[NNagain] [Starlink] FCC Upholds Denial of Starlink's RDOF Application

[rjmcmahon]

Women are the primary users and providers of telehealth services. They 
are using broadband to care for our population. They also run most of 
the addiction services across our country, whatever the addiction may 
be. So gender actually matters. Ask them as providers. Telehealth 
doesn't work over LEO (nor does it matter much for men on boats.) Same 
for distance learning.

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/women-more-likely-telehealth-patients-providers-covid-19-pandemic/608153/

As Washington considers which virtual care flexibilities should remain 
in place post-COVID-19, experts are flagging that paring back telehealth 
access and affordability will disproportionately affect women, even as a 
growing share of startups emerge to address women’s unique health needs.

While women are more likely than men to visit doctors and consume 
healthcare services in general, telehealth seems to be uniquely 
attractive to women.

Bob
> who exactly do you think is calling for there to be no Internet
> access? and what in the world does the sex of individuals have to do
> with shipping bits around?
> 
> Starlink (and hopefully it's future competitors) provides a way to get
> Internet service to everyone without having to run fiber to every
> house.
> 
> As for the parallels with rural electrification, if that problem were
> to be faced today, would the right answer be massive public agencies
> to build and run miles of wire from massive central power plants? or
> would the right answer be solar + batteries in individual houses for
> the most rural folks, with small modular reactors to power the larger
> population areas?
> 
> Just because there was only one way to achieve a goal in the past
> doesn't mean that approach is the best thing to do today.
> 
> David Lang
> 
> On Fri, 15 Dec 2023, rjmcmahon wrote:
> 
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> We're trying to modernize America. LBJ helped do it for electricity 
>> decades ago. It's our turn to step up to the plate. Tele-health and 
>> distance learning requires us to do so. There is so much to follow.
>> 
>> A reminder what many women went through before LBJ showed up. I'm 
>> skeptical a patriarchy under Musk is even close to capable. We 
>> probably need a woman to lead us, or at least motivate us to do our 
>> best work for our country and to be an example to the world.
>> 
>> A Hill Country farm wife had to do her chores even if she was ill – no 
>> matter how ill. Because Hill Country women were too poor to afford 
>> proper medical care they often suffered perineal tears in childbirth. 
>> During the 1930s, the federal government sent physicians to examine a 
>> sampling of Hill Country women. The doctors found that, out of 275 
>> women, 158 had perineal tears. Many of them, the team of gynecologists 
>> reported, were third-degree tears, “tears so bad that it is difficult 
>> to see how they stand on their feet.” But they were standing on their 
>> feet, and doing all the chores that Hill Country wives had always done 
>> – hauling the water, hauling the wood, canning, washing, ironing, 
>> helping with the shearing, the plowing and the picking.
>> 
>> Because there was no electricity.
>> 
>> Bob
>>> On Fri, 15 Dec 2023, Sebastian Moeller via Starlink wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Frantisek,
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 15, 2023, at 13:46, Frantisek Borsik via Nnagain 
>>>>> <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thus, technically speaking, one would like the advantages of satcom 
>>>>> such as starlink, to be at least 5gbit/s in 10 years time, to 
>>>>> overcome the 'tangled fiber' problem.
>>>>> 
>>>>> No, not really. Starlink was about to address the issue of digital 
>>>>> divide -
>>>> 
>>>> 	I beg to differ. Starlink is a commercial enterprise with the goal 
>>>> to make a profit by offering (usable) internet access essentially 
>>>> everywhere; it is not as far as I can tell an attempt at 
>>>> specifically reducing the digital divide (were often an important 
>>>> factor is not necessarily location but financial means).
>>> 
>>> Every Inernet company " commercial enterprise with the goal to make a
>>> profit by offering (usable) internet" don't dismiss a company because
>>> of that. Starlink (and the other Satellite ISPs) all exist to service
>>> people who can't use traditional wired infrastructure
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> delivering internet to those 640k locations, where there is 
>>>>> literally none today. Fiber will NEVER get there. And it will get 
>>>>> there, it will be like 10 years down the road.
>>>> 
>>>> 	This is IHO the wrong approach to take. The goal needs to be a 
>>>> universal FTTH access network (with the exception of extreme 
>>>> locations, no need to pull fiber up to the highest Bivouac shelter 
>>>> on Mt. Whitney). And f that takes a decade or two, so be it, this is 
>>>> infrastructure that will keep on helping for many decades once 
>>>> rolled-out. However given that time frame one should consider 
>>>> work-arounds for the interim period. I would have naively thought 
>>>> starlink would qualify for that from a technical perspective, but 
>>>> then the FCC documents actually discussion requirements and how they 
>>>> were or were not met/promised by starlink was mostly redacted.
>>> 
>>> what do you consider 'extreme locations'? how long a run between
>>> houses is 'too far'?
>>> 
>>> we've seen the failure of commercial fiber monopolies in cities with
>>> housing density of several houses per acre (and even where there are
>>> apartment complexes there as well) because it's not profitable 
>>> enough.
>>> When you get into areas where it's 'how many acres per house' the 
>>> cost
>>> of running FTTH gets very high. I don't think this is the majority of
>>> the population of the US any longer (but I don't know for sure), but
>>> it's very clearly the majority of the area of the US. And once you 
>>> get
>>> out of the major metro areas, even getting fiber to every town or
>>> village becomes a major undertaking.
>>> 
>>> Is running fiber 30 miles to support a village of 700 people an
>>> 'extreme location'? let me introduce you to Vermontville MI
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermontville,_Michigan which is less
>>> than an hours drive from the state capitol.
>>> 
>>> David Lang
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>>