[Starlink] "Interesting set of developments with Starlink. Musk says they will support "international aid orgs" in Gaza, Israel now says they will use "all available means" to stop SpaceX from doing so.

Alexandre Petrescu alexandre.petrescu at gmail.com
Mon Oct 30 08:03:46 EDT 2023


It is indeed interesting.

Le 30/10/2023 à 06:56, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
>
> The main problem as it stands with Gaza would be to get Starlink 
> equipment in for the international organisations to use. Coverage 
> wouldn't be an issue, but power and bandwidth would be.
>
I agree with these points.

But it is more difficult than that.

Indeed, if they can get starlink receivers in the place, then there is 
need of power to power it.  Maybe it is not easy to find electricity.

The bandwidth problem - I dont know precisely what is it in this 
context.  Maybe it's that there would be too many wifi users on a 
starlink DISHY.

There are more problems: I think I heard Israel opposes this idea of 
delivery of starlink in that place.  The question is _how_ they'd like 
to oppose.  Is it verbal opposition, is it opposition of delivery of 
starlink DISHYs to the aream or is it jamming, or is it something else.  
For the latter two, there is legislation in place that would guide the 
way in which they could oppose, but that legislation is fragile.  For 
example, is there frequency allocation authority in that area, I'm not sure.

Another problem is the statement of intention of activating starlink 
over the place.  What does it mean in practice.  I suppose it is not 
that simple as turning a knob on.  Because these numerous sats already 
go above the area, and the area is very small.  The borders cant be 
respected very easily from that high. This kind of statement like 
'activate starlink' over certain area was already made in the recent 
past.  And it is the same unclarity, because that area is a small area.  
(there are other - more clear - statements like 'turn on iphone sat 
emergency calls' over other areas in Europe.  But these areas are much 
larger (4 large countries in Europe).  And they are accomodated by 
legislation allowing frequency use.  Whereas in the starlink 'activate 
over area x at war' there is no frequency agreements.)

Another problem is that, in case of delivery of starlink DISHYs: _who_ 
uses starlink in that area at war.  One might deliver starlink terminals 
in the area at war only to designated persons (e.g. a responsible UN 
person).  But a skilled person might plug that starlink into an existing 
cellular basestation for the benefit of all: all regular smartphones 
might connect to the regular basestation which in turn might reach the 
Internet via starlink.  At that  point, it's not clear how the 
responsible UN person might allow only some legitimate' (humanitarian) 
smartphones to connect to these regular base stations.

Alex

> It's a pretty dire situation. Palestinian friends of ours have had 
> extended family killed, the wife's mother is currently visiting here 
> and can't go back obviously - plus her apartment got flattened in her 
> absence early on. Then our friend's teenage kids from his previous 
> marriage got buried under rubble when their mother's place got 
> flattened, and that was just up to last week. I really need to ask him 
> what's happened since. They came here because they were sick of Hamas.
>
> On the ham radio side, I helped a bit with band watch for MARS 
> (military affiliated amateur radio system) during the first Gulf War 
> when the local US garrison (Old Ironsides) got sent from Germany to 
> Saudi Arabia. A lot of them found out the hard way that if you have a 
> bank account in Germany and you're on deployment, your significant 
> other doesn't automatically get access to it like apparently they do 
> in the US, and the army didn't exactly think that it was their 
> problem, either. Got to listen to a lot of that. First world problems 
> compared to Gaza, though.
>
> On 30/10/2023 5:32 pm, Joe Hamelin via Starlink wrote:
>> The US did shut down ham radio during WW2.
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 9:27 AM Dave Taht via Starlink 
>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>
>>     I think that the internet should stay up, connecting people to
>>     people,
>>     through all the conflicts we may ever have. The mails kept running -
>>     although censored - all through world war two - the red cross,
>>     allowed
>>     by all sides, to keep it's relief missions running, the churches
>>     (mostly) doing their job to console the weary...
>>
>>     Many other orgs, like the ITU, and the IETF, are committed to the
>>     continued free exchange of information, no matter what.
>>
>>     https://www.itu.int/en/about/Pages/default.aspx
>>
>>     I am happy to see a worldwide ISP committed to the same principles.
>>
>>     On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 9:07 AM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via
>>     Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>>     >
>>     > ➔➔https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1718638348812595660
>>     >
>>     > --
>>     > Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
>>     > living as The Truth is True
>>     >
>>     > _______________________________________________
>>     > Starlink mailing list
>>     > Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>     > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>>
>>
>>     -- 
>>     Oct 30:
>>     https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html
>>     Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Starlink mailing list
>>     Starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net
>>     https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> --
>> Joe Hamelin, W7COM, Tulalip, WA, 360-474-7474
>>
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>>
> -- 
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel at auckland.ac.nz  
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
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