Nowhere does the article claim that the Starlink service is poor, or that other services come close.
The RDOF auction had specific criteria, and as noted in the article, participants could bid at four tiers: 25/3, 50/5, 100/20 and 1000/500 Mbps. Simply put, Starlink bid at 100/20, and they have an obligation to meet that in order to qualify for the fund.
There's plenty of evidence that they can do just that, albeit with some open questions about how things will go as they continue to roll out the network and take on more subscribers.
I don't understand the anger throughout the rest of this comment. Geos that qualify for RDOF funding are just a subset of Starlink's market, and arguably any Internet provider bidding for those funds should be held to the standard set when bidding for those funds.
It's fine (and justified, IMO) to be angry about how crappy telcos have been for years, and their misuse of funding is certainly upsetting, but are you suggesting that Starlink should somehow be absolved of their responsibilities because of past transgressions by legacy telcos?
> Why can't we have nice things? This.
What is the nice thing here that we cannot have? Why?
> Think about what Starlink means to Africa, central asia, interior australia, remote south africa.
I think the value of Starlink is tremendous hard to estimate, especially in these traditionally underserved regions. But how does the RDOF funding conversation have anything to do with that?
The RDOF auction had specific criteria, and as noted in the article, participants could bid at four tiers: 25/3, 50/5, 100/20 and 1000/500 Mbps. Simply put, Starlink bid at 100/20, and they have an obligation to meet that in order to qualify for the fund.
There's plenty of evidence that they can do just that, albeit with some open questions about how things will go as they continue to roll out the network and take on more subscribers.
I don't understand the anger throughout the rest of this comment. Geos that qualify for RDOF funding are just a subset of Starlink's market, and arguably any Internet provider bidding for those funds should be held to the standard set when bidding for those funds.
It's fine (and justified, IMO) to be angry about how crappy telcos have been for years, and their misuse of funding is certainly upsetting, but are you suggesting that Starlink should somehow be absolved of their responsibilities because of past transgressions by legacy telcos?
> Why can't we have nice things? This.
What is the nice thing here that we cannot have? Why?
> Think about what Starlink means to Africa, central asia, interior australia, remote south africa.
I think the value of Starlink is tremendous hard to estimate, especially in these traditionally underserved regions. But how does the RDOF funding conversation have anything to do with that?