942
A million new SpaceX satellites will destroy the night sky — for everyone on Earth (news.ubc.ca)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
213 comments fedilink hide all child comments
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 1 point 7 months ago (3 children)

I don't think you've ever used Starlink if you think clouds make it fail.

...you do realize it started in Seattle, right?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    Seattle typically doesn't get hail core cumulonimbus (supercells). Plus, I'm not saying that it completely fails with just cloudy weather alone. Note that I said capacity, which is absolutely affected by moderate to heavy cloud cover or not being able to see the sky. Diminished capacity doesn't mean it fails, it means that it's slower, higher latency, and less reliable. In extreme cases involving hail storms (like I mentioned), it can and does fail - you can see this in the storm chaser streaming circles. Their streams cut out completely at times, if the satellites are between the storm and their antenna.

    I am simply bringing up an edge case since the person who originally replied brought up ships when I was talking about rural fiber.

    My point is still that SpaceX shouldn't have gotten FCC subsidies when a more reliable, cheaper (especially in the long run since we're talking about LEO), higher bandwidth, lower latency option exists. PUDs should have gotten all of that cash, not a different, large ISP owned by a billionaire.

    An added bonus to fiber: it doesn't ruin ground based astronomy.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, fair. Where fiber can be run fiber should be run.

    Just scarred from all the times where we spend x billion to expand fiber, it doesn't happen, somehow nobody gets held accountable.

    I mean damn, at least Starlink is providing a service

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Just scarred from all the times where we spend x billion to expand fiber, it doesn't happen, somehow nobody gets held accountable.

    That's because historically, major ISPs have been given the grants (including Starlink) instead of PUDs. Public fiber is entirely different, it's managed and installed like a public utility, not a service to be capitalized on. This is why I've been so focused on saying that SpaceX should never have been given $1 billion dollars. It shouldn't have been given to any non public organization.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent