[Starlink] The curious case of the missing Starlink spectrum licences

[Alexandre Petrescu]

Le 13/11/2023 à 02:27, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
> The other day I had reason to look up the Starlink spectrum licences 
> in NZ. These are issued by Radio Spectrum Management in NZ and used to 
> be in the Register of Radio Frequencies, which is publicly searchable:
>
> https://www.rsm.govt.nz/licensing/how-do-i/use-the-rrf/search-the-rrf/
>
> Alas, this time, I've drawn an almost complete blank. None of the six 
> known ground stations still have their licenses on the register. There 
> are a few lone search suggestions for a licence "57321 PUWERA STARLINK 
> SES", "56530 TE HANA STARLINK SES", "57189 CLEVEDON STARLINK SES", 
> "57282 HINDS STARLINK SES", "56839 CROMWELL STARLINK SES", and "56383 
> AWARUA STARLINK SES" but these searches come up empty or with 
> irrelevant results. Similarly, searching for any kind of satellite 
> licence fails to find them. Similarly looking for "starlink", "space", 
> or "spacex".
>
> Yet a traceroute from our Dishy shows that we're still landing in NZ. 
> So that presumably means that the teleports are still operating here 
> and that Starlink isn't backhauling via laser to elsewhere.
>
> Security? The locations of the teleports are well known, they're 
> plastered all over the Internet and are visible on Google Maps/Earth. 
> So they're probably not hiding the licences to disguise location.

I think there is a problem with the names of locations of teleports 
reported by these sites.  I suggest to not take them seriously.

For example, satellitemap.space shows for France a same photo for two 
different locations of 2 teleports.

I am not sure how they calculate the positions of the teleports and how 
they report it?

>
> Website dysfunction? Possible. NZ government department websites don't 
> always work all that well. But I can also find plenty of other 
> licences on the site, so it's not all that dysfunctional.
>
> Licence holder change? Then they should pop up under satellite 
> spectrum licenses, but all the contenders there are the usual suspects 
> (Inmarsat, Optus, Iridium, ...). No Starlink in Ku or Ka band.
>
> That makes me wonder: Is Elon not paying his fees?
>
> Anyone seeing anything similar where they are?


I did a search for France and starlink frequencies and city names, at 
regulators ARCEP and at LegiFrance at gov't.  There is also an EU 
regulator to check, as well but I could not identify properly.

I wanted to find precisely the allocated starlink frequencies and the 
cities of teleports.

I could not find definite answers, because: there were disputes in the 
allocations and there are newcomers (Starlink-like LEO Internet 
providers, civilian and military).  There also oppinions from the public 
at large that influence the decisions, typically related to health and 
environmental risks.

This is my interpretation of the current allocations:

The freqs allocated to Starlink in France are: 10.95 GHz (in some docs 
it's written 10.96 GHz) - 12.70 GHz, 14-14.5GHz, 17.7-19.3 GHz and 29.5 
- 30 GHz. 
https://www.arcep.fr/actualites/actualites-et-communiques/detail/n/frequences-180423.html

Other constellation freqs that might overlap:

     The freqs considered for allocation to Thales (MCSAT or oneweb?, 
allocated or still under consideration? remark potential overlaps with 
starlink): 17.8 - 18.6 GHz, 18.8 - 19.3 GHz, 19.3 - 19.7 GHz. 
https://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gsavis/20-1409.pdf

     The freqs considered for allocation by law to Thales for "MCSAT-2 
LEO-2": 17.8-18.6, 18.8-20.2,19.7-20.2 (strange two times 20.2), 
27.5-30,29.5-30. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000043142179

     There are some ARCEP consultations to the public about potential 
allocations to OneWeb.

Maybe these potential overlaps have already been fixed, I dont know.


The names of cities:

     The names of cities where starlink teleports might be situated 
hardly appear in the freq allocation documents.  One can see in the 
starlink ARCEP allocations, maybe a city name like "Carros 
(Alpes-Maritimes) ".  There are maybe a few (3?) such city names in the 
ARCEP docs.  Or maybe I could not find them where they are.

     The official(?) geoip  of starlink places indicate only one region 
for France, e.g. "145.224.76.0/24,FR,FR-IDF,Paris".  There are 28 such 
entries for 'FR' and they are all "FR-IDF".  It stands for  Île de 
France, a particular region in France. 
https://geoip.starlinkisp.net/feed.csv

     The teleports shown by satellitemap.space for France are 2 and are 
not situated in IdF (Île-de-France).

     It is incoherent: how many teleports are in France?  Are they all 
situated in IdF?

Alex