[Starlink] Starlink no longer available to the Ukrainian army?

Sun Oct 16 15:51:18 EDT 2022

On Sun, 16 Oct 2022, Sebastian Moeller wrote:

> Hi David,
>
>> On Oct 16, 2022, at 20:33, David Lang via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>> and it's worth remembering that it's not just being used for military C&C, it's being used for (almost) all Internet access through the country, normal telcom, Hospitals, community access, etc.
>
> 	Do we know this for sure? As far as I know (so not very much, one of my colleagues in the early 2000s was Ukranian and told me about their figer optics telephony system) Ukraine might have some fiber infrastructure that should make at least the west not fully reliant on Starlkink.

With Russia targeting infrastructure, how well is that going to be working? 
between power outages and even a relatively small handful of exchanges hit, I 
wouldn't expect any wired infrastructure to be that reliable.

David Lang

> Regards
> 	Srbastian
>
>
>>
>> That will add up to a lot (and the 7TB of use was also back in May)
>>
>> David Lang
>>
>> On Sun, 16 Oct 2022, Vint Cerf via Starlink wrote:
>>
>>> if you need real-time for video and control, that can add up ...
>>>
>>> v
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 2:01 PM Dave Taht via Starlink <
>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 10:57 AM Nathan Owens via Starlink
>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Elon posted a graph, it showed a peak of 7000GB per unit time, the only
>>>> one that makes sense to me is per hour, which is 15Gbps peak -- not a huge
>>>> amount.
>>>>
>>>> You really don't need much data for C&C traffic. You do need a fairly
>>>> reliable uplink, but the observed jitter on an otherwise idle link was
>>>> in the few ms range.
>>>>
>>>> GPSD has a udp output mode, too.
>>>>
>>>> (btw, to my knowledge, starlink has not enabled any network interfaces
>>>> to the outside to their internal on-dish gps chip, which
>>>> when I was whinging about it, would provide perfect time to
>>>> downstream clients, either natively or via ntp)
>>>>
>>>> It's one very short message, per second.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 10:50 AM Steve Stroh via Starlink <
>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I’m speculating, but given that Starlink is THE communications
>>>> infrastructure for much of Ukraine, then the scaling of the ground stations
>>>> to provide that level of service must be a significant expense. To provide
>>>> that much bandwidth would require deploying a lot of ground stations, each
>>>> with expensive hardware, power infrastructure (including backup), fiber
>>>> backhaul, skilled labor, and no small amount of fiber bandwidth that SpaceX
>>>> has to pay SOMEONE to provide.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not to mention that anything SpaceX deploys to support Ukraine is a
>>>> resource that it could have used for speeding up revenue generation in
>>>> lucrative markets like the US.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 12:41 David Lang via Starlink <
>>>> starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If spacex is providing the high-end/business grade service to all
>>>> terminals
>>>>>>> that they normally charge $4500/month for, reimbursement should be
>>>> based on
>>>>>>> that.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Base it on the normal service pricing, not on cost-plus (if it were
>>>> based on
>>>>>>> cost-plus it would be an utter windfall for SpaceX as they are still
>>>> in the
>>>>>>> stage of building the service, and so there is a much higher spend
>>>> rate to
>>>>>>> expand the service at this point than the ongoing maintinance of it)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> while the satellites do support that area, they also support the rest
>>>> of the
>>>>>>> service, and if they weren't supporting Ukraine, there wouldn't be any
>>>> fewer
>>>>>>> satellites launched.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've seen too many games played with 'fully loaded costs' (sometimes
>>>> backfiring
>>>>>>> on the people tinkering with the numbers), and so it's something I
>>>> watch out
>>>>>>> for.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> lies, damn lies, and statistics, 'fully loaded costs' tend to be heavy
>>>> on
>>>>>>> statistics ;-)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David Lang
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, 14 Oct 2022, tom at evslin.com wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Putting aside the timing of Elon's complaint about cost right after
>>>> the spat over his Ukrainian "peace plan", It is certainly reasonable for
>>>> Starlink to get paid like other weapon suppliers who didn't give out free
>>>> samples to prove their usefulness, Given that they should be reimbursed
>>>> based on loaded cost plus profit like anyone else. I'm sure the other
>>>> suppliers allocate their overhead costs when pricing weapon systems. They'd
>>>> be out of business otherwise. The satellites are part of Starlink's fixed
>>>> overhead so a portion of their costs should be allocated to service
>>>> provided in Ukraine.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> All that being said, it would be terrible if Ukraine got less than
>>>> the best support that can be provided.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> On Behalf
>>>> Of David Lang via Starlink
>>>>>>>> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2022 1:28 PM
>>>>>>>> To: Kurtis Heimerl <kheimerl at cs.washington.edu>
>>>>>>>> Cc: Starlink list <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink no longer available to the
>>>> Ukrainian army?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Having now read more info on this, less significant than the $80m
>>>> total figure is the $20m/month figure he quoted. With 15k dishes as the
>>>> figure that they sent (separate from whatever has been purchased on the
>>>> commercial side), that works out to 1.3k/dish/month, which is very high.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> now, not being able to deploy reliable ground stations inside
>>>> Ukraine could be driving up costs, plus the ongoing battle against jamming.
>>>> But in his tweet he also cites satellite costs, which should not be
>>>> allocated as "Ukraine related"
>>>>>>>> costs (and I don't think the cyberdefense and jamming defense work
>>>> should be
>>>>>>>> either)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> David Lang
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, 14 Oct 2022, Kurtis Heimerl via Starlink wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> This thread (https://twitter.com/dim0kq/status/1580827171903635456)
>>>>>>>>> strongly argues that Starlink is largely paid for their service, at
>>>>>>>>> least on the consumer side. I imagine there are significant
>>>>>>>>> operational expenses in dealing with the various actors involved but
>>>>>>>>> not on the basic model.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2022 at 9:06 AM Juliusz Chroboczek via Starlink
>>>>>>>>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> In essence, once you give something away for free, not even
>>>> setting
>>>>>>>>>>> the expectation that it’s a “freemium” model, it’s very hard to
>>>> get
>>>>>>>>>>> out of it. If you then claim your costs are way higher than what
>>>>>>>>>>> analysis work out, eyebrows raise way above the hairline.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Uh.  Hmm.
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>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Steve Stroh N8GNJ (he / him / his)
>>>>>> Editor
>>>>>> Zero Retries Newsletter - https://zeroretries.substack.com
>>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz
>>>> Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
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>>>
>>>
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