There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement. Basically, if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license. It should probably be a lot more stringent and with tighter deadlines, but the mechanism already exists.
It hasn't ever really been an issue with any spectrum that they've bought in the past, and it has only ever been a concern with mmWave spectrum, because the costs of coverage are much higher than were ever anticipated with their tiny effective ranges. Anything below 3GHz seems to get built out and used extremely quickly.
> There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement.
LOL, DISH squatted nationwode spectrum for years and it wasn't until the tmo/sprint merger that they did more than build a single tower in Colorado. I don't think I've ever seen the FCC seriously enforce the buildout requirements since any license holder can say 'but its hard we need more time/money'
> if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license
The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.
The useless response is to decry hyperbolic discounting. A productive response would think through how to design the auction such that the public would prefer to have the productive, recurring stream of revenue versus some shiny thing today.
> The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.
Well, that assumes the public isn't really benefiting from the products and services that can actually take advantage of that spectrum. Making less in license fees is probably a good trade-off if your phone is faster or you get interesting and affordable satellite services.
What other properties get taxed? Real estate is the only one I can think of. Precious metals, musical instruments, patents / copyrights / trademarks, vehicles, electronics, lumber. . . none of these properties are taxed.
Slight correction cars are typically taxed. Usually in 3 different ways. Fuel, property and tag. Now not all states call it a tax. Not all states have all 3.
Alternatively, the aperture of the antenna on the satellite can be increased. So high-gain from space, but low gain on Earth, which is the approach of AST SpaceMobile.
IIRC SpaceMobile showed direct-to-cell satellite communication recently with 5g. Still to be seen if they or someone else (SpaceX?) can make it work large scale.
SpaceX has been launching direct-to-cell satellites for a bit now (a couple per Starlink batch), IIRC they said they need to get to ~300 such satellites to provide consistent service in at least some places. Although, again, worth emphasizing that 'large scale' in this case is still just to provide emergency coverage in places with no other coverage.
This is the US FTC. How are they able to boldly mandate what frequencies are used in space for orbiting satellites given their jurisdiction is scoped to the domestic USA? Would that not be the ITU's jurisdiction - FTC dont set communication rules for the entire galaxy.
I thought the Ku-band user access frequencies used by Starlink was 12GHz down and 14.5GHz up?
As those are the easy to license frequencies globally.
Not to mention, 17GHz is far away from 12GHz and 14.5GHz, so the antenna complexity also goes up.
And the teardowns of civilian Starlink terminals have not shown dual band antennas so far.
It's about downlinks, so, obviously, they're mandating it for within their area of jurisdiction, i.e. within the US. Plus, the notice itself says that this approval only brings the US more into alignment with international allocations.
Was this always in the works, or has recent 'competition' pushed them to speed up unlocking this bandwidth? (e.g. Apple's Emergency SOS, Starlink Direct to Cell, etc)
It's been in the works since 2007 to allow direct space-earth communication in that band, with the big push to allow much wider service coming in 2020.
The amount of spectrum the US military "owns" in the United States is absurd and needs to be adjusted - and at this point the excuses for why they can't vacate are making them look geriatric
Yet another reminder. What happens when you have organizations that aren't beholden to outside pressure
As a compromise, I am willing to add conditions something to the effect of some of the spectrum ceded by the military can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States. I mean I don't think a ground invasion on the continental United States is likely but if putting language like this makes the military feel better, I am ok with it.
> can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States
This is a silly line to draw. In an existential conflict, the military gets what it wants. Commandeering spectrum would be a basic part of war powers; we’ve done it before and would do it again for stakes much lower than an invasion of the homeland [1].
So the practical value of such a proposal is in messaging. Given the threshold wouldn’t have covered the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or even a nuclear first strike, the only thing messaged is unreasonableness.
Put another way, were I a lobbyist for the military to the Congress, I would want someone to propose this language. Because it lets one brand, with a laugh, the entire effort as being as ridiculous as the caveat.
The US is thankfully positioned in the world where it's pretty geographically isolated compared to let's say for example EU countries. I agree, I don't think a large scale ground invasion could ever be a possibility as they would be detected and get rekt way before even reaching anywhere near the US.
Militaries increasingly use civilian technology instead of developing bespoke tools. For example the military could use some of their spectrum for proprietary wifi but it would be uneconomic.
Starlink already uses these frequencies (17 GHz) for uplink (user to sat). Now they are also allowed for downlink.
Starlink user terminals are half duplex (Tx and Rx at different times) and so could easily support 17GHz DL in a new version. But the satellite is necessarily full duplex (propagation delays differ across users so sat needs to Tx and Rx at overlapping times). Starlink's satellites would seem unlikely to be able to handle their own tx self desense (self jamming) if they used these new frequencies.
> SpaceX ICBM interceptor stuff used to be whispered, but now it looks like it's openly advertised
The GOP wants an interceptor. Musk probably agrees with that. It foes not follow SpaceX is developing an interceptor. (None of their current kit is interceptor stuff.)
Starlink would be the platform for the interceptor as discussed in Project 2025 (Heritage Foundation). The interceptors themselves are probably big primes but a dozen SpaceX employees started Castelion.. Of course it's a Mike Griffin company... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career#:~:t...
> Starlink would be the platform for the interceptor as discussed in Project 2025
This makes no sense—a plane change in LEO takes about as much energy as a launch to LEO. What you gain in proximity you lose in propellant. Interceptors on Starlink is nukes on the Moon.
LEO constellations make sense for sensing—it’s harder to plausibly deniably take out a ring of satellites than an early-warning radar. But not for interception.
> Castelion
SpaceX’s work on rapid turnaround and hypersonic reëntry absolutely has implications for missile intercept. But they’re contributors to the aim and not pursuing it themselves.
the entire point of hypersonic weapons (used for interceptor) is they start at orbital velocities. They use reentry forces to steer. Just read about hypersonic FOBS.
> point of hypersonic weapons (used for interceptor) is they start at orbital velocities
The point of hypersonic weapons is they can fly under the radar, literally, and manoeuvre. (I should say goal, because there is no stealthy hypersonic missile yet due to heat signatures.)
The hypersonic flight regime starts at Mach 5, or about 3,800 mph. LEO is at 17,000 mph. To leave LEO quickly, you need to cancel out a lot of that velocity, and that’s just to deörbit, I’m ignoring that you’ve gone from needing to pre-cool your engine to having to pre-cool your entire interceptor because you’re manoeuvring through the atmosphere with orbital energy.
Orbiting missile defence doesn’t make sense. It’s worse than launching from the ground for space intercept. It’s worse than launching from atmosphere for boost or terminal-phase intercept. If you look at what Griffin is doing versus saying, you’ll notice Castelion is building missiles designed to be launched from conventional platforms.
That’s Griffin talking again. Not the DoD. (I may have missed something. If you have an excerpt, I’m happy to respond to it.)
Even then, he doesn’t really make a case for space-based interception. He just says it isn’t as expensive as it was in the 80s, which is true. He also ends by talking about sensing from orbit which, as I said earlier, makes sense.
Crazy how Trump pitching to revive Star Wars, Musk stating the obvious fact that it'd take much longer to get a nuke to Mars is all it takes for you supposedly smart people to devolve into Jewish Space Lasers tier conspiracy theories. Although maybe that's to be expected from people assigning any credibility to a post of someone calling this a Project 2025 thing based on leading conversations with an LLM.
How is that evidence that Starshield is supposed to be a space-based ICBM interceptor network?
Starshield is SpaceX's millitary division. It is two things, whole military using Starlink, and Space Force building satellites on Starlink technology.
> Not surprising given the current administration opposes some of Starlink's "questionable" objectives.
The current administration is pouring billions into SpaceX sats (Starshield, custom Starlink-like secretive sats for US gov). Also, your link is presenting obvious bullshit from AI chatbot as a fact.
This is up at 17 GHz. It's not the attempt to take over the 900MHz ISM band.
Same.
There's plenty of spectrum available. For purchase. Contact T-Mobile or Verizon.
The biggest mistake the FCC made was using spectrum to maximize revenue and not value for taxpayer.
Yep. Spectrum should be allocated based on Harberger taxation (sometimes called self-assesed tax)
Maybe there is a way to force them to release unused spectrum for free?
There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement. Basically, if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license. It should probably be a lot more stringent and with tighter deadlines, but the mechanism already exists.
It hasn't ever really been an issue with any spectrum that they've bought in the past, and it has only ever been a concern with mmWave spectrum, because the costs of coverage are much higher than were ever anticipated with their tiny effective ranges. Anything below 3GHz seems to get built out and used extremely quickly.
> There is a way, which is through buildout enforcement.
LOL, DISH squatted nationwode spectrum for years and it wasn't until the tmo/sprint merger that they did more than build a single tower in Colorado. I don't think I've ever seen the FCC seriously enforce the buildout requirements since any license holder can say 'but its hard we need more time/money'
I think of the 20B+ the shambling humonculus AT&T has pocketed for fiber deployment and think the process is captured.
> if you don't meet buildout deadlines and cover x% of pops within a specific time period, you forfeit the license
The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.
The useless response is to decry hyperbolic discounting. A productive response would think through how to design the auction such that the public would prefer to have the productive, recurring stream of revenue versus some shiny thing today.
> The issue you have to surmount is this reduces the value of the licenses in the short run. Which means less cash for the seller (the public) now versus a recurring productive asset.
Well, that assumes the public isn't really benefiting from the products and services that can actually take advantage of that spectrum. Making less in license fees is probably a good trade-off if your phone is faster or you get interesting and affordable satellite services.
Dish I think is sitting on a bunch with endless extensions
Sure. Tax it like any other property.
What other properties get taxed? Real estate is the only one I can think of. Precious metals, musical instruments, patents / copyrights / trademarks, vehicles, electronics, lumber. . . none of these properties are taxed.
Slight correction cars are typically taxed. Usually in 3 different ways. Fuel, property and tag. Now not all states call it a tax. Not all states have all 3.
Or force regular auctions on them.
(Maybe this is already the case, idk)
I about had a heart attack before I clicked on it and realized that.
Wait until Apple puts 17ghz receivers in their iPhones
Is that feasible in an iPhone? Could an iPhone with just one more radio become a sat phone?
https://www.starlink.com/gb/business/direct-to-cell
They can already send texts over satellite so probably pretty feasible. Idk though
It's much harder at higher frequencies because you need to point your antenna more accurately. That's pretty hard to do by hand on a phone.
Alternatively, the aperture of the antenna on the satellite can be increased. So high-gain from space, but low gain on Earth, which is the approach of AST SpaceMobile.
How is that not one way communication?
They already have 30 GHz hardware (for 5G mmwave)!
I don’t think either spectrum will be feasible for direct to cell satellite communication in the short term, though.
IIRC SpaceMobile showed direct-to-cell satellite communication recently with 5g. Still to be seen if they or someone else (SpaceX?) can make it work large scale.
SpaceX has been launching direct-to-cell satellites for a bit now (a couple per Starlink batch), IIRC they said they need to get to ~300 such satellites to provide consistent service in at least some places. Although, again, worth emphasizing that 'large scale' in this case is still just to provide emergency coverage in places with no other coverage.
So far they have 233 DTC satellites in space, but some are still raising their orbit and not operational yet.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/09/24/live-coverage-spacex-t...
The KU band is already used by satellites, A tweet discussing what this actually means would be more useful than this fcc.gov page
this comment explains: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662676#41664592
This is the US FTC. How are they able to boldly mandate what frequencies are used in space for orbiting satellites given their jurisdiction is scoped to the domestic USA? Would that not be the ITU's jurisdiction - FTC dont set communication rules for the entire galaxy.
It's already approved by ITU, just was not by FCC. In fact this Ku band is already used in downlink by Starlink as described in comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662676#41664592
I thought the Ku-band user access frequencies used by Starlink was 12GHz down and 14.5GHz up?
As those are the easy to license frequencies globally. Not to mention, 17GHz is far away from 12GHz and 14.5GHz, so the antenna complexity also goes up. And the teardowns of civilian Starlink terminals have not shown dual band antennas so far.
It's about downlinks, so, obviously, they're mandating it for within their area of jurisdiction, i.e. within the US. Plus, the notice itself says that this approval only brings the US more into alignment with international allocations.
Was this always in the works, or has recent 'competition' pushed them to speed up unlocking this bandwidth? (e.g. Apple's Emergency SOS, Starlink Direct to Cell, etc)
See page 3 onwards here;
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-22-63A1.pdf
It's been in the works since 2007 to allow direct space-earth communication in that band, with the big push to allow much wider service coming in 2020.
Would this be the ASS spectrum or the ASS band?
The amount of spectrum the US military "owns" in the United States is absurd and needs to be adjusted - and at this point the excuses for why they can't vacate are making them look geriatric
Yet another reminder. What happens when you have organizations that aren't beholden to outside pressure
Show us on the chart where they hurt you
https://www.ntia.gov/sites/default/files/publications/januar...
I've loved this chart for years and wish they'd update it more frequently. I think this 2016 version is the most recent.
As a compromise, I am willing to add conditions something to the effect of some of the spectrum ceded by the military can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States. I mean I don't think a ground invasion on the continental United States is likely but if putting language like this makes the military feel better, I am ok with it.
> can be temporarily reclaimed for exclusive in case of a ground invasion on the continental United States
This is a silly line to draw. In an existential conflict, the military gets what it wants. Commandeering spectrum would be a basic part of war powers; we’ve done it before and would do it again for stakes much lower than an invasion of the homeland [1].
So the practical value of such a proposal is in messaging. Given the threshold wouldn’t have covered the attacks on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 or even a nuclear first strike, the only thing messaged is unreasonableness.
Put another way, were I a lobbyist for the military to the Congress, I would want someone to propose this language. Because it lets one brand, with a laugh, the entire effort as being as ridiculous as the caveat.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-confiscated-half-b...
The US is thankfully positioned in the world where it's pretty geographically isolated compared to let's say for example EU countries. I agree, I don't think a large scale ground invasion could ever be a possibility as they would be detected and get rekt way before even reaching anywhere near the US.
Militaries increasingly use civilian technology instead of developing bespoke tools. For example the military could use some of their spectrum for proprietary wifi but it would be uneconomic.
You are free to attempt to take it, but I recommend you first become a farmer if you want to have any success in fighting them.
Nice, the CBRS spectrum and municipal auctions were a big success in opening up new markets
I like this narrower approach the FCC is taking
Starlink already uses these frequencies (17 GHz) for uplink (user to sat). Now they are also allowed for downlink.
Starlink user terminals are half duplex (Tx and Rx at different times) and so could easily support 17GHz DL in a new version. But the satellite is necessarily full duplex (propagation delays differ across users so sat needs to Tx and Rx at overlapping times). Starlink's satellites would seem unlikely to be able to handle their own tx self desense (self jamming) if they used these new frequencies.
Probably a win for Kuiper, but not Starlink.
Not surprising given the current administration opposes some of Starlink's "questionable" objectives. https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1eu994l/mus...
The SpaceX ICBM interceptor stuff used to be whispered, but now it looks like it's openly advertised. Wonder what SpaceX employees think?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2811927/trump-propos... It's now part of the official GOP platform (number 8).
> SpaceX ICBM interceptor stuff used to be whispered, but now it looks like it's openly advertised
The GOP wants an interceptor. Musk probably agrees with that. It foes not follow SpaceX is developing an interceptor. (None of their current kit is interceptor stuff.)
Starlink would be the platform for the interceptor as discussed in Project 2025 (Heritage Foundation). The interceptors themselves are probably big primes but a dozen SpaceX employees started Castelion.. Of course it's a Mike Griffin company... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career#:~:t...
> Starlink would be the platform for the interceptor as discussed in Project 2025
This makes no sense—a plane change in LEO takes about as much energy as a launch to LEO. What you gain in proximity you lose in propellant. Interceptors on Starlink is nukes on the Moon.
LEO constellations make sense for sensing—it’s harder to plausibly deniably take out a ring of satellites than an early-warning radar. But not for interception.
> Castelion
SpaceX’s work on rapid turnaround and hypersonic reëntry absolutely has implications for missile intercept. But they’re contributors to the aim and not pursuing it themselves.
the entire point of hypersonic weapons (used for interceptor) is they start at orbital velocities. They use reentry forces to steer. Just read about hypersonic FOBS.
> point of hypersonic weapons (used for interceptor) is they start at orbital velocities
The point of hypersonic weapons is they can fly under the radar, literally, and manoeuvre. (I should say goal, because there is no stealthy hypersonic missile yet due to heat signatures.)
The hypersonic flight regime starts at Mach 5, or about 3,800 mph. LEO is at 17,000 mph. To leave LEO quickly, you need to cancel out a lot of that velocity, and that’s just to deörbit, I’m ignoring that you’ve gone from needing to pre-cool your engine to having to pre-cool your entire interceptor because you’re manoeuvring through the atmosphere with orbital energy.
Orbiting missile defence doesn’t make sense. It’s worse than launching from the ground for space intercept. It’s worse than launching from atmosphere for boost or terminal-phase intercept. If you look at what Griffin is doing versus saying, you’ll notice Castelion is building missiles designed to be launched from conventional platforms.
the DoD disagrees with you: https://breakingdefense.com/2018/08/space-based-missile-defe...
That’s Griffin talking again. Not the DoD. (I may have missed something. If you have an excerpt, I’m happy to respond to it.)
Even then, he doesn’t really make a case for space-based interception. He just says it isn’t as expensive as it was in the 80s, which is true. He also ends by talking about sensing from orbit which, as I said earlier, makes sense.
> SpaceX ICBM interceptor
I never heard of this and searching for this term brought me back here. Any more info?
links on here are decent https://archive.today/D2zIG#:~:text=Shotwell
Great article thanks, not sure why you're downvoted. HN can be overprotective of Elon.
Crazy how Trump pitching to revive Star Wars, Musk stating the obvious fact that it'd take much longer to get a nuke to Mars is all it takes for you supposedly smart people to devolve into Jewish Space Lasers tier conspiracy theories. Although maybe that's to be expected from people assigning any credibility to a post of someone calling this a Project 2025 thing based on leading conversations with an LLM.
How is that evidence that Starshield is supposed to be a space-based ICBM interceptor network?
Starshield is just starlink for the DoD to extend siprnet.
Starshield is SpaceX's millitary division. It is two things, whole military using Starlink, and Space Force building satellites on Starlink technology.
Pretty clear that Elon & Mike Griffin aligned toward Brilliant Pebbles from the beginning (and probably Zubrin too)
the 'ol going to Mars bait and switch
I thought Starlink was FDD with the terminal?
Nope, its TDD (half duplex)
Seems like you are indeed correct. Thanks for the info
https://blog.apnic.net/2024/05/17/a-transport-protocols-view...
> Not surprising given the current administration opposes some of Starlink's "questionable" objectives.
The current administration is pouring billions into SpaceX sats (Starshield, custom Starlink-like secretive sats for US gov). Also, your link is presenting obvious bullshit from AI chatbot as a fact.
Transcript has verifiable sources linked inline.
always thought it was weird how all the SpaceX StarShield/Mars Program employees joined Castelion https://castelion.com/team
Makes sense now