Ukraine says new Starlink restrictions disrupt their military

55 pointsposted 15 hours ago
by Snawoot
(nbcnews.com)

28 Comments

onlypassingthru

14 hours ago

1D chess, Elon? This will only further incentivize the creation of a European LEO system.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-telecom-giants-team-up-ag...

barbacoa

13 hours ago

It's not obvious that the EU has the innovation ability or startup culture necessary to compete with spacex. For example in the whole of the EU, Spotify is the only company less than 25 years old and with a market cap over $50b.

onlypassingthru

13 hours ago

What makes you think this will be a public company? Starshield is for militaries and there is one almost European country that has a booming (literally) startup scene.

waffletower

13 hours ago

I think this is happening to promote Musk's biographical documentary which opens in U.S. theaters October 16th. :D

wil421

14 hours ago

Europe will take years and fight over what member will make what piece. It’s the same problem NASA has when senators what to spread the job making program to their states.

The EU telcos will sweep up spectrum to inhibit new entrants from becoming successful. An EU rocket/satellite marker should be doing all of this.

onlypassingthru

14 hours ago

Now that Starshield has proven vital to survival in a war, see: Ukraine this week, it's inevitable that the EU will pass legislation mandating its creation. This is not business as usual. The Baltics, Nordics, Poland and others are going to push for building it now.

mamonster

14 hours ago

We heard the same thing about the Draghi report and not much got done.

The big problem with satellite stuff in EU is that the quickest way to get it done is via France/Germany/Italy, but as you noted the guys pushing the hardest for it are gonna be the Baltics and Poland.

A greenfield satellite program is very hard to do.

jacquesm

4 hours ago

You heard the same about the Galileo system.

onlypassingthru

13 hours ago

The long term answer is Ukraine will become the European Starshield provider but they need to leverage other countries' money and launch assets to get there in the short and medium term.

wil421

12 hours ago

How will their neighbor allow such a thing to happen? I’d imagine a drone storm every time Ukraine tried to launch.

ch_sm

14 hours ago

Sure, it’s not easy, but GALILEO shows projects like this are possible and can be successful in the E.U.

weinzierl

14 hours ago

Like GLONASS, GALILEO was planned as a sovereign GNSS, but the US used their diplomatic power to convince the European Commission to make it "optimized for interoperability"[1].

It's likely that we will see an European Starlink but only an "interoperable" one. A cost sharing and robustness measure. Not a sovereign European system.

[1] https://www.gps.gov/news/joint-statement-galileo-and-gps-sig...

onlypassingthru

13 hours ago

It's pretty clear that electing the pumpkin twice has dispelled any notions about the US's reliability as a long-term partner. Sure, the next US president will extend a hand in solidarity, but the Europeans can't rely on that happening every 4 years any longer. I think most have figured that out.

weinzierl

12 hours ago

The GALILEO decision was in 2006 while George W. Bush was president. Obama would have done the same, it's just a decision that makes sense from a US standpoint.

jacquesm

4 hours ago

Since then some things have changed.

mring33621

14 hours ago

Part of the "Cheap Diesel from Russia" deal?

goatlover

14 hours ago

Bordering on war crimes as Russia was able to launch missile attacks on civilian infrastructure without warning.

user

13 hours ago

[deleted]

guywithahat

13 hours ago

As the article states there's no reason to think Starlink temporarily slowed down their internet service deliberately. Elon has been a strong supporter of the Ukrainian side, donating hundreds of millions to them and risking retaliation from Russia against their satellites. I understand why they're upset, people can die when their internet is disrupted, but the article seems especially hostile for what is likely a bugged update or Russian interference on their military-grade service.

estearum

12 hours ago

The reason to think that is because Elon previously personally intervened and neutered Ukraine's Starlink after a Russian government official told him Russia was going to nuke someone.

Elon is so fucking stupid he doesn't know how nuclear deterrence works and he actually thought Starlink was the deciding factor.

guywithahat

9 hours ago

Shame on Elon for saving the world from nuclear holocaust.

For what its worth though he denied extending their network into Russian territory due to a threat of a nuclear attack. Not only did Ukraine know about it, but it was a stop on internet service. The disruption described in the article sounds more like the quality of service issues the way they continued to operate on reduced speeds and flaky service.

sidibe

4 hours ago

I know this is completely lost on Elon and the likes but the attack was not on "Russian territory" it was on territory most of the world does not recognize as Russia.

estearum

9 hours ago

> Shame on Elon for saving the world from nuclear holocaust.

lmfao

jacquesm

4 hours ago

The 'weird nerd' meme is alive and well on HN it seems. You can't make these up.

jryb

10 hours ago

He could be pressuring them to stop striking refineries on behalf of Trump.

guywithahat

9 hours ago

It's possible, I don't know for sure, but just the way the article described it this sounds like a quality of service issue, which would suggest technical difficulties. Starlink has a button to turn off service, but they probably don't have a button to indeterminately flicker internet speeds down and up with randomly high latency.