If you think having to deal with Spectrum or Comcast is a pain in the ass, think about how it will be worse to deal with Russia Spacelink competitor and the only state-approved satellite internet provider, Sphere.
Russian citizens of the web can now face fines if they use any satellite internet constellation that the state considers a threat to national security, including OneWeb and SpaceX’s Starlink, Ars Technica reports.
The fines the Russian state is considering range from ₽ 10,000 to ₽ 30,000 RUB, or about $ 130 to $ 390, for regular users. They can go up to ₽ 1,000,000 RUB, or just over $ 13,000 USD, for legal entities.
The part about legal entities is obvious. But the proposed fines against users are unfortunate, given that Starlink’s entire strategy was to provide global internet coverage and an alternative to internet service providers (ISPs) that could not serve everyone – or as so often happens, are the single ISP for an area and therefore free to implement unfair business practices.
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But because the Russian space program transferred its rivalry from NASA to SpaceX, anything the company does is seen as a threat and a veiled attempt to promote American technological superiority.
Russian space chief and amateur villain Bond, Dmitry Rogozin, said Starlink is “a very predatory, intelligent, powerful and high-tech US policy that uses Shock and Awe to promote its military interests first” . for the Ars report.
Thus, the Russian state has proposed its own satellite internet constellation to rival Western services. Well, not so much to compete as to replace it, as it is the only constellation service available to Russian users, thus becoming exactly the telecommunications bully that Starlink must replace. Very well, Roscosmos!
It is an ironic twist, but very intentional, because one of the (main) reasons why Starlink threatens the Russian state is that it does not provide any way to monitor users of the service. But Sphere is not a certainty because the cost of launching Starlink with a Soyuz flavor is prohibitive. And that can be the silver lining in the whole thing.
What is the icy relationship between the Russian space program and the US Department of Defense, subsidized Space X when we can have access to subreddits like this 1 this is it From others freely in the years to come?