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Communications The Internet

SpaceX's Starlink Internet Dishes Arrive In Ukraine (cnbc.com) 128

Posted by BeauHD from the as-promised dept.
A shipment of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet dishes arrived in Ukraine on Monday, less than 48 hours after CEO Elon Musk announced the company would send support, according to a top official in the nation's government. CNBC reports: Ukraine digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who tagged Musk in a request on Twitter on Saturday, posted that Starlink was "here" in Ukraine -- with a photo showing more than dozen boxes of the company's user kits in the back of a truck. How many kits SpaceX is sending to support Ukraine is unknown. Each Starlink kit includes a user terminal to connect to the satellites, a mounting tripod and a Wi-Fi router.

Musk responded to Fedorov, said: "you are most welcome." Ukraine-based Oleg Kutkov tweeted a screenshot of an internet speed test, saying "Starlink is working in Kyiv" and thanked SpaceX for the company's support. Musk emphasized on Saturday that Starlink was already "active in Ukraine."
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SpaceX's Starlink Internet Dishes Arrive In Ukraine

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  • While Starlink may become a valuable back up, cellular internet infrastructure seems to be holding up very well.

    This is making it into a very interesting conflict. It's become the first "TikTok" war, so to speak, where everyone has access to the tool and infrastructure to share their own videos of the conflict.

    It's greatly changing the way war propaganda works.

    • Russians probably aren't interested in destroying valuable to civilians infrastructure. Reported casualties might go up, but they're extremely low given the magnitude of the invasion.

      • Russians probably aren't interested in destroying valuable to civilians infrastructure.

        Given how well Zelensky is using the cellular infrastructure to raise morale and bolster his country's defense against the invaders, I'll be curious how long it is before Russia starts blowing up cell towers.

        • There are some reports that Russian soldiers are using their own mobile phones to communicate with each other. Russian based numbers are being blocked now, but also reports that some soldiers are confiscating phones from Ukrainians. Yes, it does seem very ad-hoc, and possibly a reason that the infrastructure wasn't taken down quickly.

          • Instead of blocking, the should route all calls from Russian numbers to a phone tree with options like:
            1)How to surrender to Ukrainian forces
            2)How to seek asylum in other countries
            3)How to go back to Russia.
            4)I want to report a war crime by Russian troops
            5)Tips on how to protest against Putin
            and so on

            all data use should be directed to a captive portal with same info and all text messages should not go through, but instead get information on how to call or use data to get the information.

      • They may not seem interested, but sooner or later if they mean to keep this going, they're going to have to get rid of all the easy means for Ukraine's defenders to share logistics and intel. There's no other way around it, it is inevitability of a modern invasion that you cannot let the defenders keep talking, you need to split them up, isolate them and pick them off.

        Believe me, if this lasts much longer, every visible antenna, satellite dish, exchange or any other communications infrastructure is going to

        • What's strange is that the stated reasons here was to liberate the Donetsk and Luhansk areas where the separatists are, and which Putin declared to be independent regions. Yet the vast majority of the fighting has been elsewhere. It is only recently that there seems to be movement out from there. Probably proof that the conflict was never about those zones.

      • Cluster munitions and thermobaric bombs used in cities are not targeting civilians? Were you fucking born yesterday?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        I've seen reports about carpet bombing Ukrainian cities. Why you think they give a flying fuck about civilian infrastructure is beyond me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Thatâ(TM)s what I was wondering if this was a gimmick remind of the car commercial where the guy is missing his SUV while being marooned. Then asks what does his friend miss. Food. Russia is going decimate the country. Documenting the death requires internet. But we are really at first world problems dominating the real tragedy.

    • For a few thousand bucks worth of free gear he got millions in free ads. Same as always.
      Maybe he should look into paying his taxes at home, first?
      https://youtu.be/tFMA8Q20JSE [youtu.be]

      • For a few thousand bucks worth of free gear he got millions in free ads. Same as always. Maybe he should look into paying his taxes at home, first? https://youtu.be/tFMA8Q20JSE [youtu.be]

        I just have to ask... How did you help Ukraine?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        Musk paid $5.7 billion in taxes this year.
          How much did you pay?

        • Way more than his 3.27 percent. In the region of 32 percent or thereabouts, that's including some taxes on rental income that very few pay. Why do you ask?

          • Wait, have you paid 3.27% of your income or 3.27% of your total net worth? Are you comparing income tax with something else? You know most of his net worth comes from stocks which are very volatile anyway, heâ(TM)s not sitting on billions in cash.

          • Re: Cell service seems to be working well (Score:4, Informative)

            by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Monday February 28, 2022 @08:29PM (#62313579)

            Between 2014 and 2018, Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income, according to ProPublica,
            Looks like 30%

            Elon Musk faces a hefty tax bill this year — possibly the biggest in U.S. history.
            “For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year,” the Tesla CEO tweeted on Monday.

            • Oh so you want to go down the google route. Ok i have google too

              "The ProPublica report alleged that Musk, whoâ(TM)s worth $152 billion, paid less than $70,000 in federal income tax in 2015 and 2017, and nothing at all in 2018. He did seem to have paid his due in 2016 when he exercised more than $1 billion in stock options. But his overall âoetrue tax rateâ for the five-year period between 2014 and 2018, calculated as the amount of tax paid divided by increase in net worth, is only 3.27 percen

              • Do they show what was his income then? As I remember he had a few hard years before Tesla picked up. A lot of investments and losses... So google more next time and besides reading, use some THINKING.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

                  Do they show what was his income then? As I remember he had a few hard years before Tesla picked up. A lot of investments and losses... So google more next time and besides reading, use some THINKING.

                  I'll do some thinking. You're treating Tesla and SpaceX as if they're sole proprietorships or partnerships. They're not. Elon Musk the individual doesn't take a substantial salary and, as far as we know, was not selling his stock (which would generate a tax loss carryforward that could be used to offset gain

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by mspohr ( 589790 )

                Do you pay tax on your net worth or tax on your income?

              • You donâ(TM)t pay income on your net worth going up.

                This is false news youâ(TM)re reporting.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by amorsen ( 7485 )

                  Normal people pay taxes on their net worth going up. (Worse than that, since they do not get to deduct much in the way of expenses.)

                  Superrich people get to claim that their net worth going up isn't due to income, it just magically happens and shouldn't be taxed.

                  "Unrealized gains" is the worst tax loophole in existence.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by jbengt ( 874751 )

                    Normal people pay taxes on their net worth going up.

                    If that were the case, normal people would pay taxes on the increase in the value of their house, but that is not the case.
                    If that were the case, normal people would pay taxes on the increase in the value of their investments, but that is not the case.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by jbengt ( 874751 )

                . . . calculated as the amount of tax paid divided by increase in net worth . . .

                That's your answer right there. They're counting increase in the value of his stock holdings as if it were taxable income. That's only taxable when cashing in. So, according to that, he did pay more than 3.27% of his net income, probably much more.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by crow ( 16139 )

      One possibility is that if a cell provider in Ukraine has it's network cut off but is otherwise able to operate, they can use a Starlink terminal as their network connection.

  • Uh... don't the dishes provide screaming bright targets for the Russians?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

      Maybe not. They are not large, and very portable. In the event that cellular internet infrastructure goes down (which it's holding up very well as it is), then it would be pretty easy for individuals to quickly set up a Starlink dish, do the communication they need to do, and break it down and hide it.

      • I have no idea how much power they might transmit on the upstream side, but I suspect it's well below anything an anti-radiation missile or even an ground-based radar would bother with. Visually they're not particularly different than any DirecTV-class dish, probably even easier to hide on a roof behind a parapet because they pretty much point straight up unlike geosync-pointed dishes. I don't think Russia is particularly going to be hunting Starlink terminals when as pointed out there are significantly big

        • Power consumption is on the order of 100W. Most of it will go to the antenna.

          Meanwhile, the radar of the F-14 emitted at up to 10 kW, with average of 7kW (and in modes with lower power consumption, down to 500W).

          Considering the signal is mostly directed towards a satellite, "lateral" detection seems relatively improbable.

          As for the WiFi (i.e. the "local" internet), the 40 million inhabitants of Ukraine probably have (between them) a million WiFi routers.

          • Power consumption is on the order of 100W. Most of it will go to the antenna.

            The transmit power of 2nd-generation Starlink terminals is less than three watts. Most of that 100W will be dissipated as heat rather than going to the antenna.

    • The dishes aren't large but it's not like they're being used mobile. They'll be at places like army bases, which already appear easy to spot even without a small white dish.
    • If they're being used as military infrastructure, but otherwise Russians are avoiding extraneous casualties as much as they can. That's a major reason this conflict isn't over yet.

    • You want a high gain antenna to talk to something as far away as a satellite, at least if you want to do it without using a lot of power.

      High gain roughly means instead of a simple omnidirectional antenna radiating 360 degrees (i.e. vertical half-wave dipole antenna, or an ideal isotropic antenna) that you have the emissions focused more tightly as a directional antenna.

      An efficient transmitter with a highly directional antenna is going to be difficult to detect off axis. Especially if you're both on a grou

      • The dish is phased array to aim at its active fast moving satellite, so itâ(TM)ll be constantly changing transmission direction.

        • Yes. That would mater over time. at any point in time a phase array has a pretty narrow emission. Even so, you still can't easily see it from the ground.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        StarLink antennas use beam forming, which requires a lot of power. Instead of a narrow beam from a single transmitter and something to direct all the energy in one direction, they have a large number of transmitters that all pump out a lot of energy that is mostly wasted. By timing them they create a phased array.

        There is a great video about it with a demonstration using ripples on water: https://youtu.be/z4uxC7ISd-c [youtu.be]

        The alternative would have been to have the dish physically track the satellite, but then yo

        • I assure you "a lot of power" is relative. If you could reach the satellite with a dipole whip antenna with the level of power used for a phased array antenna, then they would. It'd be cheaper and more portable. But you can't, because the gain of a dipole antenna isn't sufficient to do this job at the power level you can comfortably (and legally) fit in a mobile transmitter.

          I'm a EE drop out. Someone who spent more than a semester studying radios or even apply a little geometry and physics can beat me at th

    • Targets for what? So far the Russians do not seem to be mindlessly killing everyone with an internet connection. The fact the internet is out was part of an attack on infrastructure, and coming to someone's house and double taping their modem in the back of the socket hasn't been their modus operandi.

      Also have you seen eastern Europe? Like even in a movie? No one will be able to tell the starlink receiver apart from any of the other countless satellite dishes on top of buildings.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      No. They are small and focus their radio beacon straight up at the satellites. Hard to find visually and hard to locate the radios since low power and focused in a narrow beam straight up.

      “They can shake their fist at the sky,” Musk said.

      • don't the dishes provide screaming bright targets for the Russians?

        No. They are small and focus their radio beacon straight up at the satellites. Hard to find visually and hard to locate the radios since low power and focused in a narrow beam straight up

        Steered at the particular (moving) satellite they're talking at, actually. Further, they're phased array antennas, not horn-and-parabola dishes which have a lot of sideways leakage.

        They're low power and very broad band, with a signal "sounds almost like th

    • If you're talking about EM emissions, then probably not? They are very directional, so unless it's pointing at the receiver it's probably not a big source

    • No
      The dishes are small. The "satellite" link on the "emission" side is very focused (so that they lose as little power on directions the satellite is not in).
      As they emit locally via WiFi routers, those are basically unidentifiable from any other WiFi router - of which Ukraine probably has about a million.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      Just get a few local cats to camouflage the dishes. They're self-installing, because the dish is warm, and it's winter time right now.
  • Looks like the Ukrainian hardwired Internet is still working too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by w42w42 ( 538630 )
      It is entirely possible that Putin could shoot a few down for sure, assuming the satellites are close enough to Russian launchers. I think the bigger issue for the Russians is I doubt they have enough ASAT systems in inventory to make much of a dent. In addition I don't know that the cost/benefit (if they cared) would work out for the Russians doing this. It would be another serious point of contention with the West, not to mention add to already present space debris. Again, not sure that those last two

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Eloking ( 877834 )

      Will Putin try to shoot all his satellites down?

      You will have to explain to me the reasoning of that one, why would Putin even want to do that?

      To keep Ukraine from gaining internet access? You will have to destroy hundreds of those satellite to achieve this with ASAT missiles that are at least a thousandfold more expensive while SpaceX could probably cover the cost through insurance and/or public funds and send another thousands in a matters of weeks.

      Furthermore, it's not even taking into account the high risk of escalation. While not entirely an act of

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      I think jamming the signals would be cheaper and more feasible plus also not destroying the property of a corporation based in the largest (by far) NATO member.

  • ... delivery van [kym-cdn.com] just spotted.

  • If Elon wants to help he can peel off a few billion dollars and give it to the Ukrainian government. Or he can lobby for voting rights and democracy in his home country of America so that the next time this happens America is going to stand up to dictators instead of calling them geniuses. And how about lobbying for the large scale infrastructure spending needed to shift the country in the world to renewable energy so that Putin can't get away with this by threatening to take oil from Europe before winter i

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 )

      You've really got a hate boner for the guy. It's clouding your judgement.

      I don't see Bezos or Buffett or any other USA billionaires doing anything concrete, why not focus your anger at them?

      At least Musk produces some things of value, instead of just accumulating money.

    • Uncensored internet that works well (despite the best efforts of one or more governmental entities with an agenda largely orthogonal to the interests of people who want to use the internet) is a cause that's near and dear to Elon's heart, and something he's absolutely passionate about.

      Guaranteed, every time Elon thinks about Russians angrily shaking their fists at the sky (powerless to do anything to stop him), it brings a smile to his face.

      What's Russia going to do? Spend a few million dollars to try and d

      • Shoot them down. They have the resources if Putin wanted to waste that money too. Easier to easily spot the dishes on the ground and blow them up. The dishes do broadcast ya know.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          They don't broadcast. It's a directional, phased-array system. It's not a laser, but it's closer to that than it is to "broadcast".

    • Responding to a government request in exactly the way the government asked for is not a publicity stunt.

      Here's a direct quote from Mykhailo Fedorov (Ukrainian minister for communications): "We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand"

      Now that Elon has done something, what have you done rsilvergun, I mean other than embarrass yourself on the internet again?

    • There's a million and one things a man with that much wealth and power could do besides send some satellite dishes

      I agree. In particular, it would be worthwhile for him to invest the bulk of his fortune into speeding up the transition from fossil fuels to sustainable energy/transport... Oh wait, he is already doing that.

      The reason Musk took time out of his busy schedule to send some satellite dishes is because the Ukrainian government asked him to do so.

  • I have no problem with Elon opening up Ukraine to Starlink... Except for the fact that I ordered the service, here in the USA, more than a year ago and I'm still waiting. Ordered Dec. 2020 with a scheduled delivery of 2nd quarter 2021. Then pushed to third quarter. Then again, pushed to April 2022. Now? I suspect it will be delayed again.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amorsen ( 7485 )

      I have no problem with Elon opening up Ukraine to Starlink... Except for the fact that I ordered the service, here in the USA, more than a year ago and I'm still waiting.

      Wow. Just wow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      You're probably not waiting for a dish, you're probably in a lower latitude. The current most common Starlink orbit has a high inclination, so coverage is more concentrated in the northern US / southern Canada, and Ukraine happens to be at about the same latitude. All they needed was a ground station within bounce range.

      If you want to direct your selfish rage at someone, try the FAA. They've been blocking progress on Starship for months, and that is needed to speed up deployment.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Q-Hack! ( 37846 )

        You're probably not waiting for a dish, you're probably in a lower latitude.

        34.17 N. Middle of the USA.

    • "I have no problem with Elon opening up Ukraine to Starlink... Except for the fact that I ordered the service"
      I have no problem with Putin invading Ukraine... except for the fact that I ordered he invade here, and I'm still waiting.

      People die on the streets in Ukraine... though, if you're an American, people get shot on American streets too.
      There was a lady in a village in Donbass who said (a month ago): "Today is a good day, they only shoot machine guns not artillery". She lives a couple of hundreds meters

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

      You sound like that lady from The View who is upset over the invasion of Ukraine because she wanted to go to Italy this year, and Putin got in the way of that.

      Pro tip: not everything is about you.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Q-Hack! ( 37846 )

        Pro tip: not everything is about you.

        Wrong. I am from the USA... everything is about me. ;-)

        I did imply that opening up service to Ukraine was a good thing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 )

      The Russians aren't trying to bomb you back to the stone age. I'm sure there are a lot of Ukrainians who will gladly swap places with you, if you want your Starlink dish a bit sooner.

      What you should do, when your dish finally arrives is a get a friend to grasp it firmly with both hands... ... and shove it so far up your arse that you get better download speeds when you open your mouth.

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