FCC Rejects Dish 5G Plan That Could Have Made Starlink Broadband 'Unusable' (arstechnica.com) 29
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission sided with Starlink in a battle against Dish Network today, rejecting a Dish proposal that could have degraded Internet service for Starlink satellite users. In a 4-0 vote, the FCC decided not to authorize high-powered terrestrial mobile service in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band that is already used by Starlink customer terminals for downloads. The vote "ensure[s] the present and future of satellite services in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band. We recognize that millions of people rely on services in this band -- and we want to see that continue," FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said at today's meeting. The band is also used for satellite TV.
In its announcement of the vote, the FCC said it "declin[ed] to authorize two-way, high-powered terrestrial mobile use due to a significant risk of harmful interference to existing and emergent services, particularly in the growing satellite broadband market." Dish already uses spectrum from the 12.2-12.7 GHz band for satellite TV and wants to use the band for cellular service as well. While the FCC rejected the mobile proposal, it said it would investigate the potential to expand terrestrial fixed use or permit unlicensed use in that spectrum. Specifically, the FCC will seek comment on allowing point-to-point fixed links in 12.2-12.7 GHz at higher power levels than the current rules allow and on "adding indoor-only underlay and unlicensed use." The agency also teed up a plan that could eventually allow mobile broadband in the adjacent 12.7-13.25 GHz band. "Thank you to the 100K+ Starlink customers who spoke up, the FCC voted to protect high-speed satellite Internet users from harmful interference," Starlink wrote on Twitter today.
In its announcement of the vote, the FCC said it "declin[ed] to authorize two-way, high-powered terrestrial mobile use due to a significant risk of harmful interference to existing and emergent services, particularly in the growing satellite broadband market." Dish already uses spectrum from the 12.2-12.7 GHz band for satellite TV and wants to use the band for cellular service as well. While the FCC rejected the mobile proposal, it said it would investigate the potential to expand terrestrial fixed use or permit unlicensed use in that spectrum. Specifically, the FCC will seek comment on allowing point-to-point fixed links in 12.2-12.7 GHz at higher power levels than the current rules allow and on "adding indoor-only underlay and unlicensed use." The agency also teed up a plan that could eventually allow mobile broadband in the adjacent 12.7-13.25 GHz band. "Thank you to the 100K+ Starlink customers who spoke up, the FCC voted to protect high-speed satellite Internet users from harmful interference," Starlink wrote on Twitter today.
Shocker (Score:3)
Starlink has significant future military functionality, they've already tested it on military aircraft in live fire exercises several years ago. FCC isn't going to let anyone interfere with a communications tool like starlink.
Re: Shocker (Score:3)
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Think you read that backwards.
Re: Easy to jam though? (Score:3)
Ah yes, we should rely purely in unjammable radio technology. Which is not really a thing at all.
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If a bunch of broadcasts in the mentioned frequency range severely degrade service, I wonder how fit it really is for military use.
Quite, actually, as shown in Ukranie. Remember that degraded service is still very useful in an emergency situation. It's just customers that would suffer.
Re: Easy to jam though? (Score:2)
You keep using that word...
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I really wish the military wasn't interested in Starlink. If it has military applications, every other country is going to want their own one. It will end up like GNSS, where you have GPS, Galileo, GLONAS, and Compass all offering similar service but under the control of different blocs. Except that with mobile internet they need at least hundreds, potentially tens of thousands of satellites in LEO.
And that's before the commercial rivals get started too, looking to get some of that national security funding
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What's wrong with having multiple options? The different positioning systems you mentioned can often be accessed by the same chipset in the same device for increased capability and redundancy.
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That's exactly what has already started happening. England bought some failed startup and they're making it happen anyways, russia china india all have stuff in the works.
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Starlink has significant future military functionality, they've already tested it on military aircraft in live fire exercises several years ago. FCC isn't going to let anyone interfere with a communications tool like starlink.
Give me a rocket that can make it to orbit with 50 pound bags of sand, or little ball bearings, put it in a retrograde orbit in the Starlink orbital shells, then come back and tell me about the significant military functionality.
Because some actor in the future is going to do just that.
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We actually did the math on this one day, F9H at max weight capacity could haul enough 3/4" steel ball bearings (which weigh exactly 1oz which makes the math easy) to put enough of them in a slightly eliptical low earth orbit (2.25 million) that would create a statistical collision nightmare for anyone in that orbit/crossing that ~8,000-8500 mile plane. You'd need about six launches to really mess up LEO for about 50 years.
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We actually did the math on this one day, F9H at max weight capacity could haul enough 3/4" steel ball bearings (which weigh exactly 1oz which makes the math easy) to put enough of them in a slightly eliptical low earth orbit (2.25 million) that would create a statistical collision nightmare for anyone in that orbit/crossing that ~8,000-8500 mile plane. You'd need about six launches to really mess up LEO for about 50 years.
That sounds about right. And for those who think "no sane country would do that", I present WW2 Germany and Old Adolph's Nerobefehl, which was orders to destroy anything that might be used by his enemies when losing his war was irrefutable - actually long after it was obvious.
So if we get another leader like that, and if they have the capability, when staring defeat in the eyes, Musk's internet will be finished.
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More than the internet will be finished. If you make a dangerous shell like that around the earth, you are basically trapping us on earth, going thru that shell will rip you and your spacecraft to pieces.
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More than the internet will be finished. If you make a dangerous shell like that around the earth, you are basically trapping us on earth, going thru that shell will rip you and your spacecraft to pieces.
This is exactly true. I don't disagree with it for a second.
As soon as StarLink is militarized, it is a target.
The fans are modding me down for stating the truth though.
And that's the weird thing about Spacex fans - They are as enthusiastic as it is possible to be, to the point of anger if someone points out some basic orbital mechanics and military/defense implications.
Maybe Musk has an Star trek style force shield around his sats?
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As soon as StarLink is militarized, it is a target.
More than say a spy satellite? Weapon guidance systems? You know, stuff that already has a much higher strategic and tactical significance. There are literally hundreds of military satellites in low orbit that basically everybody with a space program is already aware of.
And that's the weird thing about Spacex fans - They are as enthusiastic as it is possible to be, to the point of anger if someone points out some basic orbital mechanics and military/defense implications.
You'd have a point if you were even a little knowledgeable about either. I mean you're proposing that somebody would hurl ball bearings in orbit to not only take down Starlink, but also all of their own military assets in the process that ar
First to get there (Score:3)
I mean this was a pretty expected outcome. Sats came into the band with application first and mobile usage is just creeping into the band. The FCC even acknowledges this by indicating that the 12.7up band hasn't been taken and Dish, or whoever, can move there. Sticking in the 12.2 band just has too much already there for even careful considerations to account for.
The power levels and coverage profiles of terrestrial networks risk saturating arrays with interference from networks of powerful terrestrial transmitters, including via side lobes even when care is taken with terrestrial antenna angles
The extra complexity just isn't worth the headache that's obviously going to come with attempting both. So who got there first? Starlink and that's just how it's going to be. UNLESS. . .
Barring significant technology developments driving down the price and complexity of individual array elements while driving up quality, this will probably be the case for some time to come
But that's the tacit concession from Commissioner Simington and Republican FCC members to love all that is terrestrial and traditional. We're just not up there on the tech tree to allow them both. One day maybe, and good grief if they do I hate it for whoever has Starlink because it's not like they've got amazing link speeds (I mean 200Mbps avg is pretty good considering 5G avg is 100Mbps, but can burst into 20Gbps in some cases) but it'll get dicey to keep the avg if higher power ground based stations keep playing dodge 'em with sats.
But I'm an old geezer as I still prefer wires and fiber over anything else and greatly bemoan all things wireless. So I mean, I wouldn't buy my opinion on any of this myself as Dish/Starlink/et al can all burn for what I care about them. But for those that have Starlink and like it, cool. If that's your tea, might as well sip and enjoy this victory.
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Starlink is the only option for high speed for many rural customers. I got my friend in on the beta, their house had the options of dial up, "classic" satelite internet, or dsl at around 2mbps. Now he has 200mbps internet.
People who life the nomadic life of campers now have reliable internet, almost no matter where they go.
Ive considered getting it as a backup internet plan - when the power goes out around here, it doesnt matter that my house has a backup generator and all my networking and computer gea
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If only Starlink offered a lower priced plan for backup internet I would be all over it.
Uhh... They do! You can pause your service and unpause it as needed. The downside is that you'll be relegated to the "best effort" tier of service.
I don't blame Dish for trying (Score:4, Interesting)
Dish just doesn't have the Comcast clout for getting monopoly deals, but I can't blame them for not trying. Comcast has content to viewer deals in multiple markets and the FCC doesn't blink when they gouge everyone else to get their content, even though they promised not to gouge them. Ajit Pai broke the system to make massive amounts of money and Jessica Rosenworcel has done little to fix it since he was demoted. Sorry Jessica, want to see Net Neutrality again, but all I see is Comcast at 5x the going rate in my market and only obscure but coming on competition leveling the playing field (thank effing God for T-Mobile and Verizon 5g, their prices are going down - CenturyLink, shame at your 20 year old 7/1.5 - shame).
DISH & Frequency Collecting (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I have heard...DISH has been collecting FCC-auctioned RF licenses for years and not doing much with them.
DISH was once a reasonable competitor to DirecTV in the DBS space. I was once a DISH customer when local cable SUX'd.
DISH' Sling service is a commendable attempt to make money in the OTT video streaming market, but that field now has some strong competitors.
DISH' attempts over the years to gain access to the cellular wireless industry have mostly been stumbles & false starts.
I think at one point DISH had some RF spectrum in jeopardy of losing their FCC license to use it because DISH had not done anything with that spectrum in a timeframe dictated by the FCC auction.
So I will shred no tears for DISH in this loss. DISH is now proving to be too slow-moving of a company to get out of it's own way.
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From what I have heard...DISH has been collecting FCC-auctioned RF licenses for years and not doing much with them.
Precisely why they should be leased and never sold.
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Frequency collecting. Is this what the "Jesus TV" channels are doing by firing up a station and then broadcasting nothing other than a test pattern for the last few years?
Reminds me of Lightsquared (Score:2)
In Lightsquared's case it was right next to GPS and they wanted to blast out high power... which would interfere with most GPS devices...
Fortunately they were told to sod off as well.
When I worked at DISH... (Score:4, Informative)
They had fairly smart people at the time who knew that Satellite TV was going to eventually disappear due to broadband and cell phones, so their strategy was to bid on vacated radio frequencies in rural and small cities where they didn't have to compete with ATT/Verizon/Tmobile and get more spectrum per dollar.
For a while, their spectrum was incredibly valuable - but this is a notably frugal company, so they neglected in actually investing in infrastructure to build a cell phone network. They kept betting on frequencies as an appreciating asset but neglected to understand that the FTC could eventually free up even more spectrum and that at some point the FTC would claw back its spectrum if it wasn't being used for its intended application.
At the time I worked there - DISH also operated a Satellite internet service (Wild Blue, and I think they bought HughesNet as well) - and unfortunately for them, I think this really biased their thinking about low orbit internet - there was what appeared to be 100% certainty that a low orbit satellite approach like the one Starlink is pursuing would be impossible because it would require way too many satellites but also that there would already be too much interference for this approach to be scalable.
One of the problems facing DISH is that they never modernized their talent pool, so they still operate with 20-30 year old assumptions of how the world works. They are highly litigious, low tech, and remarkably cheap. It was a fun group to work with, but man are they dated.
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FYI, WildBlue is Viasat. DiSH bought HughesNet.
And you're right, DiSH owns so many terrestrial bands that are next to worthless due to adjacent channel interference (especially the two bands at either side of XM and Sirius satellite radio).
not over yet (Score:2)
I doubt this is over. Starlink is basically getting 'squatters rights' to the band and Dish has a solid case. The FCC chair is the top of the beurocratic ladder but it's not the legal authority so I would guess that we will see this play out in courts a bit before it's final.