX unit's bid to receive $885.5 million in aid through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. The broadband provider "failed to demonstrate" that it could deliver the claimed service, according to a statement.
FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Starlink had "real promise," but suggested her agency couldn't justify 10 years of subsidies for "developing technology" that requires a $600 satellite dish. She added that the FCC needed to make the most of "scarce" funding for broadband expansion.
SpaceX won its bid in December 2020 through an auction. At the time, it said it would use the subsidies to serve 35 locations. It also promised prices in sync with terrestrial broadband, and that it would meet "periodic" service buildout requirements.
LTD Broadband, a fixed wireless provider, netted over $1.3 billion in that auction and also lost its bid today. That company was not "reasonably capable" of deploying the required internet service after it lost qualifying statuses in seven states, the FCC said.
We've asked SpaceX for comment. The denial isn't a fatal blow to the company's plans, but it makes clear that Starlink will have to rely on its own funding if it's going to expand as outlined in 2020. The FCC's move might also serve as a warning to other would-be fund recipients. While the Commission is eager to improve rural broadband, it won't grant money to internet providers without some close scrutiny.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
View All Comments
No comments:
Post a Comment