[profile53]

While I don’t like the way it is handled, I’m going to be a contrarian here and say this could be a good thing. Previously, the contract was awarded to Verizon at the same price. I have more faith in SpaceX’s ability to deliver than Verizon and if starlink antennas are on every plane, aircraft internet will likely be better overall as a side effect.

Please convince me why this view is incorrect, I am open to listen.

[p_j_w]

> I have more faith in SpaceX’s ability to deliver than Verizon

Why? Verizon has been delivering top of the line cellular service for multiple decades now. Starlink is quite new on the scene and given that they’ve now captured management of the agency they’re selling to, they have no incentive to actually provide high quality service. They could do a shitty job and keep the contract, so why would they bother to do well?

[profile53]

> They could do a shitty job and keep the contract, so why would they bother to do well?

I think this is probably the key piece I didn’t consider. SpaceX’s previous work was done under heavy competitive pressure so they had to do good. Here it doesn’t matter what they do.

With Verizon, my doubts came from all of the reporting that’s happened on rural broadband funding. A lot of the companies, including Verizon, essentially took the money and ran without doing all of the work (from my understanding).

[scandox]

Arbitrary power can achieve a lot of good things but it always ends the same way. So better WiFi on the plane but one day you find you can't get on a plane anymore because you said the wrong thing.

[immibis]

Isn't that already how it works? At least for specific values of "the wrong thing" - one day you find you can't get on a plane because you said "I want to blow up this plane."

But also "I am going to Colombia to bring some cocaine home." and "I am going to Washington to assassinate the president." and "The right of the people to keep and bear nuclear bombs shall not be infringed." and any number of other things that don't immediately threaten the plane's integrity.

[trilbyglens]

That's a pretty weak ass argument friend.

[rbanffy]

From now on, if you say Trump is fat or ugly you will be permanently banned from ever flying again.

[xboxnolifes]

Trump probably wouldn't care, but if you tweet that at Elon...

[profile53]

Bans from planes are already arbitrary and capricious, so I don’t think changing which arbitrary power is responsible really makes a difference here. Look at all the news articles of people ending up on the no fly list for garbage grounds.

[matwood]

> While I don’t like the way it is handled

In concerns such as this, the process matters. If we don't follow it this time, then why follow next time or the time after? Then, if this rule or that law doesn't matter, then do any of them matter?

I think people would have been more comfortable if they decided to send it out to bid again - not great since it was already awarded, but at least going back through the public process.

[janice1999]

You're making those assertions with no absolutely no data though. In a sane, non-corrupt system a trusted third party with recognised industry experience would assess the contract, what has been agreed to and what been delivered and make an evaluation based on the cost, risk, timetables etc. None of that happened here. It's just naked corruption.

[profile53]

The existing system is already corrupt so I don’t think that hypothetical is helpful here. The process by which contracts are awarded is already unfair and biased towards certain players with the right connections to get a contract written in a way that only they can fulfill.

It’s possible, although I have not verified, that the contract was written in such a way that Verizon was the only qualified applicant because of lobbying.

[jesterson]

What you are talking about is a pure theory and never exist in real world. Start with trusted 3rd party - trusted by who?

Starlink technologically can provide better connectivity in terms of speed and reliability compared to Verizon (can doesn’t mean it will of course). So there is some credibility to the decision.

But of course populace prefer to focus on flamboyant personalities instead of “based on cost, risk, timetables” ain’t it?

[omnivore]

Procurement rules exist for a reason, letting one guy funnel business to his company using the President's power is a huge risk to the nation-state.

[rbanffy]

Imagine if he decides to disconnect all in-flight airliners just because he’s high?

[p_l]

This is not about communications on aircraft itself and will have no impact on aircraft internet.

However I'd rather have the backhaul between air traffic control centers done by fiber rather than by Starlink...

Not to mention the naked corruption

[bumby]

What’s the tradeoff between reliability/cost/performance between different infrastructure approaches? I’d assume for safety critical applications, reliability is the priority.

[p_l]

Can't give real answers without data on Starlink reliability (or non-consumer features), but personally as someone who depended on ATC both as small time pilot and more regularly as passenger, I'd be wary of sat radio as main backhaul.

Of course Verizon can fsck it up as well, but multiple leased fiber lines, possibly direct MPLS with guarantees on latency and bandwidth, or maybe even DWDM between major locations sounds more reliable to my instincts.

Most importantly I don't trust the hatchet job way this is done, not just on Starlink use, but the whole hatchet job with FAA.

With density of flights in USA, intra-ATC Comms are non trivial part of safety - passing flight information on structured messages rather than by hand between areas is... More than important.

[inemesitaffia]

Do you happen to have watched this video?

https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/an...

[p_l]

I haven't before, but due to certain private interests I can explain what they mean by "legacy copper TDM infrastructure".

A lot of interconnections between US ATC services were done back with the good old Bell System over then new T1/T3 digital carriers, plus analog leased lines in some cases, that provided high reliability and high quality of service links for both data and voice (which could include voice connection to remote radio transceivers).

This is, of course, being phased out even from "compatibility mode" setups where you get old style trunks that are backed by newer infrastructure. So the network infrastructure is literally dying out.

A comparable setup with modern tech would be MPLS fiber backbone with capacity reservation (thus actually getting stable latency and bandwidth guarantees), which would allow creation of virtual meshes with different QoS requirements that would provide both stable voice service (including from centralized ATC to remote radar transceivers), guaranteed performance data links (for example for radars etc), slower but still guaranteed service bulk data transfers, etc.

I might have also mentioned DWDM, which essentially lets you create a physical fiber optic path where switching is done by optical elements based on frequency of the signal (so you can pack multiple signals into one fiber then route them to different ports etc. etc.) - very useful if you want no variability in connection while still be able to reroute them fast.

[inemesitaffia]

That exactly is the point of the program. A shift to an IP network.

Where Starlink comes in is in the intermediate step. Before Verizon finishes running their MPLS network, there's a program called RTRI that provides an off ramp for TDM, so when Lumen stops serving, they have something. It's contracted to L3Harris and runs over SDWAN while using any network as an overlay. Satellite (including GEO), Cable and 5G (anything available really)

[profile53]

Sidestepping the corruption piece, which is a huge problem here to be clear, my understanding is that SpaceX has promised to provide starlink antennas at no cost to be used in commercial aircraft. Assuming that is true (again, a big if), then wouldn’t a natural consequence here be Starlink back Internet on the planes?

That said, I may have been reading misinformation and it’s only provided to ATC towers.

[p_l]

They wouldn't be used for ATC though. Internet access from aircraft is, outside of questions whether it interferes with aircraft operations, outside of FAA purview (at most, it's FCC and ITU-T depending scope)

[inemesitaffia]

This isn't going on aircraft. It's for ATC related stuff and it's not, contrary to the article, replacing Verizon

[taeric]

The concern is specifically the way it is handled, though?

So, could bad things still lead to good things? Of course. Do we generally accept "ends justifies the means"? I didn't think so?

As for downsides, I confess the five year life cycle of the satellites is of some concern to me. Seems more so of a problem the more of them you have to put up there?

[atrus]

Why would it be better? If you can cancel your competitors contracts and award them to yourself, the only incentive you have is to just...raise the price.

[happytoexplain]

Even giving the benefit of the doubt that they would do a good job: The ends do not justify the means. That's really all it is. Pragmatically speaking, Americans simply abhor an unelected hundred-billionaire who behaves in a mean, trollish, and "hateable" manner, forcing himself into the institutions of their home country in a way that appears destructive and careless. For each individual case, whether it actually ends up improved by some metric (and whether Elon is even actively involved) is overshadowed ten-fold by the societal damage caused, the dangerous precedent created, and the fighting spirit of Americans against authoritarianism.

[tim333]

Leaving aside the corruption thing there could be a lot to be said for satellite coms for aircraft and air traffic control as air traffic is global and the only way to have a system that will work anywhere including over oceans is satellite really.

[rbanffy]

So, standards and multiple independent implementations operated by multiple service providers.

[ghthor]

As someone who dabbled as a user of satelite internet before spacex, nobody else can do it. It sucked

[rbanffy]

SpaceX changed the rules of the game - before SpaceX we all used stationary satellites, needed to point antennas to them, deal with atrocious latencies and low bandwidths.

The enabling technology is constellations in low orbit and SpaceX isn't the only one anymore.

[omnivore]

It's illegal and unfair competition. We can't just throw out laws we hate all the time on the whims on an unelected guy in the White House.

[xiphias2]

SpaceX is clearly better technology, but I believe what matters is whether Verizon was fairly awarded the contract.

If the contract was made fairly and in good faith, cancelling it would be bad for contract law precedence in the new administration.

I take contract law over advancement in technology in this case.

[rbanffy]

It’s adorable we still think this administration still cares about respecting the law.

[jacknews]

maybe, maybe not, but are you saying the ends justify the quite likely corrupt means?

[elevaet]

What you said could be true, but it's overshadowed by the fact that this is blatant corruption.

[blackeyeblitzar]

Yep obviously Verizon is a bloated company with zero innovation and no particular experience relevant to the FAA. Meanwhile SpaceX has experience in software, hardware, telecom, and flight. I trust them more with modernizing the FAA.

There’s also very little information on who else bid for this contract that Verizon got. How do we know it wasn’t corrupt to begin with, especially with Biden engaging in lawfare against Musk and doing bizarre things like excluding him from EV summits? The entire FAA modernization plan looks corrupt - everyone else that got contracts are random unknown companies. I bet they have ties back to some congressman.

[Volundr]

> How do we know it wasn’t corrupt to begin with

If we think that, isn't the solution to reopen the bidding with more transparency, rather than hand it to the guy who just so happens to both be in charge of the team pushing for this and owns the company the new contract is awarded to?

Your replacing "maybe this was corrupt", with 'this is blatantly and obviously corrupt"

[blackeyeblitzar]

It’s not blatantly or obviously corrupt. It is very likely to be better for taxpayers.

[Volundr]

I can't think of anything much more corrupt than someone in government directing a government contract to a vendor they own with no process for considering other vendors. If that seems fine to you, then I don't think we'll ever agree on what corruption looks like.

If Starlink is actually "very likely to be better for taxpayers" it should have no problem going through the normal bidding process competing with other vendors.

[buttercraft]

Good God, it's a textbook example of corruption!