FAA confirms it's testing Starlink, maybe for tasks Elon says Verizon is doing badly The FAA has confirmed it's trying out three SpaceX Starlink broadband terminals in the United States. This raises concerns about conflicts of interest given SpaceX is run by Elon Musk, who is closely intertwined with the US government, not just as President Trump's éminence grease but also as the overseer of DOGE, the …
It would be nice if The Regime went out and found themselves someone like that.
Musk's "billions" can melt away if the stock market lost faith in him (remember when he was devalued to number two on the rich list) and without the stream of government funding, one way or another, that would be a fast slide down towards penury (down to double figures on that list, the horror).
Musk really *does* "need" the American Taxpayer's money.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. Most people think that enough money is enough to live comfortably on for the rest of their days and maybe leave some to the kids. After all, you can only live in one nice house, or drive one nice car at a time They are never going to become a billionaire oligarch, except by accident. For those that have persued extreme wealth and got there, enough is never enough. Money becomes a way of keeping score, inescapably tied in to their own sense of who they are. They can always be richer and if, naming no names, someone controls the government departments responsible for his contracts, then the temptation to get out the biggest spoon and start supping is going to be impossible to resist.
Alas, as always, only a single upvote to give!
But it did strike me that as Elon has effectively ‘bought’ the United States - for quite a low amount I’d have thought - so much for the ‘Art of the Deal’ - maybe he just want to exercise his right to enjoy his new property
It shouldn't escape anyone's notice that every single agency Elmo has targetted so far has been one which was investigating his companies (USAID was looking into the use of Starlink terminals by Russia in Ukraine amongst other things)
In a similar manner Drumpf's threats to other countries have been to ones that were investigating his business activities or had already taken action against him (eg: Panama wants hundreds of millions in unpaid taxes)
The temptation was surrendered to a while back and the USA has become a full corporatist government (as explained by one Benito Mussolini back in the late 1920s - the difference being that the trains aren't running on time). The choice given the voters is between centre-right and far-right parties/policies
When the dust settles, we may be looking at the Business Plot finally coming to fruition 90 years later
Exactly right. It's not about having enough, it's a P.D. contest among the top tycoons. And Musk takes the P.D. stuff seriously; after all, he has 12 children that he admits too, and another woman has come along claiming that her baby is his, and while that would be #13, there may be more. That's how natalists like him and some other nutcases in the regime show off their p's dimensions.
If I was the FAA boss who had just lost 400 staff. I'd probably be shifting the priorities a bit. Anything to do with Elons companies might find its way to the bottom of the pile.
Sorry Elon, the 400 people you fired were working to clear your products for use, but now we'll have to wait until we can get new experts and get them trained up on the system. Might take some time. Sorry about that, but will there's a reason we had those 400 people working for us...
Musk does not need to bother. SpaceX has launched three times without a license. In 2020 the FAA phoned SpaceX and said "you do not have a license to launch SN8 today. They could not get through to anyone with the authority to scrub the launch. The punishment was that SpaceX were required to hire someone the FAA could contact with the authority to scrub a launch. For the next two times the FAA issued a fine which SpaceX disputed (with at least one blatant lie). If the fine has not already been cancelled then Musk can say he paid the fine and no-one can prove otherwise because he back-doored the treasury. In future there will be no-one left at the FAA to issue a fine.
A group of criminals, a couple of felons, and a special needs child compromised by foreign advisories are running America into the ground at breakneck speed. Stealing and corrupting everything they touch along the way. Not much longer. I give it a year at most before the "end times" begins. I don't know how the glue holds together longer than that.
I kid you not, I had a late 20 something tell me and everyone at the water cooler that muskrat and the clown posse were set to give every American 5-8 thousand from all the money they have audited (stolen) from Washington. I looked at that dude and said "they are felons and criminals, it's a scam, and they are robbing you blind." That young man proceeded to tell me in very direct terms that he had "done his research", and that "the constitution was not made for me and you." That "nothing that has happened has affected me".
I damn near hit the kid, I really did. All the people who have fought and died to give him the freedom to say that, and he was so misinformed, and brain washed. This is what we are dealing with in America. These kids have been turned into terrorists against their own by propaganda from every angle. social, video games, the mass media...etc.
The constitution is what gave him the ability to say such ignorant chit. I should have hit him. Someone needs to. I went and interviewed for a new job instead the next day.
A large part of this stuff is a dog and pony to distract from the REAL activity
The USA constitution can be rewritten - entirely - with a 2/3 vote of states to call a convention and the replacement constitution (or amendments) requiring a 2/3 majority of states to pass
There has been an active process underway for 80 years to do just that. The powers behind it gained the upper hand in March 1980 with the outlawing of the Air Traffic Controllers Union. They are perilously close to achieving that 2/3 goal and at that point the federal government really doesn't matter anymore
Post AT&T break-up, they run most of the legacy copper network on the east coast. Over the past several years, they have let the system degrade to the point where failures are more common. I have a client in Florida that was a customer for over 20 years. Services were for 2 POTS lines for fire / burglar alarm and a T1 for additional voice and internet. Internet and phone outages became a regular occurrence. Then the price for services started increasing. I got brought in to sort things out because the cost of services had ballooned, and frequent outages were costing them business.
When Verizon has a problem with maintaining a circuit and decides they don't want that business, they will increase the cost of services "to get the customer's attention." In that case, that monthly bill was 2x what it was before. To get the bill back to "normal", they require you cancel all legacy services. We brought in more modern connectivity and after new services were established, we still needed the two 2 POTS lines for the alarm systems.
After deactivating the old account, we were told POTS lines are no longer available. That's right, the local bell will no longer sell or service a regular phone line. Yes, fiber or wireless is better it almost every way, but I think Verizon's approach to this problem is a shitty way to do business. I can only guess how many of those FAA sites have poor connectivity because of Verizon's failure to maintain the legacy phone network. Alaska and Starlink makes complete sense. If the FAA is resorting to using a Starlink dish in Atlantic City, New Jersey that tells you a lot about how good Verizon's network and services are.
"we were told POTS lines are no longer available"
Given that every phone company in the world is transitioning off POTS and half of Europe has already discontinued it, why would Verizon be any exception?
Whining about it won't help and nor will stamping your feet. POTS is going away and they've been warning about it for more than a decade. Deal with it
FWIW you can't GET dialtone where I live anymore. Existing POTS circuits are scheduled to be switched off in another 2-3 years - which poses a problem given that FTTH/FTTP rollout plans have been delayed past that (Yes, you can do it over VDSL but the promise made to regulators was it would be over PON, not copper)
Verizon's local telephone companies suck, and they've been letting those networks decay for years (since 1993, when the end of rate of return regulation ended any incentive for capital investment). They put some money into FiOS but even that new investment has mostly ended. The big money goes to the mobile network. But the network they're probably providing FAA is likely to be the former MCI assets, including some former Worldcom assets. That's a lot of long haul fiber.
The problem is that Starlink probably does do a better job than Verizon could but having Musk there is always going to leave a nagging doubt even if Starlink is the clear technical winner.
They should do what everyone has been saying and just spin it off as a separate entity though of course that will rake in more billions for Musk who owns around 50% of SpaceX.
Meanwhile in Myanmar...
Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Keeping Modern Slavery Compounds Online
Know your customer?
I had read elsewhere that some of the troublesome sites are not on the "new" Verizon network contract that was awarded in late 2023. Another unnamed vendor was responsible for the legacy network.
It would not surprise me if few sites were up and running on the new Verizon network yet.
https://www.verizon.com/about/news/verizon-public-sector-wins-federal-aviation-administration-fens-contract
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