Greenland’s national telco, Tusass, signs new agreement with Eutelsat

387 pointsposted 2 days ago
by saubeidl
(dagens.com)

275 Comments

wateralien

2 days ago

Is the read-between-the-lines part here that Elon / SpaceX is too aligned with the USA government and their aspirations to take over Greenland to be trusted with their comms infra?

nolok

2 days ago

That's clearly what the author of that article want to say, but the truth is that Greenland has a centralized access (people go through the national provider to get access, and said provider uses others' solutions in the backend), while Starlink offer was for a direct to consumer system; they were simply not answering to the criterias requested.

310260

2 days ago

The "uses others solutions" bit is for satellite alone when it comes to Tusass. They own and run all other types of telecom service in Greenland whether fiber, cellular, microwave, or marine radio.

motorest

2 days ago

> (...) while Starlink (...) were simply not answering to the criterias requested.

If you read the article, that's not exactly the arguments pointed out by neither Tusass nor Greenland's politicians.

Cited from the article:

> Binzer said it was not about which company was better, but about trust and long-term cooperation. Tusass already works with Eutelsat and knows their systems well.

> Some Greenlandic politicians have warned that the country must keep control of its telecom infrastructure.

> They fear that opening the market to foreign providers could threaten national security. For now, Tusass remains the sole provider of telecommunications in Greenland.

The citations from the article are clear on how national security concerns were a key argument to not go with Starlink.

simondotau

2 days ago

This is pretty much exactly correct. This comment should be pinned to the top of this whole thread, because it does nobody any good when "alternative facts" are valued more highly than a boring truth.

mlrtime

2 days ago

But then this article would be buried and the gears of the internet wouldn't continue to spin.

We all know at this point that rage == clicks == ad revenue.

lukan

2 days ago

Except this is one of the few sites not operating by this principle.

(The only ads here are YC startup job offers)

mlrtime

2 days ago

It still operates, just stops at the ads=money part.

1oooqooq

2 days ago

not really. this still push ads. they are just limited to "native ads format" (i.e. look like content to evade ad blockers) and only advertise yc companies and jobs.

nurbel

2 days ago

That's quite explicit in the last section of the article, ending with `Greenland’s communication systems must stay under Greenlandic control.`

bborud

2 days ago

You do not want to depend on infrastructure that might cease to work because the people running the infrastructure behave in an erratic, random and impulsive manner. This is a bigger risk than alignment with the policies of any government.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

I mean, I think that's obvious. Ukraine obviously wouldn't contract anything essential from Russia, same goes for Denmark/Greenland and the US. You don't threaten countries you want to do business with.

It's also not very "between the lines" at all, the article finishes with:

> Binzer said the company will keep an open mind for future partnerships, but the priority remains clear. Greenland’s communication systems must stay under Greenlandic control.

Sovereignty is more important than ever, and governments are catching up to this fact.

Sporktacular

2 days ago

Either way, trunks will use a network that is not under sovereign control. So sovereignty here means access must exclusively be through the locally controlled monopoly. Foreign powers will still have the ability to shut down or manipulate traffic, which is hardly sovereignty at all.

simiones

2 days ago

The biggest problem with Starlink's proposed solution would be that it would have been B2C - people in Greenland would talk to other people in Greenland through Starlink's satellites. That would put communication inside Greenland at the whims of another foreign power, which is a whole different level of loss of sovereignty than getting communication with the rest of the world cut off.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> Foreign powers will still have the ability to shut down or manipulate traffic, which is hardly sovereignty at all.

Apparently, some partners/"friends" are more likely to take military action against you than others.

If you're considering sovereignty and you have a choice between one partner who've said "I'll protect you" and another that said "Well, we'll never rule out military action against you", working together with one of those are obviously better for your sovereignty than the other.

actionfromafar

2 days ago

This reads to me as letting perfect be the enemy of better.

chrisco255

2 days ago

[flagged]

dxdm

2 days ago

> The offer to buy Greenland from Denmark was never a threat. It was an offer.

The highest ranking member of the US executive, in a publicly televised speech before Congress, said that "we're going to get Greenland one way or the other".

You can argue that's not a threat, but it would make you look silly IMO.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-text-of-...

chrisco255

19 hours ago

The text on the page shows that his speech was actually:

"And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.

We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.

We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.

It’s a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security."

So he said Greenland has right to determine its own future. But he outlined that we need it for international world security. He then promised to improve the economy and security of Greenland so we can achieve "international world security". Then he said 'I think we're going to get it'. Then he said, in his casual New Yorker schtick that he's known for, 'one way or another we're going to get it'.

That is a forward looking, hopeful statement. But it's also, there's multiple possibilities to getting what Trump wants. He wants North American security. Note, that Greenland has a NORAD defense system in place since the 1950s. It has long been known that Greenland was important for the North American hemisphere's defense, to protect from threats across the Arctic by the then USSR and now Russia.

It has a U.S. military base. It also has some critical minerals like rare earths that China has captured 70% of global supply for.

A path to getting security and mineral access could also involve a treaty with a sovereign Greenland. That's how he thinks. The dude does not do pessimism.

He's currently floating wildlife protection plans, like $50M for polar bear protection: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/10/09/...

Either way, this is how he negotiates, and it's more effective than it seems in the drive by headlines.

dxdm

17 hours ago

Thanks for supplying the full quote, it really underlines my point, at least I presume to a somewhat switched-on observer.

chrisco255

13 hours ago

"We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America."

That's the message. The optimistic riffing that he does as asides during his speeches are always exaggerative and forward looking. That's just his personality that he can't turn off. ::shrugs::

mlrtime

2 days ago

It's like a bunch of kids on the playground complaining about what some other kid said. What actual action has taken place? None.

If you want to criticize the highest ranking member of the US executive for saying dumb things, then get in line, we all agree.

lukan

2 days ago

The difference between a bunch of kids on a playground and the US president is, that he commands the US military.

(It is weird, having to state such facts now)

mlrtime

2 days ago

So there was an invasion? I missed it.

jopsen

2 days ago

You can't say the threat isn't there.

I personally think it's about time we get a nuclear program in Denmark.

We don't need launchers, we'll just nuke whatever island anyone invades.

chrisco255

19 hours ago

How about you first get a real Danish navy and tell us how many Russian subs are parked off the coast of Greenland at any given time?

saubeidl

2 days ago

There was threats of an invasion.

If somebody threatened you with murder, would you avoid hanging out with them or would you be like "it's just empty talk"? Stop justifying the unjustifiable.

dxdm

2 days ago

Saying "nothing's happened yet" and "it's dumb" is not making this any better, neither the threat, nor the question of trust, which I think we were discussing here.

Also, while I don't share your assessment that anyone involved is (the equivalent of) a kindergartner: a child with a gun making threats is not a great image. I don't know what your point actually is, but it's not going in the direction of: just normal business between two states, there's nothing to worry about. Not at all.

azernik

2 days ago

An "offer" that included an explicit threat of military force if it wasn't accepted.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/04/world/greenland-annexatio...

chrisco255

2 days ago

[flagged]

DrewADesign

2 days ago

That’s right. And Luca Brasi wasn’t threatening the band leader when he put the gun to his head. There’s a lot of reasons he could have been holding the gun like that— maybe he didn’t have his reading glasses and he was trying to read the serial number? Maybe he was comparing the the band leader’s hair sheen to a known reference gun? If the band leader then ‘decided’ to sign the contract to let Johnny Fontaine leave, it certainly wouldn’t be intentionally coercive.

JackFr

2 days ago

To be fair Luca Brazil did explicitly assure the bandleader that either his signature or his brains would be on the contract before he left.

So that’s kind of a threat.

DrewADesign

2 days ago

He was clearly inviting him to either add his signature, or a brain dump of possible changes to the agreement. Case closed.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> was never a threat

> it wasnt a threat of force

How are you not seeing yourself moving the goal post here?

mlrtime

2 days ago

Because they were never moved. What action has taken place? This is 100% anxiety.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Yes, of course it's anxiety, because you have one island with a tiny population listening to a leader of a huge military power saying "We'll get Greenland one way or another". Is it surprising people are feeling anxious when what they thought was a military partner starts to threaten other partners? Do you not realize how that is perceived by others?

mlrtime

2 days ago

How about stop listening? Or maybe try to understand the actual intention here?

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Parent initially said:

> The offer to buy Greenland from Denmark was never a threat

Then afterwards said:

> No it wasnt a threat of force

How is that not moving the goal post? They realize they cannot argue for "it wasn't a threat" anymore so they now started arguing it wasn't a "threat of force" instead. Completely missing the point why countries suddenly feel it's necessary to setup defenses in case an ally decide to take "military action" against them.

chrisco255

13 hours ago

No the parent initially said:

"You know the U.S. has operational military bases on Greenland soil and Denmark was a founding member of NATO and remains an active member, right? The offer to buy Greenland from Denmark was never a threat. It was an offer. The U.S. has made similar territorial purchases in the past, including most famously from our oldest ally the French known as the Lousiana Purchase."

The offer to buy Greenland wasn't a threat.

Greenland isn't setting up defenses against the U.S. Denmark and Greenland are part of NATO and run mutual defense exercises regularly. NORAD runs out of Greenland. There is no threat by the United States to Greenland. The U.S. already runs a military base there and has had several other shuttered ones in the past.

There are threats to Greenland from external actors besides the U.S. including especially Russia that is directly across the Arctic. That's why NORAD runs intercontinental missile detection in Greenland.

There is an offer to Greenland and to Denmark, that if Greenland takes it, would mean Greenland would get billions of dollars in funding and economic boosts to their economy, in addition to even stronger guarantees of defense. If the mutual relationship with the U.S. is not desired, then U.S. can always walk. That's not a threat, that's called mutual exchange. If someone wants a divorce, accepting it and walking away isn't a threat.

azernik

2 days ago

That is not what "military action" means.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> You know the U.S. has operational military bases on Greenland soil and Denmark was a founding member of NATO and remains an active member, right?

Bases as in multiple? Didn't they shut down all but one?

> was never a threat. It was an offer

Is this a joke? The president has literally said they're not ruling out military force to annex Greenland, in what world isn't that a threat? Especially when said to a military partner no less.

When the US purchased Lousiana from the French, did the bid also come with a "if you don't agree, we might take it by force" addendum?

chrisco255

2 days ago

[flagged]

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Regardless of exactly what "military action" is, it's a confrontational, aggressive and non-peaceful way of negotiating, you have to be able to at least agree with that right? And regardless of it meaning invasion or not, it's still a threat, not sure how you cannot see it as that.

chrisco255

2 days ago

[dead]

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> It might be confrontational, but that doesn't really matter does it?

> Might Greenland be better off as a U.S. territory than as a Danish territory? Quite possibly!

That there are Americans with this line of thinking just showcases how out of bounds the US have become. This isn't the way of thinking for a peaceful and cooperative world, this is the thinking of imperialism.

I'm ashamed of sharing this same space with people with no respect or regards to sovereignty and actual humans living in places. I'm happy you can freely express it, and I'm happy people have different opinions and perspectives, but some perspectives are so fucked up I lose hope sometimes. I truly hope you can eventually see things from a less violent perspective, god speed.

chrisco255

21 hours ago

> That there are Americans with this line of thinking just showcases how out of bounds the US have become. This isn't the way of thinking for a peaceful and cooperative world, this is the thinking of imperialism.

Greenland is already a colonized asset by Denmark. It is not a sovereign country, it has some forms of autonomy granted to it by Danish government. It can vote to go independent and there's a strong chance it will at some point.

As for the U.S. looking out for its own best interests, that is only natural. The U.S. is not an empire. Were Greenland to join the U.S., it would be through approval of Greenland citizens and U.S. Congress and would surely involve a financial incentive package that would be great for everyone involved (Greenland today is dependent on Danish subsidies). Greenlanders would become full U.S. citizens, not imperial subjects.

At any rate, the cost of running a global military and hedging against World War 3 for the last 80 years is pretty expensive. Most of Europe has gotten complacent with Pax Americana and have completely lost touch with the real risks of the real world. Russia would dominate the European continent were it not for U.S. military. How quickly could Russia take Greenland if it wanted to, were it not for the threat of retaliation by U.S. military assets?

mlrtime

2 days ago

[flagged]

tokai

2 days ago

Why is it always people claiming to think critically that can't follow A to B? You are working so hard to deny reality here.

mlrtime

2 days ago

What reality exactly besides anxiety or fear? All day I see people trying to draw lines that don't happen. Criticize the words all day long, I agree.

I'm talking specifically about Greenland.

saubeidl

2 days ago

If a guy says he's gonna stab you, are you going to try and prepare yourself or are you just going to be like "well it's just words, he hasn't stabbed me yet, I don't know why I should be worried?".

You're arguing in bad faith.

chrisco255

13 hours ago

Nobody said he's going to stab you. This is international politics and the stakes are higher than you can imagine, because hypersonic intercontinental Russian nuclear warheads are arrayed across the Arctic ocean from Greenland and Canada and pointed at North America. That's why NORAD has operations out of Greenland. That's why NATO exists. That's why you can't rule out "military action" over Greenland. Greenland can choose to be independent, but the U.S. won't allow them to host Russian nukes or Chinese nukes were it to fall to that as it did with Cuba in the 1960s.

saubeidl

2 days ago

That Hitler fella and his talk of invading Czechoslovakia, big brain critical thinkers like you know how to separate words from actions!

mlrtime

2 days ago

Godwin's law is dead.

actionfromafar

2 days ago

Yes it is. It may be because your guy wants generals like Hitler had. Or so he said.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

saubeidl

2 days ago

> Denmark CANNOT protect Greenland. Greenland cannot protect Greenland

France can protect Greenland though and they've signaled they will, including from the US. Attitudes like yours demonstrate why that is needed. Americans are a threat, not a partner.

mlrtime

2 days ago

And that is great actually! The US can spend less money because France can spend more on defense protecting it's neighbors, win!

saubeidl

2 days ago

Win for France, because they gain international influence. Loss for the US because they lose it.

Superpowers aren't super because of their inherent qualities. They're super because of their alliances.

mlrtime

2 days ago

Wait I thought people don't like the US, so how is it a loss? Is being a superpower good or bad now?

saubeidl

2 days ago

Being a superpower is good for the country in question, so it is a loss for them.

When a country is misbehaving globally, their loss of superpower status is good for the rest of the world.

chrisco255

21 hours ago

France can't protect the Louvre from daytime thieves on scooters, it cannot protect Greenland from Russian subs, nukes, and drones. This is delusional.

actionfromafar

2 days ago

More like threatening to beat the manager up and burn their house down. It’s just a negotiation tactic, sheesh, why u mad bro?

meijer

2 days ago

All this doesn't matter.

The truth is: Europeans don't trust the US anymore (except maybe Hungary).

chrisco255

2 days ago

[flagged]

clan

2 days ago

What do you think is happening now?

With fewer friends the super power ends up simply being a power. A more volatile world.

Brilliant minds thought up the Marshall plan. It secured the world. Nothing less! The world.

Did it come with a price? Yes. But what the protectionist do not get today as they dismantle the system is that is might actually have been cheaper than the alternative while remaining the leader.

Those who think that governments should be run as a business are delusional. They think we buy F35 because they are the best. The sales proves it! They will never realize that SAAB had better and more fitting options for us. They will never understand that we did pay some protection money. It is not a simple Luca Brasi situation. It is more subtle.

Ou friend is gone so we will try to do that. We have to. Now you understand that might not actually be to your advantage.

chrisco255

20 hours ago

The Marshall Plan was brilliant, but it's pretty terrible that it was ever necessary in the first place. Americans don't really want to be the world's bodyguard. Don't get me wrong, we like to be #1, but our original default position was neutrality when it comes to foreign conflicts. We hesitated to even enter World War II. It wasn't our war, it wasn't Europe's first conflict and it was unlikely to be its last.

The arrangements made after WWII came at a time when U.S. was over 40% of the global GDP. That's no longer the case. Now, globalism has gutted our own labor market, and many formerly proud manufacturing hubs in the U.S. are saddled with methamphetamine and fentanyl problems. Our veterans have a very high incidence of suicide, and we have a lot of them, because we have had to maintain a large military for a century. Unchecked immigration has diluted national cohesion and inflamed tensions domestically (and from what I understand, Europe's got its own internal tensions with this problem). The world as it existed in 1948 no longer exists.

Sorry you think the SAAB is better than the F35. It's really not, and lacks the same thrust, payload, stealth, etc but it's a perfectly good jet. That being said, I don't think fighter jets are going to win 21st century warfare. Drone tech is likely to be the deciding factor.

simiones

2 days ago

You realize that if relations really broke down to that level, then most likely NATO would simply exclude the USA, it wouldn't be all of the other NATO members leaving it, right? Also, if it gets to the level that the EU / Europe would feel they no longer want a military alliance with the USA, then it's likely that they wouldn't want to counter just Russian and Chinese influence, but US influence as well - there's nothing inherently better about US influence than the other two (Chinese influence so far has been the least bad outside of China itself, out of the three, by far - though I have no delusion that this will continue as China's power grows).

saubeidl

2 days ago

You forgot the current most realistic threat to Greenland: The US.

Check your biases.

mlrtime

2 days ago

What threat exactly? Words?

saubeidl

2 days ago

And actions. https://www.politico.eu/article/covert-operations-greenland-...

mlrtime

2 days ago

"Danish broadcaster DR reported that at least three U.S. citizens linked to the U.S. government were involved in activities that, reportedly, authorities fear could be used covertly to support Trump’s desire to make Greenland part of the United States."

I don't know where to start with this, there is so much space here you could drive a country through it. So citizens (not government officials) "linked", what does that mean? What activities exactly? "Fear could be" again, what does this mean, people are fearful, over what? People are afraid all the time.

Is this it?

saubeidl

2 days ago

I'm sorry, now you're just arguing in bad faith.

phatfish

2 days ago

> He doesn't take options off the table because it automatically weakens your negotiation position.

With the notable exception of dealing with Russia...

See the recent threat to allow Ukraine use of Tomahawk missiles. Taken off the table after Putin made a hurried call, and now Putin has lost interest in negotiations, again.

Trump has success "negotiating" with a regional terror group already almost bombed out of existence. He seems to blink first rather a lot when faced with an actual danger to the US.

chrisco255

20 hours ago

He hasn't taken any option off the table with Russia. He's applying economic pressure by placing large tariffs on countries that trade openly with Russia, he's floating the Tomahawks to let Putin know we'll just keep beefing up Ukrainian weaponry, etc. I think he's hesitant to activate, say, B2 bombers like he did in Iran, but Russia remains a huge nuclear power so it obviously has to be treated differently, no one wants World War III.

mschuster91

2 days ago

> He said he wouldn't take "military action" off the table. Which doesn't mean invasion. You are imprinting that.

... based on the fact that the US did quite a lot of questionably legal invasion campaigns over the last decades and Trump having signed an EO to "rename" DoD to Department of War. It's not an unrealistic interpretation.

> This is the same guy that just negotiated peace between Gaza and Israel.

He re-hashed Biden's negotiations and takes credit for it. Classic Trump.

> He doesn't take options off the table because it automatically weakens your negotiation position.

What "negotiations"? We don't live in times any more where kings can distribute pieces of land and the people living on it at will - no matter what Trump thinks he is.

chrisco255

2 days ago

> the US did quite a lot of questionably legal invasion campaigns

The U.S. is a sovereign country, and Congress approved all the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan for better or worse, and it was bipartisan.

Renaming Department of Defense to Department of War is something like the opposite of doublespeak. It's more honest, isn't it?

> He re-hashed Biden's negotiations and takes credit for it. Classic Trump.

No. The entire Gaza situation erupted under Biden's presidency. As did the Ukraine invasion. The Biden presidency was completely powerless to stop any of this from occurring. Biden, the same guy that bumbled through sentences and lost track of topics in the presidential debate and was replaced by his own party's superdelegates in 2024 after he won the state primaries, had nothing to do with this.

> What "negotiations"? We don't live in times any more where kings can distribute pieces of land and the people living on it at will - no matter what Trump thinks he is.

There's 185 countries on planet earth. Many of them are run by literal kings and some of them are run by king-like figures. The U.S. absolutely isn't one of them, but when it comes to international politics, the duly elected President is the negotiator-in-chief. This follows in a long history of deal-making, going all the way back to President Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase from France.

Ironically, Denmark itself does have a king!

clan

2 days ago

What irony?

The Danish king has zero power. Yes, he needs to sign the laws. Should he refuse, the next law he would see was his removal.

We have been lucky enough to have reasonable people give up power without bloodshed.

Have a word with the French how it goes if not. Can we find other examples of revolutionary wars? Something more close to home?

I sadly see no irony. None at all.

You love a strong man. A negotiator-in-chief. You think that is a president. Learn from the Germans. They replaced a monarch with a toothless head of state (look how I gracefully avoided the Austrian Painter). Most Americans do not even know the difference between the German President and Bundeschancellor.

What you are arguing for is a litteral king. Call it what you want. You will soon enough find out how hard it is to get rid of cetralized power.

chrisco255

20 hours ago

> The Danish king has zero power.

Great, can you just get rid of the role now? What is the point in the role? Why give nobility and all this heritable nonsense even the slightest auspice?

> We have been lucky enough to have reasonable people give up power without bloodshed. > Have a word with the French how it goes if not. Can we find other examples of revolutionary wars? Something more close to home? > I sadly see no irony. None at all.

I don't know what to tell you. America kickstarted the whole monarchal upheaval movement in 1776 and we had to fight the world's largest empire for it with our own guns. It's unfortunate that the French did not have the same success in 1789.

> You love a strong man. A negotiator-in-chief. You think that is a president. Learn from the Germans. They replaced a monarch with a toothless head of state (look how I gracefully avoided the Austrian Painter). Most Americans do not even know the difference between the German President and Bundeschancellor.

No I'm not going to learn from the Germans, there's nothing to learn there. We have been doing democracy for 250 years, longer than anyone, our Presidents have generally been strong men, including General Washington himself. 32 of our 47 presidents have been ex-military. Some notable examples are General Ulysses S. Grant, General Eisenhower, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel Thomas Jefferson, Major General Andrew Jackson, Captain Abraham Lincoln, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, etc etc. In that 250 year time frame, the U.S. conducted war, negotiated expansions of territory, settled conflicts, negotiated treaties, and defeated numerous empires. That could only happen because our Presidents were strong men with strong leadership.

Our duly elected president is the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military and the Chief Diplomat. It has always been the case. U.S. Presidents are powerful. It has always been the case.

However, U.S. citizens are also powerful. We have real freedom of speech, not some feckless version of it that europeans flirt with. We have guns to defend our human rights, including our lives, our liberty and our property. We have a robust legal system, 50 independent state governments with broad powers, a bill of rights that can't be overturned except by a large supermajority of states (75%), balances between branches of government, etc.

We have a long deep cultural history of fighting for liberty, it will never be taken from us, you have to understand. We demand strong leaders, because we are strong people. But our leaders know they are in power for a short time. We have Constitutionally limited terms (can't be overturned except by 3/4 of state legislatures and 2/3 of Congress).

We are never arguing for a king. We will never accept a king. But we will also never accept a weak President. Hope you can understand.

tokai

2 days ago

Posts like this makes the mess in the US make a lot more sense.

saubeidl

2 days ago

> The U.S. is a sovereign country, and Congress approved all the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan for better or worse, and it was bipartisan.

Your internal implementation details are not pertinent when something is illegal in international law.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

tessierashpool9

2 days ago

> Ukraine obviously wouldn't contract anything essential from Russia

West-Ukraine wouldn't. East-Ukraine ... not so sure.

pyrale

2 days ago

I’m pretty sure no one from Butcha (east Ukraine) will ever buy from Russia again.

tonyhart7

2 days ago

"West-Ukraine"

why you acting like ukraine is already lose its territory???? the war is still going on

there is no winner yet

tessierashpool9

2 days ago

aren't the Greenlanders rather open minded about that acquisition? Denmark didn't treat them particularly good.

Findecanor

2 days ago

Whatever gave you that idea? Those who are opposed to Greenland being part of Denmark tend to be pro-independence, and opposition to the US taking over is even greater. Many accept the status-quo because Greenland's economy depends greatly on money flowing in from the government.

USA has and has had military bases on Greenland, once established despite opposition from native Greenlanders. Several of these are ecological disasters. There are valleys full of rusting oil drums and machinery. There are fears of there being radioactive waste hidden under the ice, expected to leak sooner or later.

That Denmark had approved some of these bases has fuelled sentiment against Denmark and the US in the first place.

sehansen

2 days ago

No, Greenlanders are working towards independence and gaining independence from the US seems much less likely than from Denmark. Additionally Greenlanders aren't looking with admiration at how the US has treated other indigenous peoples.

tessierashpool9

2 days ago

Are you a Greenlander? Or are you from mainland Denmark?

sehansen

2 days ago

I am from mainland Denmark, but have visited Greenland and a have number of native Greenlander friends.

foofoo12

2 days ago

Totally. It's the same as how people feel about Canada taking over the US. The current admin is such an abomination it would be best that Canada takes control. They are very nice people. Nicest ones some would say. Imagine how nice it would be to have some stability again. All the Americans I've spoken to agree on it.

zitsarethecure

2 days ago

Many people are saying it. Unfortunately the small minority of nasty people opposed to it are using violence to stifle free debate.

rsynnott

a day ago

What lead you to believe that? Like, ol' minihands did claim that, but he claims a lot of things.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/28/85-of-greenlan...

> But a new survey by pollster Verian, commissioned by the Danish paper Berlingske, showed only 6% of Greenlanders are in favour of becoming part of the US, with 9% undecided.

6%, for practical purposes, means 0%; whenever you have a poll with a clearly insane option, about 4-5% of people will choose it, due to a combination of mistakes and trolling.

About half of Greenlanders support independence (in a concrete sense; far more than that in an abstract sense), but that's rather different to becoming part of the US.

tokai

2 days ago

They hate it. Only Greenlanders positive about it are criminals and clowns, that are literally being payed to do so.

subroutine

2 days ago

The modern news website: 15 sentences, 6 Shutterstock photos, 35 ads

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Don't forget:

> This article is made and published by Anna Hartz, which may have used AI in the preparation

The editors don't even know for sure if the author used AI or not.

el_pollo_diablo

2 days ago

I would put the emphasis on a different word:

> This article is made and published by Anna Hartz, which may have used AI in the preparation

Which, not who. They're not even sure the author is human!

etiennebausson

2 days ago

Might be a language issue, as English is not the primary language of the newspaper's staff.

arthens

2 days ago

I don't understand the snark.

Considering that "using AI" can mean anything from "AI wrote the whole article" to "the author used AI to check the grammar", I'd argue this disclaimer is unnecessary and it's safe to assume AI is involved in some way nowadays.

(the author of this comment may have used AI)

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> it's safe to assume AI is involved in some way nowadays

I don't think it's safe to assume so at all. Granted, I only know one journalist, and they've told me they only use LLMs in their work to gather further sources/references to check, everything else they still do "manually" with their own hands.

The editorial team should know exactly the scope of their teams AI usage. The snark mostly comes from them not knowing if AI was used or not, and they be upfront about them not knowing it. Feels like they're missing integrity if they don't know such things.

arthens

2 days ago

> I don't think it's safe to assume so at all. Granted, I only know one journalist, and they've told me they only use LLMs in their work to gather further sources/references to check, everything else they still do "manually" with their own hands.

I'd argue that your example falls under "which may have used AI in the preparation", which was exactly my point. (I actually had using AI for research as an example, but English is not my first language and I couldn't get the sentence to sound correct and chatGPT suggested I drop it)

> The editorial team should know exactly the scope of their teams AI usage. The snark mostly comes from them not knowing if AI was used or not, and they be upfront about them not knowing it. Feels like they're missing integrity if they don't know such things.

I don't see this as a lack of integrity, but rather as a futile attempt at being transparent. Everyone else is in the same position, they are just not adding a disclaimer.

And that's nothing specific about journalists, this applies to all professions. At most you can say what your official policy states, but you have absolutely no way of knowing how your employees/coworkers are using AIs.

philipwhiuk

2 days ago

> chatGPT suggested I drop it

AI suggests you drop disclosing possible usage of AI.

If it was smart we'd say this was AI influencing the narrative ;)

dotancohen

2 days ago

By using the word "which" instead of "who", the editors don't even know for sure if the author _is_ AI or not.

SAI_Peregrinus

2 days ago

TBH I'm not even sure if I'm using AI half the time. I'm pretty sure any sort of autocomplete gets marketed as AI these days, so anything I type with my phone probably counts as having used AI. "AI" is a marketing term with no fixed technical meaning.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

I'm well aware that AI is very broad, but for all intents and purposes, when journalists say something like "AI was/wasn't used to write this article" they're not talking about autocomplete or being affected by A/B tests that happen to use ML, it's pretty clear they're using AI as another name for LLMs.

pell

2 days ago

That aspect I don’t find all that concerning. I just wish they had a page where they explain what AI preparation entails.

emsign

2 days ago

But they can't. That would require resources which they have outsourced to OpenAI. If they documented their workflow all "productivity" gains would be lost. The whole point of AI is to get away with cheap and dirty. sounding high quality and competent.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

God forbid the management UI of the publication adds one or two checkboxes with "Did you AI to prepare for this article?" and "Did you use AI to write any of the text for this article?" that authors could just check/uncheck themselves.

SAI_Peregrinus

2 days ago

"AI" isn't a well-defined term, it's a marketing term. AI includes LLMs, but also seems to include basic autocomplete, spellcheck, and any other algorithm that runs on a computer.

emsign

2 days ago

> may

They don't even specifically know for each article if their authors use LLMs or not. What a shitshow.

flowrange

2 days ago

It's as if they're trying to mimic a Twitter post thread, fearing that people won't have the attention span to read a regular article. This is the equivalent to jump cuts in videos.

onion2k

2 days ago

The news industry: "Google are killing us! Give us money!"

MaxL93

2 days ago

Well, it's a bit off-topic, but yes, Google is demonstrably killing the fabric of the Internet. Ever since they introduced the info box & knowledge graph, pretty much every change they've introduced is geared towards one goal: they don't want to just be a guide, they want to be the journey AND the destination. All the latest AI efforts are the apotheosis, the extreme logical conclusion of that. Surely I don't need to explain how this makes them extremely similar to a parasite killing its host, how this degrades the very ecosystem their foundations are built on?

andrepd

2 days ago

? Yes? That's exactly what's happening, google's and meta's algos dictate which sites get traffic which is why every website is slowly but surely turning into clickbait/reels.

system2

2 days ago

At least we don't see the ads.

nottorp

2 days ago

I haven't seen a cookie dialog that toxic in a while...

jampekka

2 days ago

It's indeed rare to see the fine-grained item toggles only nowadays. But at least they are all off by default (unless I fell into some sort of dark pattern and misunderstood).

Still quite clearly illegal though. Rejecting tracking should be as easy as accepting it.

sehansen

2 days ago

How so? It's two clicks to reject everything. There aren't even any "Legitimate Interest" shenanigans like Google Funding Choices has.

lqet

2 days ago

Click on "settings", and be surprised what "accept all" means.

Note: each of the tabs on the left has their own "vendors" you may grant access. In total, there are over 800 toggle switches.

nottorp

2 days ago

I clicked once and couldn't see the button to reject everything...

Might be because i'm on a 14" laptop and it didn't fit on screen.

t1E9mE7JTRjf

2 days ago

lol two clicks just to be able to do what you original were doing is terrible.

sehansen

2 days ago

Compared to your average site using the Google Funding Choices dialog where I just counted 11 clicks to reject everything. https://tvtropes.org/ is an example, if you dare.

cuu508

2 days ago

Tip: in uBlock Origin settings, enable "EasyList/uBO - Cookie Notices" filters.

nottorp

a day ago

No, I want to reject the cookies not disable the dialog.

Consent-O-Matic does it for most sites but not on this particular type of dialog.

cuu508

17 hours ago

Under GDPR, sites need your consent (or some other valid legal basis) before they can set the non-required cookies. They are not allowed to first set the cookies, and then let you opt out. Instead, they first need your opt-in, and then they can set the cookies. No banner, no opt-in.

There are sites that ignore this requirement – they set tracking cookies on the first visit, before you've even seen the dialog. Consent-O-Matic could potentially be better in those cases, assuming the "Reject All" button actually works. There are also sites where the "Reject" option is intentionally or unintentionally broken.

PS. One of my hobbies is to track sites in my country that set non-required cookies on first visit, and contact them asking to fix it. And escalate to the local DPA if they refuse or don't respond. I made a little script that checks a list of sites nightly: https://github.com/cuu508/tasting-party One reason for re-checking regularly is regressions – somebody fixes their site, then two months later the problem is back... Over a year, the list of problematic sites has shrunk from 300-400-something to ~100, so there's progress :-)

sgt

2 days ago

I recently saw a full screen cookie dialog, like a full blown control panel with a dozen settings. Can't remember which site, but it literally took over the entire page.

jeroenhd

2 days ago

You don't understand! You can't write a dozen sentences that "may" have been generated by AI without selling your browsing history to 800 different companies!

timpera

2 days ago

It's pretty cool to see competition from SpaceX ramping up. I didn't know that OneWeb already has 652 satellites in operation.

DonHopkins

2 days ago

I'm just worried the British will start orbiting satellites in the opposite direction as the rest of the world, for the same reason they drive on the left side of the road. ;)

2rsf

2 days ago

Somewhat related to that, but Israel is launching satellites in the opposite direction than the rest of the world when they launch from their shores, this is so the launch is done over the Mediterranean sea and not their neighbors.

lifeisstillgood

2 days ago

Even more tangential - one of the “disaster” scenarios is a satellite collision - either East/West vs West/East or East/West vs North/South. The debris then would act as shrapnel taking out more and more satellites.

There is an assumption that such a loss would be a prelude to a major attack - but cock up is always more likely.

perihelions

2 days ago

There's already a broad range of inclinations spanning from equatorial to polar (and slightly beyond polar (slightly "backwards"), for sun-synchronous orbits)—they already have enormous relative velocities, at up to 90-degree relative angles. Satellites going completely "backwards" wouldn't meaningfully make things worse.

sp0ck

2 days ago

Calling them "competitor" is eufemism. Cheapest plan (Anchor) is $625/month for 40 GB, with 10/2 Mbps speeds.

Greenland decision was political not technical to pay x5 more for x10 slower service.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> Greenland decision was political not technical to pay x5 more for x10 slower service.

I dunno, is "bus factor" a political or technical thing to consider? How about "did the country of this business threaten us before?" a technical or political consideration?

Personally, I'd try to stay away from entities I can't rely on, on a technical basis. Based on the article, it seems like Greenland traded stability and resilience for performance and price, doesn't seem political.

kitd

2 days ago

How do you know Greenland are paying consumer prices?

mlrtime

2 days ago

You're right, they're most likely paying more!

kotaKat

2 days ago

And terminal costs will be through the roof in comparison.

Who else out there is making full-on beamforming capable satellite terminals under $1k? Kymeta's over $20k+ for a single dish.

People may hate the company and the man behind it but there's something special about being able to grab specialized satcoms hardware for like $300 at Best Buy.

10 years ago a BGAN terminal ran me $5000+ and a 384k connection several thousand bucks a month. Now you can get ~512k for $5 a month in Standby Mode on a $300 dish.

saubeidl

2 days ago

There's no terminal costs. Eutelsat uses bog-standard 5G.

The company and the man behind it cost $300 more per terminal.

mlrtime

2 days ago

No it doesn't, not for me and millions of others.

tonyhart7

2 days ago

no fucking way you pay 600+ usd for 40gb data

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

For us who experienced satellite internet and phone networks before Starlink appeared and tried to push down the prices, that doesn't sound so outlandish for internet that goes through space and is accessible literally everywhere on the planet. If anything it sounds cheap.

imron

2 days ago

How did they launch their satellites?

sehansen

2 days ago

From a quick skim of their Wikipedia page[0]: basically anything they could get their hands on. Arianes 1 through 5, Atlas II and III, Delta IV, Proton, Zenit, Long March 3, Falcon 9.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutelsat

oskarkk

16 hours ago

You're looking at the list of all Eutelsat satellites, but the satellites the article talks about are not on that list. Eutelsat is an old company that operates mostly geostationary TV/radio/etc satellites. In 2023 they acquired OneWeb, which operates Starlink-like satellites in low orbit, and that's what the article is about. For that the list of launches is much shorter, on fewer rockets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutelsat_OneWeb#Launches

saubeidl

2 days ago

I've long been of the opinion that launchers are more or less commodities, the interesting stuff is what you shoot up.

throwaway48476

2 days ago

Not all launches are the same. ULA is still more competitive in geo.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

razakel

2 days ago

ISRO have done a couple of launches.

ta1243

2 days ago

Starlink is run by a company based in a country which has threatened to invade Greenland, with a CEO who is aligned with the leadership of that country.

Sporktacular

2 days ago

The sentiment is understandable. But jamming the satellite trunks to another country during an invasion would not be difficult for the US. It's not clear how choosing a French provider will prevent that.

ta1243

2 days ago

There's a lot of ground between

Ally (which Greenland and the US were in 2024)

and

Active invasion

Starlink removing service is nowhere near as extreme as America jamming starlink (which would be a breach of international treaties)

mlrtime

2 days ago

Do you have credible evidence that the US is not an ally? I'm not talking about words said, hypotheticals etc. I mean actual laws passed?

saubeidl

2 days ago

Words said is all that humans will ever have. Do not downplay them.

mlrtime

2 days ago

No, doing things is what we do. Words sometimes help with this, but the actions are what counts. Watch what people do, not what they say.

saubeidl

2 days ago

Saying words is doing things.

riversflow

2 days ago

In diplomacy words are actions.

sofixa

2 days ago

> CEO who is aligned with the leadership of that country

Don't forget a guy who is so aligned with the leadership of that country that he paid to be a part of it, was kind of a government minister, and of course went on live national TV to perform a Nazi salute at an official event.

mlrtime

2 days ago

You guys love the drama don't you, didn't they break up recently?

sofixa

2 days ago

Everything I've learned about these two men has been against my will. I've also learned that they broke up, one of them accused the other of being a pedophile (which, while he has a history of making up and getting sued for, checks out this time). But they seem to be on good terms now again?

DrScientist

2 days ago

Obviously, it's hard to see under the current circumstances ( US belligerence and Musk's willingness to use his companies for political ends ) - how the decision would go any other way.

The interesting question is to what extent this is symptomatic of a wider pattern where governments and companies around the world are making such decisions for similar reasons.

exasperaited

2 days ago

Indeed —- choosing Starlink would be a security risk since Musk is totally willing to black out a country's service based on his own interpretations of situations.

I have no knowledge of who has deals and who doesn't, but more countries will find themselves in this situation — if you were picking countries who might see quasi-state embargo from a Trump-aligned oligarch this week, you'd pick Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Colombia. Next week, who knows.

mrits

2 days ago

There isn't a company on the planet that wouldn't stop service based on their own interpretations of situations.

stingraycharles

2 days ago

Most companies just operate based on what the law allows them / tells them to do. There are examples of companies where the owner is very politically involved and uses their companies as a means to influence politics, of which Starlink seems to be one.

mrits

2 days ago

I can't think of a single case that Starlink ever acted out politically, except the popular debunked one in Ukraine

DrScientist

2 days ago

Not seen the debunking - can you point to something that does so.

Here's a recent story from the other perspective.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/musk-ordered-shutdown...

DrScientist

2 days ago

I'd also note the interesting timing of Trump removing intelligence sharing ( Mar 5th ? )and the key Russian counter-attack move ( March 8th-9th ) in Kursk to retake territory - essentially leading to Ukraine pretty much losing all it's Russian territory within weeks.

exasperaited

2 days ago

Fun fact: the first impact Trump had on the Republican policy platform, before he was even President, was to remove from platform language the promise to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons. Back before the convention in the 2016 campaign.

That was secured by Paul Manafort, a man who —- only months earlier -- worked as an advisor to and lobbyist for a pro-Russian Ukrainian PM (Viktor Yanukovych, essentially a Putin stooge).

Paul Manafort worked for Trump for free (this is not in doubt), but appears to have had massive debts at the time, which appear to have ultimately been settled.

Ukraine is the thread that runs through the entire story of Trump's political career. It is and has always been so utterly, abundantly obvious that Trump's position on Ukraine consistently has favoured and will favour Putin's, that media and journalists failing to observe it is nothing short of malpractice.

DrScientist

a day ago

You could also say that about Biden - the strange case of his son and his job, Biden boasting about meddling in Ukraine internal affairs around corruption investigations and the infamous Nuland-Pyatt phone call etc etc.

Question I have about Ukraine - for those hawks that have consistently said Russia's army is about to collapse, and it's just one more push, or one more escalation in western involvement - is where is there red line?

At what point do you stop escalating? Western nuclear capable missiles into Russia? Western boots on the ground? Western conscription to enable that? Tactical nukes?

Russia appears to be winning on the ground right now. We have stopped talking of victory and now just want to freeze the front line - and Russia isn't interested.

I'm sure the hawks will say we didn't commit enough - but you can't say that without being clear about where that red line is. Not in a democracy.

You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable, rather than either hopelessly optimistic or having a secret agenda to escalate to an all out war with Russia that nobody would have signed up for at the start.

exasperaited

20 hours ago

> You could argue in this case Trump was simply being clear eyed about what was actually achievable

You could. But you could more credibly argue that the US position on Ukraine has been slowly and comprehensively fucked over in a way that very precisely mirrors Putin's goals, by people who have notably public pro-Putin alignments, from Manafort to Trump himself (a man who literally laundered oligarch money).

It is truly obvious what is going on and it's a shame people can't see it.

DrScientist

19 hours ago

So from 2022 ( full scale invasion ) to 2025 when Biden was president it was going swimmingly?

If you look at the situation on the front line when Trump got in to power in Jan Russian already had the momentum ( if slow and grinding ).

So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating. Sure he is against it and thus hasn't helped ( this started with me pointing to an incident where he appeared to be actively helping Russia ) - but surely it was already was going south before he became president.

exasperaited

14 hours ago

> So blaming Trump specifically seems like a bit like scapegoating.

I'm not blaming Trump for the invasion -— it's clearly Putin's invasion! (Indeed in the last couple of days you can even see the slight hint that Trump now gets it. That he's tired of his "friendship" with "Vladimir". You can see a hint of him expressing narcissistic injury from Putin, which he hasn't ever really done before.)

But Putin has been manipulating Trump, Trump lets him, and that is as clear as day. He has absolutely done things Putin wants him to do and on Putin's timescales — the whole 60-then-50 days thing was clearly Putin's plan, for example.

It's not just at odds with former US policy: it's basically sort of revoltingly unbecoming, emasculating, creepy and odd, and it always has been. (e.g. Helsinki). No other politician except a couple of leaders from Russian client states talks about Putin in the frankly admiring, subordinate way Trump does. It's like he's a horse who has been broken. He does not look like who he is —- the leader of the free world, the head of a proper democratic state. He looks like a cheerleader.

Ultimately what I am saying, very clearly, is that people underestimate the extent to which Trump's presidential ambitions and presidencies have always been interwoven with issues about Ukraine. Like, from before he was even President. There is Ukraine at every turn. His people. His corrupt outreach to try to get Biden. Russia's involvement in his campaign. "Russia, if you're listening". Alaska. It goes on and on and on.

This is quite different to Obama or Biden, for whom Ukraine was just one of the things. Trump is just plain weird about Russia and Ukraine; he was after all impeached the first time over it. And he has a long, long history of being enamoured with Russia, relying on Russian emigres to invest in Trump project apartments, trying to do things in Moscow, and laundering Russian money (which is the point at which the Russia/Ukraine thing may intersect with the Epstein thing)

He is much tougher with Netanyahu, even. And that is saying something.

tonyhart7

2 days ago

even if there is no people like elon musk, what company that can stop government to force its mandate through laws????

and not just SpaceX but every Tech company already work with Gov. Agency

exasperaited

2 days ago

OK maybe I should have said "whims". Probably more accurate in the specific context. (Well-documented that he works this way too)

ltbarcly3

2 days ago

Why does there need to be a 'state solution' when there is an affordable retail solution that individuals/families/groups can just purchase themselves?

Answer: Because of corruption! It's illegal to use Starlink in Greenland, and Tusass holds a concessioned monopoly over “telecommunications services in, to and from Greenland” and the underlying infrastructure! https://www.aqutsisut.gl/en/tele/satellite-regulation

Tusass was in talks with Starlink to basically provide Starlink service but via the Tusass monopoly, basically making Tusass a no-value-added reseller of Starlink at massively inflated prices (subsidized of course, basically being paid by the Danish government to do nothing besides cash checks while Starlink does everything else). This is so obviously corrupt that it's better for them to use a worse, more expensive service that doesn't make Tusass completely pointless.

clan

2 days ago

Damned if you do.Damned if you dont't.

With 56,831 inhabitants and those spread rather thinly I assume they enjoyed the years when it was both expensive and heavily subsidised. Without heavy government support I would claim nothing would happen.

Times are changing and commercial offerings starts to be viable. But the outlook of being in the pocket of StarLink is not too appealing. I think they would prefer other options in Ukraine these days. And if you notice the relations between Denmark (the only country outside US to celebrate the 4th of July) is at a record low.

Free markets you say? Tariffs I say!

sofixa

2 days ago

> corruption! It's illegal to use Starlink in Greenland, and Tusass holds a concessioned monopoly over “telecommunications services in, to and from Greenland” and the underlying infrastructure

Having a single infrastructure provider isn't corruption. It's making the best out of a natural monopoly. It could lead to corruption, but unless you have any proof that it has, you're simply wrong.

ltbarcly3

2 days ago

It's not a natural monopoly, it's a legally enforced monopoly.

saubeidl

2 days ago

The answer is more likely national security. Starlink is run by an ally of the government that has repeatedly threatened Greenland with invasion.

Jach

2 days ago

France is also a US ally. I would rather suspect the answer is that the French company is more willing to bend over to censorship and surveillance orders from the Greenland government.

actionfromafar

2 days ago

Sure, but Starlink, 5eyes, Palantir and some drunk misfit defsec would never...

saubeidl

2 days ago

France is an ally of the US, but not of the current government.

Sporktacular

2 days ago

The US diverts trunks for interception and active attacks all the time. Jamming the internet to Greenland during an invasion would be trivial on multiple levels. This will make virtually no difference to national security. Good for the monopoly provider though.

simondotau

2 days ago

If the concern is jamming, the solution is to have a diversity of service providers, not to assume you know who your enemy will be in a decade from now.

kragen

2 days ago

LEO satellite communications constellations like OneWeb and Starlink seem like they could make a big difference in what kinds of operations you could carry out in places like northern Greenland or central Australia.

hugoromano

2 days ago

Eutelsat maintains nominal facilities in Madeira (Portugal) and Luxembourg, primarily to optimize tax obligations away from France; can it still be accurately described as a French company?

M95D

2 days ago

If we apply that criteria, then it's completeley useless to name an international company's country.

rsynnott

a day ago

I mean, you could say the same of any multinational.

rob74

2 days ago

> Tusass had also been in talks with Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, but chose to continue working with Eutelsat.

"Ditches" sounds like they were already using Starlink, but abandoned it in favor of Eutelsat's system. The text clarifies that they only decided to (continue to) use Eutelsat, and Starlink was just another option considered.

> Binzer said it was not about which company was better, but about trust and long-term cooperation.

Well, who can blame them? After Trump repeatedly expressed "interest" in owning Greenland (fortunately he seems to have moved on to other pet projects in the meantime), and with Musk being one of Trump's closest allies, it would be a bit naive to trust Starlink...

etiennebausson

2 days ago

Yeah, as a french citizen I am happy to see Eutelsat get a new contract, but saying Starlink was ditched is poor journalism.

Don't know the publication, but it seems to be a Danish publishing in English.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

I'm also not a native English speaker, but ditched seems to mean:

> to get rid of something or someone that is no longer wanted:

They were considering two contracts, with two different companies, and were in talks with both of them. If they stop considering one of those contracts/companies, wouldn't it be accurate to say they "ditched" that bid/contract then?

I guess the misleading part could be that "ditched" might implicitly imply they were already using Starlink, but the "ditched" used in the title is actually about the contract, not established service?

simondotau

2 days ago

"Ditched" generally means to abandon something you had already chosen or started using. Example: “My car broke down, so I ditched it.”

A more appropriate term here would be "rejected" which means to decide against something prior to accepting it. Example: “I was going to buy that car, but I rejected their offer.”

Tempest1981

2 days ago

Ditches -> Declines / Refuses / Rejects / Turns Down / Avoids

tjpnz

2 days ago

Trump's threats/bluster aside, Musk has terminated or threatened to terminate Starlink service to individuals, regions and countries before for political reasons. I don't think it's unreasonable to have concerns.

yard2010

2 days ago

How did we get to a time when clicking back in the browser makes a website show a bunch of cancer inducing apps including a picture of Putin? I didn't even read the article after being greeted by an unremovable ad, trying to escape this dystopic nightmare by going back.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> How did we get to a time when clicking back in the browser makes a website show a bunch

"How" I'm not sure about, but it's been like that for decades at this point, so if you haven't yet adapted and started filtering out that stuff, that's kind of on you. Install a adblocker and be done with it already :)

fmajid

2 days ago

The new CEO of Eutelsat, Jean-François Fallacher, was previously the CEO of Orange France, the country’s incumbent telco, a much bigger company. He is a member of France’s senior civil service and this shows how seriously France and the EU are taking the strategic and sovereignty risks of depending on US-controlled infrastructure. Greenland, of course, is even more concerned due to Trump’s threats.

0xMalotru

2 days ago

Jean-François Fallacher was the CEO of Orange Spain, not France

lostlogin

2 days ago

It’s Orange executives all the way down.

shevy-java

2 days ago

This is actually good news in that Greenland decided that the USA isn't the number #1 option right now. The EU really needs to become a better alternative than the USA, so allowing superrich billionaires to hold the rest of the world hostage (aka Starlink) should be an objective by the EU to put a permanent end to. Outsourcing security onto the USA under Trump also was never going to work - he works for Putin, we all know that.

sehansen

2 days ago

That's a pretty damn editorialized title[0] given that Tusass signed an extended deal with their original provider. To me the chosen title implies that Tusass had chosen Starlink and then decided to stop using them. Starlink did submit a tender offer, but losing to an established competitor isn't super newsworthy.

0: No shade thrown at the submitter, as this is the title used by the site.

maelito

2 days ago

I think the title has to be read as "Greenland does not take the Starlink option despite it being the only internet satellite brand that the english speaking world talks about". Hence the "ditch". But you're right, it's a bad title.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Reality seems to be closer to: "After talks with Starlink and Eutelsat, Greenland went with Eutelsat because of trust and long-term cooperation". But with such title people wouldn't need to click the link to read the full article.

actionfromafar

2 days ago

That's a diplomatic way of saying "Starlink seems better but we trust the owner as far as we can throw em".

ptero

2 days ago

Neither the fact that starlink seems better not that they do not trust Musk is necessary true.

In business, especially on the government side, incumbency plays a very big role. Just knowing whom to call in case of issues and how soon they respond may account for all the trust needed to renew. My 2c.

fmbb

2 days ago

True.

But this year is also the year all European companies and governments learned the hard way they need to ditch US providers, and actually started working on it.

Blackmail from your provider is not great for business relations. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

ptero

2 days ago

This is all good, and as an American citizen I cheer any attempt by Europe (China, Japan, anti-China SEA players or anyone else) to provide an alternative: of tech, of weapons procurement, of social model, of political setup or of anything else. The world needs more competition.

But this article has nothing to do with the above, or with views of Musk. As others said, this request was for centralized access and SpaceX responded with a B2C proposal. It would have been rejected just as quickly even if it came from another company unaffiliated with the US.

throw0101a

2 days ago

> That's a diplomatic way of saying "Starlink seems better but we trust the owner as far as we can throw em".

Oracle could offer a company a better product/service, but would you really trust them?

lostlogin

2 days ago

Isn’t ‘trust’ part of what you pay for with any product or service?

motorest

2 days ago

> That's a diplomatic way of saying "Starlink seems better but we trust the owner as far as we can throw em".

The obvious aspect is that Starlink is a US company owned by a US oligarch with deep ties to the ruling regime, which is repeatedly threatening Greenland with invasion and annexation.

Relying on that service provider for communication would be outright stupid.

exasperaited

2 days ago

This is quite close to the "ditched at the altar" use of ditched.

oldestofsports

2 days ago

But you can only read it that way after reading the whole article. It’s a known fact that a very high percentage of people read the title without clicking on it, therefpre this is pure misinformation spreading and should be removed.

philipallstar

2 days ago

This sort of thing does feel like endless bias. I know some people lean into it and love to read the worst case, criminal prosecutor version of events, but I find it really off-putting.

rkomorn

2 days ago

It's not bias. It's clickbait.

fragmede

2 days ago

[flagged]

rkomorn

2 days ago

I don't think we're on the same page. Mostly because I have no idea what page you're on.

fragmede

2 days ago

Oh, I was just agreeing with you that it's clickbait and was playing up the mindset of whom the authors think their readers are like.

mrtksn

2 days ago

I think its newsworthy because the media cycle(social&traditional) since years framed Starlink as the only company providing such services and it turns out that you can actually use some other services. Well, actually can't realistically because those established alternatives were marketed towards B2B and that's why their equipment isn't affordable and very usable for the end user but still, its newsworthy that Starlink isn't eating their market straight away.

Also, what's cool about Starlink is that they have sort of vertical integration with SpaceX that allows them to constantly keep launching new satellites which allows them maintain lower orbit constellation that allows for cheaper end-user equipment and potentially better speeds. Also the constant recycling of satellites allow for ever going network improvement as the tech advances.

What's not cool about Starlink is that it is American and Elon Musk affiliated, which makes it national security risk for Europe and Greenland in particular. That is also part of the newsworthiness because if this becomes a trend Starlink may become unviable business for a market of just 300M people.

microtonal

2 days ago

The comments were most interesting for me, because I learned Eutelsat has over 600 satellites. As you mention, the media has framed Starlink as the only company providing good coverage. I never looked in more detail (I have fiber at home and great 5G coverage across the country I live in), so it was nice to learn that there is some competition. (Especially since the US has weaponized US services as of recently, like cutting off the e-mail services of the chief prosecutor of the ICC.)

tedggh

2 days ago

They are completely different technologies. Eutelsat are not designed for mass consumer traffic.

dzikimarian

2 days ago

Why is that? They have regular home offer in pretty competitive prices in the UK.

xienze

2 days ago

If it’s like old school satellite internet, the latency is atrocious and speeds aren’t great.

dzikimarian

2 days ago

It's not. It's comparable to starlink both in speed and latency.

Coverage is smaller than Starlink, but I don't think Greenland plans to move anywhere any time soon.

lostlogin

2 days ago

But Musk free. That has huge value to some of us.

When shopping solar, installers would open with ‘we sell various brands, what are your views on Musk?’

xienze

2 days ago

Yeah I get that, and there’s a lot of products and services whose company values I don’t subscribe to but I still use them because the alternatives aren’t viable. If you’re OK with 1+ second latency (which makes something as simple as SSH insufferable and online gaming impossible) and 20Mbit speeds, well, good for you.

mrtksn

2 days ago

There's not much testimonials about OneWeb(Eutelsat) but they advertise sub 100ms latency and there are articles like that: https://www.ipinternational.net/oneweb-vs-starlink-head-to-h...

It's described as slightly worse than Starlink, which makes sense because the orbits are not that different to warrant 20 orders of magnitude performance difference.

Where do you get the 1s latency number?

xienze

2 days ago

> Where do you get the 1s latency number?

“If it’s like old school satellite internet”

lostlogin

2 days ago

If that was the scenario I was in it would be a tough call. Luckily I have a great local ISP giving 2gig fibre (Voyager!), so that ethical dilemma isn’t playing out.

The do 4gb too, but I can’t use that much, and rarely get over 1gb.

HWR_14

2 days ago

> if this becomes a trend Starlink may become unviable business for a market of just 300M people.

345M people. Of which, the real market is around 15M households. Everyone else already has wired broadband. I suppose some people will want an additional link for redundancy, but my understanding is that Starlink satellites would be oversubscribed if urban areas had significant adoption.

mlrtime

2 days ago

I use it for backup internet, it's actually amazing what you can get for a couple hundred dollars upfront and $5/month. I'm WFH in a rural area so having redundant power and internet is crucial.

HWR_14

2 days ago

Your starlink bill is $5 a month?

zajio1am

2 days ago

> the media cycle ... since years framed Starlink as the only company providing such services and it turns out that you can actually use some other services.

AFAIK, you, as end user, cannot. Last time i checked that Eutelsat offers the service only as wholesale, to ISPs and other large customers, not to regular end-users.

simondotau

2 days ago

> I think its newsworthy

Nobody is arguing that it isn't newsworthy.

lukan

2 days ago

Except the person writing the comment above?

"but losing to an established competitor isn't super newsworthy"

simondotau

2 days ago

Something can be newsworthy but not "super newsworthy". In other words, it may be of some interest or importance to the public, but not significant enough to dominate headlines or receive major coverage.

exasperaited

2 days ago

It is a bit, though "ditch" could mean both "discontinued using" and "abandoned a deal at the last minute".

For example particularly in the UK and I think in Australia, the expression "ditched at the altar" is not uncommon.

If Greenland was legitimately close to a finalising a deal with Starlink, my semantics brain cells will accept "ditched" here.

skeezyjefferson

2 days ago

its cos it gets musk fanboys riled up and commenting, viewing, sharing etc. any time any of elon musk's ventures fail even in the slightest way, its fantastic news for us all. im sick of hearing hes doing anything at all for humanity because hes yet to deliver on any of his promises (forget living on mars, hes not even made it to moon yet, no tunnel under DC, no robotaxis)

Levitz

2 days ago

Starlink works, rockets are landing safely, electric cars are definitely set to be the norm and there's a guy or two out there who legit are moving a computer cursor with their thoughts.

I reckon he has delivered on plenty.

skeezyjefferson

2 days ago

we had satellite internet, we had rockets that went to the moon in 60s, electric cars are still the minority, and in 2002 somebody got partial sight back from brain implants so fuck musk and his novelty bs

Levitz

21 hours ago

I'm sorry but this is utterly childish behavior.

Copenjin

2 days ago

I see many of you focusing on the misuse of "ditches" while you should focus on the use of the word "trust" by those who signed the contract. Pretty sure it will not be the last time we see this kind of reasoning.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

Was there a moment in time "trust" wasn't one of the biggest factors of the decision to sign or not sign a contract?

The only thing that has changed is who you can trust long-term, but I think trust has always been one of the top factors.

dotancohen

2 days ago

That established trust has always been the Goliath that SpaceX challenged. Boeing was the only trusted company for the Commercial Crew contract, ULA was the only trusted company for payload delivery, etc.

Swenrekcah

2 days ago

I think this is a different type of trust. SpaceX had to prove their competence to be trusted for US government contracts (and other customers). They did that and I would trust their technical competence.

However, after the events of the past few years, especially last 12 months, they have lost a more important kind of trust.

zyx321

2 days ago

Events include:

Early in the war, Starlink used their killswitch to prevent Ukraine from utilizing their service for military purposes.

The sitting US president has threatened war against Greenland. He has not backed down or apologized, merely moved on hoping we would forget.

You'd have to be crazy to pick Starlink under these circumstances.

dncornholio

2 days ago

There was a time where the world just trusted the US blindly. This is sadly not the case anymore.

VagabundoP

2 days ago

There was an illusion you could trust certain countries, political institutions and, for some bizarre reason, certain billionaires-cum-oligarchs.

Recent upheavals and actions have really pushed people to question exactly who and what you can trust.

Also the recent focus on strategic elements with regard to globalisation also plays into these choices now - where it might have been dismissed a couple of years ago.

CaptainOfCoit

2 days ago

> There was an illusion you could trust certain countries, political institutions and, for some bizarre reason, certain billionaires-cum-oligarchs.

Granted you live in a neat place, those two first ones are still reasonable to trust in your day-to-day life, and in those same places the latter was never worshiped on the same level that happened in the US.

varjag

2 days ago

Denmark is pretty neat place to live in, alas.

johnjames87

2 days ago

[flagged]

sofixa

2 days ago

Describing doing a Nazi salute on national TV, as well as clearly and publicly saying that his AI chatbot isn't lying enough as "wrong politics" is weird and very generous.

I guess Pol Pot also just had "wrong politics", why did the Vietnamese have to go in to depose him?

johnjames87

2 days ago

Even Piers Morgan acknowledged that that "salute" was a "my heart goes out to you" and not a nazi salute, but with the latent tribalism we have in politics, I'm sure you will refuse to even consider that as a possibility. And the comparison with pol pot is just downright dumb. Elon Musk as always been pro freedom.

simondotau

2 days ago

It’s hard to believe Musk suddenly decided to flash a Nazi salute in one random moment. If that were his intent, he’d have owned it as he always does with controversial takes. Occam’s Razor applies: a famously awkward guy made a clumsy gesture because he was too caught up in the moment to think about how he is comporting himself.

breve

a day ago

Musk flashed a fascist salute. He did it deliberately, he grunted with the effort, and he did it twice so you wouldn't miss it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQNNo2a9xc

There's no mistaking it. There's no confusing it with something else.

If you are to apply Occam's Razor then the conclusion is that these are simply and precisely the fascist salutes they appear to be.

Let me ask you this, if I stuck my middle finger up at you while telling you that my heart went out to you, what would you think?

simondotau

a day ago

So what you're saying is that it's a dog whistle, but it's also really noisy, and also a secret coded message to... who again?

breve

a day ago

It isn't a secret coded message. He's showing you exactly who and what he is.

You didn't answer my question.

saubeidl

2 days ago

"Even" the right wing talk show host Piers Morgan, well I'm convinced.

Elon Musk as always been pro freedom, except when people disagree with him or he doesn't like them: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...

johnjames87

2 days ago

Anti-gun Piers Morgan is now right wing.

sofixa

2 days ago

Piers Morgan is English.

It might be shocking for some Americans, but pro/anti gun is a political issue almost exclusively in the US. In the rest of the developed world, nobody is "pro" gun. Even far right loons (and I mean proper loons, like a motorist party or a bunch of weirdos screaming about vaccines in parliament) in the EU aren't "pro"-guns.

And yes, Piers Morgan is on the right of the spectrum as it exists in the UK and EU.

sofixa

2 days ago

Watch the video.

Piers Morgan has no integrity and is extremely biased, what is the "even" supposed to mean?

> Elon Musk as always been pro freedom.

Unless it's freedom to criticise him, or freedom to say anything on twitter, or freedom to say his dumb submarine idea is nonsense, or freedom in the form of neutral information with limited bias. Then you're a pedophile or banned :)

johnjames87

2 days ago

> Piers Morgan has no integrity and is extremely biased

He frequently disagrees and argues with right and left wing guests he has on. You can argue that he's wrong, but that he's biased? You either don't know Piers Morgan or you really want to believe that.