Should you have Starlink's geopolitical power?

"Starlink has been told by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources. We will not do so unless at gunpoint."

"Internet fiber, phone lines, cell towers & other space-based comms in war areas have been destroyed. Starlink is all that’s left."

"SpaceX Starlink has become the connectivity backbone of Ukraine all the way up to the front lines. This is the damned if you do part. However, we are not allowing Starlink to be used for long-range drone strikes. This is the damned if you don’t part."

"Starlink is not approved by Turkish government yet. SpaceX can send as soon as approved."

"You’re smart enough not to swallow media & other propaganda bs. Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine, especially at the front lines, where almost all other Internet connectivity has been destroyed. But we will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3."

"Lot of new technology in Starlink V2, so we’re experiencing some issues, as expected. Some sats will be deorbited, others will be tested thoroughly before raising altitude above Space Station."

"Starlink now constitutes a majority of all active satellites"

"Starlink V2, which we’re beginning to launch, will greatly improve bandwidth. Latency & jitter will also get much better."

"Yeah, it’s insane! Roughly 70% of Earth is ocean and most of the ocean has zero ships per Starlink cell. Most people think Earth is crowded with humans, but in reality it’s almost empty by surface area. Humans congregate in a very small percentage of Earth (cities). The entire population of Earth can fit in New York City on one floor, as @waitbutwhy calculated."

"Starlink is a new version of the Internet in space"

"Love to see Starlink providing great connectivity to those who had little or nothing before. As soon as you can access the Internet, you can learn almost anything, so it’s absolutely essential for education. @khanacademy being a great example."

"So few know how the Internet actually works. Starlink is an entirely new internet in space – homogeneous, rather than heterogeneous."

"Starlink antennas use an internally developed, electronically steered phased array tight beam that is more advanced than the best military technology"

"I do regard the president as the chief executive officer of the country"

"This makes no sense. Starlink already covers Earth and our user terminals are being built & deployed super fast. This whole program will soon be redundant."

"There was an emergency request from government authorities to activate Starlink all the way to Sevastopol. The obvious intent being to sink most of the Russian fleet at anchor. If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation."

"The Starlink regions in question were not activated. SpaceX did not deactivate anything."

"Much appreciated, Walter. The onus is meaningfully different if I refused to act upon a request from Ukraine vs. made a deliberate change to Starlink to thwart Ukraine. At no point did I or anyone at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea. Moreover, our terms of service clearly prohibit Starlink for offensive military action, as we are a civilian system, so they were again asking for something that was expressly prohibited. SpaceX is building Starshield for the US government, which is similar to, but much smaller than Starlink, as it will not have to handle millions of users. That system will be owned and controlled by the US government."

"I wish we were never down, but Starlink will keep improving rapidly. Our goal is a consistent <20ms latency to major data centers within a region. This is extremely difficult, but we will get there. Bandwidth will also improve with each generation of satellites and user terminals. Our toughest challenge with bandwidth is peak throughput in areas with high user density. Much easier to achieve high bandwidth in sparsely populated regions."

"The reason I have these Powers not because of some anti-competitive actions"

"Excited to announce that @SpaceX @Starlink has achieved breakeven cash flow! Excellent work by a great team. Starlink is also now a majority of all active satellites and will have launched a a majority of all satellites cumulatively from Earth by next year."

"SpaceX launches competitor satellite systems without favor to its own satellites. Fair and square."

"Doesn’t make sense. Starlink is the only company actually solving rural broadband at scale! They should arguably dissolve the program and return funds to taxpayers, but definitely not send it those who aren’t getting the job done. What actually happened is that the companies that lobbied for this massive earmark (not us) thought they would win, but instead were outperformed by Starlink, so now they’re changing the rules to prevent SpaceX from competing."

"The Starlink V3 WiFi router is *much* better. Please lmk if you notice the difference. We are also super focused on getting latency below 20ms if the user terminal and ground gateway can both be seen by a single satellite. P50 ping<30ms is definitely achievable."

"Significant improvements have been made to @Starlink latency (ping) & many more to come. Target is <20ms."

"It would be accurate to say that physics and the Starlink system design enable it to be the fastest long distance communication system, but it is not there yet. It will be."

"Starlink satellites will not close the link in Russia"

"A number of false news reports claim that SpaceX is selling Starlink terminals to Russia. This is categorically false. To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia."

"Starlink maintained the connection while Starship was moving at ~17,000 mph through super heated plasma, which greatly impedes the signal"

"SpaceX aiming for 3 launches today! One Eutelsat, which just reached orbit, and 2 @Starlink missions."

"Except for Starlink, which communicates via space lasers. Light travels ~40% faster in vacuum than fiber optics and on a more direct path, rather than following the outline of continents, so Starlink will be much faster over time than ocean cables. This is important."

"Starlink will provide free Internet for schools in Brazil if the government won’t honor their contract"

"Given the terrible flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, @Starlink will donate 1000 terminals to emergency responders and make usage for all terminals in the region free until the region has recovered. I hope the best for the people of Brazil."

"Major geomagnetic solar storm happening right now. Biggest in a long time. Starlink satellites are under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far."

"Exactly. SpaceX is spending significant resources combating Russian jamming efforts. This is a tough problem. They have succeeded in shutting down every communications system, except Starlink."

"Starlink just achieved a new internal median latency record of 28ms yesterday! Great work by the engineering and operations teams."

"Cool. Yeah, Starlink works from the tarmac to high altitude with the same responsiveness as a ground Internet connection."

"Median latency for Starlink Internet in the US will get below 20ms"

"Utterly false. Starlink has excess capacity in low population density areas that are extremely hard to serve by fiber, which is what this money is supposed to solve."

"Starlink Mini will be about half the standard terminal price and available later this year"

"For large commercial or community users, the Starlink Gateway terminal provides over 8Gbps of downlink and soon over 8Gbps uplink too"

"Starlink now operating on over 1000 aircraft! Using Starlink on a plane feels like you’re on a high speed ground fiber connection."

"Many remote schools and hospitals depend on SpaceX’s Starlink! SpaceX will provide Internet service to users in Brazil for free until this matter is resolved, as we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off."

"Starlink is the only high-bandwidth Internet system that covers all of Earth. It will probably deliver over 90% of all space-based Internet traffic next year."

"Starlink now constitutes roughly 2/3 of all active Earth satellites"

"Non-SpaceX satellites in orbit also increased, but at a much slower pace. Starlink is just a different level of technology."

"Probably best to have a Starlink ground station for remote towns, as that can provide 10s of Gigabits of bandwidth"

"Moreover, SpaceX could do it for far less if there weren’t irrational requirements attached, like requiring that we also provide a phone with 911 capability even though everyone already has a phone"

"Seriously 😂 The reason Starlink is the only global high-bandwidth Internet system of any kind, terrestrial or space-based, is that it is a staggeringly difficult technology problem. We had to invent so much technology from scratch! There is no supplier to whom one can go to buy the pieces needed to build something like Starlink, because they don’t exist!"

"You can play real-time video games on Starlink, whereas that is impossible with geostationary satellites that are ~50 times further away. Speed of light is the law."

"Starlink is particularly great for remote locations. It works whether you’re at the top of a mountain in the Arctic or in a crater in Madagascar!"

"Competitors receive vastly more subsidies than SpaceX or Tesla. The success of SpaceX/Tesla is in spite of competitor subsidies! Look at how much was given away for a North American Supercharger network to compete against Tesla and it still failed. Or the massive subsidies to Starlink competitors for American rural broadband and still they failed."

"Even if you have a super high bandwidth land connection, Starlink is great as a backup option in case of emergencies"

"Starlink prices must roughly match the rate of inflation in any given country"

"Note, Gbps speeds can already be achieved by using 3 to 4 Starlink terminals together. Future terminals will be able to achieve >1Gps in a single unit."

"The next generation Starlink satellites, which are so big that only Starship can launch them, will allow for a 10X increase in bandwidth and, with the reduced altitude, faster latency"

"And it will improve significantly when Starship starts launching the third generation satellites at 350km altitude (5 ms speed of light round trip latency) with larger antennas that allow for multi-gigabit bandwidth"

"A major factor for why Ukraine was NOT overrun by Russia is the Starlink support I provided, at great risk to @SpaceX cyber & physical attack by Russian military forces. Starlink is the BACKBONE of Ukrainian military communications at the front lines, because everything else has been blown up or jammed by Russia. In the words of @ZelenskyyUa: And Vice PM of Ukraine confirms that I am an ally:"

"A long chain of modified future generation Starlink satellites between 1 and 1.5 AU would do it"

"Starlink’s giant latency advantage is the real killer. Current Starlink satellites at ~550km are ~65 times closer than geosynchronous satellites. Our next generation satellites will be at ~350km, so >100 times closer."

"Probably over 20k of the next-gen Starlink satellites will be deployed by then"

"$11B for a system with less than 5% of Starlink’s capability and it is only operational in 5 years best case …"

"Starlink will have 20k to 30k satellites in operation by the time the EU satellites are all launched, so about 1% of Starlink! This is a child’s toy compared to Starlink."

"Worth getting @Starlink as a backup, even if you already have great Internet. Your landline connection might go down just when you most need it!"

"Starlink has an incredible advantage over competing systems: it actually works"

"SpaceX will provide free Starlink terminals to affected areas in LA tomorrow morning"

"Ride around in your truck in the devastated areas with a Starlink terminal on the roof and open WiFi"

"Apologies to those expecting Cybertruck deliveries in California over the next few days. We need to use those trucks as mobile base stations to provide power to Starlink Internet terminals in areas of LA without connectivity. A new truck will be delivered end of week."

"Airlines that don’t have Starlink will be at a serious disadvantage"

"Starlink is trying out a service plan commitment in exchange for $0 down in some markets. We’ll see how it goes."

"Starlink is about to exceed 80% of all active satellites, with rest of world, including rest of US, <20% https://t.co/EpJXx6vceY"

"Any battery or generator will work. If you have solar and a Tesla Powerwall, your house will have power and Starlink will work indefinitely."

"Starlink still worked in Spain and Portugal when the whole countries lost power! Worth having @Starlink as backup, even if you have a gigabit landline."

"By enabling high-speed, low-latency and affordable Internet globally, Starlink will do more to educate and lift people out of poverty than any NGO ever"

"Just plug in Starlink, point it at the sky and it works 5 mins after you take it out of the box!"

"Next-gen GPS from @Starlink! Very hard to jam. https://t.co/pzWSUAfFiU"

"With the version 3 Starlink satellites, which start launching on Starship in 6 to 9 months, we should be able to get latency below 20ms. The new, much larger satellites will be at ~350km instead of ~550km altitude, which cuts latency due to speed of light down to ~5ms. Also, the Starlink laser links transmit data ~40% faster in vacuum vs fiber, so packets will move faster than anything on the ground. Helps to have physics on your side!"

"Starlink is the first high bandwidth Internet system that serves all of Earth, from the most remote mountain in Antarctica to the middle of the ocean!"

"Starlink is now available in 140 countries & territories! And, of course, anywhere on the oceans."

"You are correct. Even the most advanced space-based Internet system is not competitive with fiber or cellular wireless in medium to high population density areas. However, systems like Starlink are far more efficient for low density areas like rural farmland and moving objects like cars traveling cross-country, aircraft or ships."

"Starlink now dynamically connects to the satellite with the best connection updating 10 times a second!"

"Starlink orbital laser data backhaul is working well. Just confirmed."

"SpaceX standard policy is to make Starlink free whenever there is a natural disaster somewhere in the world. It would not be right to profit from misfortune."

"Starlink now available in South Korea 🇰🇷"

"While I have great fondness for @NASA, they will constitute less than 5% of our revenue next year. Commercial Starlink is by far our largest contributor to revenue. Some people have claimed that SpaceX gets “subsidized” by NASA. This is absolutely false. The SpaceX team won the NASA contracts because we offered the best product at the lowest price. BOTH best product AND lowest cost. With regard to astronaut transport, SpaceX is currently the only option that passes NASA safety standards."

"Starlink is providing Internet connectivity to schools and hospitals in Africa that had nothing or very expensive and bad connectivity before. This will do more to lift people out of poverty than all the NGOs combined."

"SpaceX has way more satellites in orbit than the rest of the world combined, so maybe we know a thing or two about the subject 🤣 Starlink V3 will be 20kW and launched at scale around Q4 next year. No problem to scale that to >100kW if the satellite mass is shifted towards solar arrays and radiators for AI compute, instead of giant phased array antennas for Internet connectivity. As you mention, it would use the same laser comms system as Starlink to connect to Starlink. An AI satellite is easier, not harder, than the Starlink V3 design, which is a marvel of engineering created by an epic team of humans. I am so proud of the @SpaceX team."

"Starlink now available in São Tomé and Príncipe 🇸🇹!"

"Starlink now available in the Cayman Islands!"

"Great work by the @Starlink team. Rebuilding the whole Internet in space is not easy."

"Congratulations to the @Starlink team for achieving activation in 155+ countries!"

"Biggest advantage of lower altitude is that beam diameter is smaller for a given antenna size, allowing Starlink to serve a higher density of customers"

"Starlink melts snow to work in the coldest weather"

"This drooling imbecile doesn’t even realize that Starlink is the backbone of Ukraine military communications"

"Note, Starlink terminals can be used for defense infrastructure communications, schools, hospitals, personal, etc, but terms of service do not allow for offensive military use, as it is a civilian commercial system"

"Oh hi fucktard. That Crimea strike was done before SpaceX received a sanctions exemption approval from the US government to provide connectivity in Crimea, so it would have been a felony crime for us to turn Starlink on at that time."

"Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorized use of Starlink by Russia have worked. Let us know if more needs to be done."

"Get awesome Internet anywhere! From remote mountain tops to Antarctica, Starlink is the only fast, low ping global Internet system."

"Starlink now available in Senegal"

"Starlink now available in Tajikistan 🇹🇯"

"Important to register your Starlink terminal if in Ukraine"

"Most people still don’t know that Starlink offers fast, low latency, affordable connectivity almost anywhere on Earth!"

"Starlink Super Bowl ad! Affordable Internet anywhere. https://t.co/Q1VvqV5G0i https://t.co/szhJMG4LaZ"

"True. I love NASA, but they will only be ~5% of SpaceX revenue this year. Vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system."

"This video was live-streamed from Antarctica using @Starlink"

"Starlink now at 10 million active users"

"Starlink is awesome. Great bandwidth and low latency anywhere on Earth. And soon off Earth."

"I'm not sure we're we're determining the ultimate outcome"

"Starlink saves lives during natural disasters"

"Starlink is often the only means of communication in natural disasters"

"Also, Starlink has proven to be essential for saving lives during natural disasters throughout the world, when all other communications systems have failed, so you would also be helping save men, women and children throughout India. 🇮🇳"

"Dear Prime Minister Ambani, Please accept my humble apologies for not realizing that you are the real boss of India. Naturally, you would prefer to maintain your monopolistic exploitation of the great people of India, but would you nonetheless consider allowing Starlink to compete? There are many areas of India, as there are in all countries, with no Internet access, which denies children the opportunity for education and for small businesses the opportunity to sell their goods to a global market. Starlink would change their lives for the better. Thank you 🙏"

"The ridiculous arguments by Ambani’s army of Internet shills make no sense On the one hand, they say Starlink couldn’t possibly compete with the amazing low prices offered by Ambani’s de facto monopoly in India and then, in the same breath, they essentially claim that Starlink would be too strong of a competitor! This is absurd hypocrisy and hyperbole. The reality is that competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by giving them more choices, as it always does. Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business. And, obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable."

"🇻🇪 Starlink in Venezuela! 🇻🇪"