SpaceX’s Starlink will experience outages ‘74% of the time’ in US if 5G is launched

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has hit back at Dish Network for its proposal to operate a high-powered 5G mobile service in the 12 Ghz band, saying it will make Starlink internet ‘unsuable for Americans.’ 

SpaceX filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Tuesday, criticizing Dish for wanting to use part of the same Ku-band spectrum its Starlink and other satellite operators use to connect to terminals.

Adding more weight to its claim, SpaceX conducted testing in Last Vegas showing that Dish’s proposals would result in US users experiencing ‘harmful interference’ 77 percent of the time, ‘resulting in full outages 74 percent of the time.’

David Goldman, SpaceX senior director of satellite policy, wrote in the FCC complaint, ‘this analysis [SpaceX’s testing in Las Vegas] verifies what should be intuitive — that a high-power terrestrial network would blow out anyone using the high-sensitivity equipment satellite consumers must use to receive signals that comply with Commission and international power restrictions on satellite downlink transmissions.’

‘As a result, vastly fewer Americans could be connected using next-generation satellite services, and those that remain would experience degraded service and regular network outages.’

SpaceX conducted testing in Last Vegas showing that Dish’s proposals would result in US users experiencing ‘harmful interference’ 77 percent of the time, ‘resulting in full outages 74 percent of the time’

DailyMail.com has contacted SpaceX and Dish Network for comment and has yet to receive a response.

Dish EVP of External & Legislative Affairs Jeff Blum told Fierce Wireless last year: ‘We want co-existence.

‘We believe co-existence is possible. We want to protect our own satellite service.’

Dish also said that the company’s ‘expert engineers’ are currently evaluating SpaceX’s claims.

SpaceX filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Tuesday, criticizing Dish for wanting to use part of the same Ku-band spectrum its Starlink and other satellite operators use to connect to terminals

SpaceX filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Tuesday, criticizing Dish for wanting to use part of the same Ku-band spectrum its Starlink and other satellite operators use to connect to terminals

SpaceX has launched some 2,700 Starlink satellite into low Earth orbit and has more than 400,000 subscribers worldwide.

However, the firm hopes to have as many as 42,000 satellites in its megaconstellation.

The space internet currently costs $110 a month with a $599 one-time equipment fee.

The firm’s most recent Starlink launch was just last Friday, which saw 53 new internet satellites join the megaconstellation.

The Falcon 9 rocket, known as B1060, ignited its nine Merlin engines at 12:09pm while on Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Falcon 9 rocket traveled to an orbit between 144 miles and 209 miles above Earth’s surface where the 53 Starlinks were released – deployment of the satellites happened about 15 minutes after liftoff, according to SpaceFlightNow.

The space internet currently costs $110 a month with a $599 one-time equipment (pictured) fee

The space internet currently costs $110 a month with a $599 one-time equipment (pictured) fee

Friday’s mission also marked the 13th flight of the same Falcon 9 – the most SpaceX has reused a rocket.

The ability to re-use the first-stage of its rockets helps SpaceX keep the cost per launch down, and makes them competitive against the older companies.

This is also part of Musk’s plan of colonizing Mars – once SpaceX can master re-using a rocket, it can start sending multiple rockets to Mars and back to Earth.

The firm's most recent Starlink launch was just last Friday, which saw 53 new internet satellites join the megaconstellation. The Falcon 9 rocket, known as B1060, ignited its nine Merlin engines at 12:09pm while on Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

 The firm’s most recent Starlink launch was just last Friday, which saw 53 new internet satellites join the megaconstellation. The Falcon 9 rocket, known as B1060, ignited its nine Merlin engines at 12:09pm while on Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Musk, however, plans to use the company’s massive Starship rockets to ferry humans to and from the Red Planet.

The CEO shared an animation earlier this week showing a Starship rocket spitting out Starlink satellites in space, just like the sweets in a Pez dispenser.

‘It’s the only thing that can carry the Starlink Two satellites,’ he said on a recent episode of Everyday Astronaut.

‘We’ve already produced the first, and we have on-site, the first Starlink Two and it’s seven meters long (23 feet).

‘[The] Falcon [9] has neither the volume nor the mass-to-orbit capability required for Starlink Two.

‘So even if we shrunk the Starlink Two down, the total upmass of Falcon is not nearly enough to do Starlink Two.’

ELON MUSK’S SPACEX SET TO BRING BROADBAND INTERNET TO THE WORLD WITH ITS STARLINK CONSTELLATION OF SATELLITES

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 of its ‘Starlink’ space internet satellites into orbit and hopes to have 12,000 in the sky by 2026.

They form a constellation designed to provide low-cost broadband internet service from low Earth orbit. 

While satellite internet has been around for a while, it has suffered from high latency and unreliable connections.

Starlink is different. SpaceX said its goal is to provide high-speed, cable-like internet all over the world. 

Musk has previously said the venture could give three billion people who currently do not have access to the internet a cheap way of getting online.

It could also help fund a future city on Mars.

Helping humanity reach the red planet is one of Musk’s long-stated aims and was what inspired him to start SpaceX.

Musk’s rival Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also plans to launch a constellation of low Earth-orbit satellites to provide broadband access to remote areas, as part of its Project Kuiper.

However, astronomers have raised concerns about the light pollution and other interference cased by these satellite constellations. 

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