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Comment by NelsonMinar | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad to see the FCC sticking to its requirements and having a testing regime for them. Starlink's own service specifications are far below the 100/20Mbps requirements. They currently are promising 25-100Mbps down, 5-10Mbps up. In congested areas they often don't even deliver that in the evenings. [1]

I use Starlink in my rural area and am grateful for it. But hopefully the $900M will be better spent on other ISPs. A particular problem with Starlink is if it fails, there's no infrastructure left behind. The fiber installs that RDOF is paying for should outlive the companies getting the grants.

[1] https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1400-28829-70

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Now if the FCC was actually principled when when choosing when to " sticking to its requirements" because ti seems large traditional companies can just do what ever the hell they want and get subsidies.

You have to be on good terms with people high up.

Do you have an example with the RDOF of a "large traditional company" doing whatever the hell they want and getting subsidies? It's a bit complciated since it's still under review.

This happened in the past all the time, particularly in Ajit Pai's version of the FCC. But the RDOF process seems different. In particular the FCC is actually measuring performance, not just relying on ISP's self-reported numbers. AT&T was really good at strategically lying about those in the past.

His point is more about the $200+ billion ISPs received in grants to roll out fiber and subsequently did very little work but kept all the money.

I wonder whether you have any data to back up your claim, but other data seem to contradict it. Also see the comment of Luke Lambert on this thread

https://gist.github.com/LukeLambert/dd722e49bc773bcb27e859d9...

Do you have a link to the other data?

I’m looking at Lambert’s data, but aside from the problem of sample size, it seems to support the FCC’s reading of the situation.

There are barely any samples that hit the required >= 20Mbps up and while it’s easier to spot >= 100Mbps down, it’s far from consistent and seems to be more of a “once a day” occurrence.

In 2025 and in areas covered by RDOF. Not everywhere

I suggest reviewing this data again, especially with the understanding that the timestamps are in UTC. 0027 UTC corresponds to 1827 in CST (the timezone for Texas). During prime time, this user was often around 10mbps.

that's an interesting point, I hadn't thought about that if there's a failure for whatever reason, the infra burns up.

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