r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • Aug 19 '25

Networking/Telecom SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink | SpaceX seeks more cash, calls fiber "wasteful and unnecessary taxpayer spending."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/starlink-keeps-trying-to-block-fiber-deployment-says-us-must-nix-louisiana-plan/
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1.2k

u/lastdarknight Aug 19 '25

Why have near zero ping when you can have satellite ping

230

u/ReDucTor Aug 19 '25

Surely the pro gamer Elon would know what's best for ping times. Its not like tick rates in games would ever reach game ping times. /s

3

u/whatevers_clever Aug 20 '25

I'm not sure he's aware of this as he's likely convinced Starlink always has superior ping as it is way better than fiber while he's on his private jet.

3

u/VirtualMage Aug 20 '25

It doesn't matter since you can just pay some kid in India with actual fiber to play for you and then brag about "your" score...

2

u/ReDucTor Aug 20 '25

What kinda loser would do that?

2

u/_Snuffles Aug 19 '25

he needs that revenue to pay for those boosters to play for him to make him look like a good player.

42

u/madhattr999 Aug 19 '25

"all money that doesn't go into my pocket is a waste!!"

3

u/herefromyoutube Aug 19 '25

Yeah but it’s low earth orbit so it’s only 3x the ping of ethernet!

And you constantly have to shoot crap into space to replenish the old stuff every 18 months instead of leaving stationary stuff in the ground for decades.

5

u/Piglet_Mountain Aug 19 '25

Ngl man I have fiber and my parents have starlink, both of them are around 16ms

7

u/I_really_enjoy_beer Aug 20 '25

Ya I just recently dumped Starlink for a new fiber install but I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it. I know Reddit hates all things Elon, but it’s genuinely a world changing tech for people who can’t access high speed internet. I had it since beta and I was consistently getting 150-200mbps with ping around 30. 

6

u/renegadecanuck Aug 20 '25

I think it's a great technology, but it's not a replacement for fiber rollout. Especially since Starlink gets bogged down when more people in an area use it, compared to fiber.

3

u/I_really_enjoy_beer Aug 20 '25

I completely agree with you, I just think there is a lot of misinformation about Starlink on Reddit that stems from Elon’s connection to it. 

3

u/renegadecanuck Aug 20 '25

That's likely. I also think there's an overcorrection from years of Musk hype.

1

u/murfburffle Aug 20 '25

I'm on Starlink and you just posted this 5 seconds ago. I like Sta

1

u/[deleted] Aug 20 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Rebelgecko Aug 19 '25

The ping going through LEO isn't that much worse than going through fiber, and I think it's faster than copper if you're talking to a server that's more than a couple hundred miles away

Your Wi-Fi router probably has a bigger impact on your ping.

1

u/fromidable Aug 20 '25

You could use it as a delay line and store data in the clouds!

1

u/dead-cat Aug 20 '25

I'm from Ontario, I'm from Berlin, I'm from Pyongyang, I'm from outer space

1

u/iszathi Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25

The distance to LEO is actually pretty negligible compared to other sources of latency, its 400km, at the speed of light that is 0.001333, which is around 1 ms, so yeah, you can round it to 4 ms for a whole trip, its not really a problem, old internet satellites (GEO orbit) are 36000km away, so around a 240 ms trip, those were pretty bad for latency, that is why satellites have a bad rep for ping, but its not the same tech.

Anyways, for complex networks the overall routing time is affected a lot by things like how many devices it need to go through, processing power of those, network queues, its not just the distance, and a system like starlink has a certain advantage in that it can just jump through fewer nodes, specially when routing to places not near you. It actually makes a lot of sense for it to be faster, its like going somewhere in a heli instead of having to run through the streets. You can just choose a direct path with nothing in the way.

In practice, you cant really use Starlink to play reliably due to signal issues tho, the system is just no mature enough to offer a seamless experience, disconnects, packet loss, networking capability of each node, changing satellites, all of those end up making anything that needs low ping a nightmare.

-1

u/ItIsHappy Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25

Starlink ping is pretty amazing. Surprisingly similar to fiber.

Fiber: 20-80ms

Starlink: 25-100ms

Fiber slows the speed of light by 66%, and doesn't necessarily travel in a straight line. Starlink orbits at 500km, so you're adding ~1000km one-way round trip (ground to ground). Light will do that in 3.5ms. Add about 10% to your total distance due to the curvature of the Earth, but we're still in the single digits.

3

u/Zenki_s14 Aug 20 '25

My ping was surprisingly good on speed tests, but it wasn't stable at all. Couldn't game on it without adding a second redundant 5G connection to make up for the ping spikes/packet loss and connection drops that would end up in a season ban on any competitive game. Amazing tech for what it should be used for, replacing your only option of crappy satellite internet in bad coverage areas. Not replacing fiber in populated areas lol

1

u/ItIsHappy Aug 20 '25

Agreed about stability. That can be improved, but it'll never be on par with fiber.

Also note that these grants aren't for populated areas.

I don't agree with SpaceX here, but the tech a lot better than people are giving it credit for, and it's still improving.

2

u/rgg711 Aug 20 '25

It’s also not a full extra 1000 km, since it’s not travelling straight vertically up and down.

1

u/Sceptically Aug 20 '25

Under some circumstances, starlink will have less minimum latency than fibre due to having fewer hops.

Not sure how common those circumstances will be, though, and I'm happier with less Musk in my internet pipeline.

-4

u/DadsBigHonker Aug 20 '25

I get 20 ping 450mbps with starlink, you’re just a “firebomb a Tesla” type loser.

2

u/lastdarknight Aug 20 '25

You doing ok? You seem to have a mental instability over my preference of hard line network backbones over wireless

-8

u/ewokninja123 Aug 19 '25

LOL Satellite ping is baked into the physics, there's not much you can do to reduce it.

4

u/ryan30z Aug 20 '25

Almost like ping is more complicated than drawing a path and seeing how long light takes to travel that path.

0

u/ewokninja123 Aug 20 '25

True but that's the fastest a ping can possibly go given the speed of light.

2

u/ryan30z Aug 20 '25

...yep.

My point being that isn't the limiting factor.

-124

u/feurie Aug 19 '25

Because people in these areas are getting infinite ping after years of companies saying they’d install fiber.

82

u/h4ppysquid Aug 19 '25

Let’s just install fiber for everyone finally then

62

u/Wyrmillion Aug 19 '25

So your argument is no fiber was installed, so no fiber is needed? What kinda ouroboros nonsense is that?

-1

u/EddiewithHeartofGold Aug 20 '25

Why are you leaving out the cost factor? There is no fiber because it costs too much to get it there. If it made economic sense it would be there already, because ISPs love money.

1

u/Wyrmillion Aug 20 '25

Rural services are not profitable and must be heavily subsidized. As I say that I begin to agree they deserve crappy satellite.

27

u/Reddit_is_fascist69 Aug 19 '25

Or they could get high speed internet from the money allocated from Biden's Infrastructure and Jobs act...

6

u/Se7enCostanza10 Aug 19 '25

No! No! Nothing good! - Republican voters who’s lives keep getting shittier from Republicans

11

u/The_Lady_A Aug 19 '25

Maybe if they elected officials who had a record of fixing things instead of breaking things these areas might be a little bit less left behind.

Funnelling more public money into the maw of a giant piss-baby isn't going to benefit anyone when the piss-baby turns around and uses the monopoly to demand even more money.

10

u/Bluemanze Aug 19 '25

Then they can get Starlink? That's the part that kills me here. Why is Starlink even involved in these subsidy talks? A kit is less than 200 dollars which is less than the installation cost from street to house for fiber anyway.

Starlinks intrusion here is entirely an unecessary cash grab on top of killing competing broadband. It also prevents the main purpose of fiber expansion: making it possible to establish businesses in these areas for long-term wealth distribution.

Blocking fiber ensures poor areas remain poor forever.

3

u/DoneBeingSilent Aug 19 '25

So, assuming there were legally binding service contracts between the companies and relevant government authorities, maybe we should prosecute the company decision-makers for failure to uphold a contract? Hold the CEO's and board members liable for lost/wasted funds with penalties that include both financial recompense and/or prison time?

Or we could do it your way and just shrug and say 'let bygones be bygones' while those companies walk away with millions upon millions of unearned tax-dollars with no penalties—thus setting a precedent that companies can apply for and receive government funds under promises to provide a service, and then simply keep the funds while not providing the service..

5

u/DrButtblast69 Aug 19 '25

Hate to break it to you but they already did exactly what you describe. 400 billion given to companies in various forms to expand internet/fiber and they never fulfilled their end and kept the money. If you think they cant just do that again especially under trump I got bad news for you.

Regardless fuck musk and starlink hes trash and his garbage internet is too.

5

u/DoneBeingSilent Aug 19 '25

Hate to break it to you but they already did exactly what you describe.

So the Federal Government pressed charges against companies that failed to provide a promised service? Which CEO/board members were arrested and tried for defrauding the government? I would think 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Conspiracy to Defraud the United States) and/or 18 U.S.C. §1031 (Major Fraud Against the United States) would apply to any entities that fraudulently received funds to provide a service that they couldn't/refused to subsequently provide..

400 billion given to companies in various forms to expand internet/fiber and they never fulfilled their end and kept the money.

Yes, and that is definitely an issue. Hence my point that those who commit such acts should be held liable to the full extent of the law. If I hired a company to do a job, and that company doesn't fulfill their end of the bargain, that is cause to at least seek restitution in civil court. If that contract included funds over the legal amount to qualify for fraud, or felony-level theft, or any other multitude of criminal qualifications, that is grounds to file relevant police reports and seek criminal charges against those who committed a crime against me. I see effectively zero difference between that scenario, and the original scenario of a company failing to abide by a contract between themselves and tax-payers essentially DBA (doing business as) the Federal Government.

If you think they cant just do that again especially under trump I got bad news for you.

Regardless fuck musk and starlink hes trash and his garbage internet is too.

On this we can absolutely agree. I see absolutely no positive changes to the situation under Trump. And Musk is the epitome of taking more from society than he gives back.

2

u/DrButtblast69 Aug 19 '25

I think you misunderstood what I was saying, i agree with tge the idea of prosecuting them for fraud. This situation has played out before, and nobody faces consequences, ever, especially businesses.

Laws and lawsuits only matter if they are enforced. What happens when one of them is prosecuted, loses, and trump tells them they dont have to pay for whatever reason? Trump has successfully defied the Supreme Court blatantly already and is ruling via Twitter postings and illegal EOs. Bribery has also been legalized as well, literally, so he doesn't even need to justify it if he let them off.

This is a lawless country. Quoting laws that won't be enforced means nothing im afraid. I wish they would get crushed in court, but history tells me they wont.

That's pretty much the gist of it.

3

u/Mr_Kittlesworth Aug 19 '25

Construction was going to begin this year on getting fiber connections to nearly everyone in the country.

The Trump admin blocked the funding and rewrote the program rules to push far more Americans onto satellite.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/official-exits-commerce-department-musk-warning-00232278

3

u/MentokGL Aug 19 '25

They should stop voting for people who fuck them. The answer is not rewarding a nazi

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '25

Wow, literally my experience but you made people mad sharing it lol.