[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]

Thanks for the reply.

Le 31/10/2023 à 13:57, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink a écrit :
> On 31/10/2023 2:30 am, Alexandre Petrescu via Starlink wrote:
>>
>>
>> > How they would oppose is a good question - I'm sure the Russians would
>> > like to know, too.
>> >
>> From the public announcements, Russia opposed it (starlink) verbally, 
>> only.
>>
>> I dont think (I did not hear about?) Russia jamming starlink sats.
>>
>> Russia verbally  once threatened verbally harder the starlink sats, but
>> Mr. Musk responded publicly that there are thousands of them up there,
>> so it would be hard to imagine putting them all down.  He even said he
>> could easily put even more up there.
>>
>> I did hear about Russia complaining about others jamming their sats.
>> Russia persons called the jamming of their sats to be potentially cases
>> of war, but they did not repeat that statement later, or I did not
>> hear.  I am not sure what in the current legislation made them think so,
>> but I would like to know.
>>
>> I also heard about the VIASAT KA-SAT attack early in the Ukraine
>> invasion (it was an attack via Internet, not jamming).
> VIASAT are geostationary satellites 36000 km above the Equator, and 
> they don't move relative to ground stations like LEO sats (Starlink & 
> Co) do. They're a much easier target, both in terms of RF jamming (the 
> further you are away from the jammer and your intended transmitter 
> with your binoculars, the easier it is to get in front of them) but 
> also in terms of damage done - one satellite out equates to service 
> outage to a large area. Knock a Starlink sat out and there are another 
> dozen or so within sight that Dishy and the bent-pipe teleport can 
> de-camp to, so you'd get a few dozens seconds worth of outage at most 
> I guess.

A threat analysis would admit that, but would also go deeper and wider 
in the way risks can happen.


>>
>> The question would be who has authority over the frequencies above the
>> disputed territories.  And it is that authority that would allow, or
>> disallow, the use of starlink frequencies (somewhere at 10-15GHz IIRC).
>> All Starlink would need to do is request access to that spectrum.
> Spectrum access isn't the issue - the spectrum that Starlink uses is 
> reserved internationally for space-to-ground and ground-to-space use, 
> however they still need a license from the respective government that 
> has legislative control over the ground stations in their territory to 
> be able to use that spectrum. But that presumes peacetime order. I 
> don't think Gaza is awash with radio inspectors checking licences 
> right now.

Thanks, it teaches that I need to go to my local regulator and compare 
the frequency reservations to that of ITU and FCC (at the origin).

It also makes wonder whether teleport presence is mandatory in countries 
where service is offered, but I can check that myself.

>>
>> > Jamming isn't really all that easy (again, ask Russia): To jam
>> > Starlink successfully in an area, you'd have to jam the satellites
>> > (probably about a dozen most of the time, and changing all the time)
>> > from the ground in the same area as the Dishys using them.
>> >
>> I am interested in the legislation part of that, not the technical.
>
> So which law currently applies in Gaza, and who enforces it? It's 
> difficult enough to get a competent radio inspector to turn up at a 
> site in some Western countries. In some places, they don't even exist, 
> or have no means to investigate off-label use of communication 
> equipment. I mentioned Tonga here last year, where marine VHF radio 
> all but replaced the domestic wired telephone network for a long time 
> in the northern island group of Vava'u, for example.

I think you bring up an interesting aspect - that of frequency 
inspectors in areas in a crisis.  The involvement of humans to control 
the use of Internet in a crisis area can be a great tool. I did not know it.

Alex