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Sign In Register Preferences Techdirt Techdirt Greenhouse Tech & COVID Free Speech Deals Jobs Support Techdirt See upcoming posts, with the Techdirt Crystal Ball... Techdirt Crystal Ball The Watercooler Behind The Curtain We see a Techdirt Insider membership in your future... Space X's Starlink Won't Be The Broadband Disruption Play Many People Think Broadband from the don't-get-your-hopes-up dept Tue, Aug 4th 2020 6:13am — Karl Bode After initially obtaining an FCC license for up to 1 million Starlink satellite broadband customers in the United States, Space X last week quadrupled that estimate , and is now hopeful that 5 million Americans will sign up for service. To be clear: Space X's service won't be taking on traditional broadband providers in major metro areas. Instead, the company will be using thousands of low orbit satellites (with lower latency than traditional satellite broadband) to deliver marginally decent service to under-served rural Americans, assuming it winds up being profitable longer term. In a country where an estimated 42 million can't get any broadband at all (during a raging pandemic, no less), any little improvement helps. By and large, most major outlets have framed Starlink as a massive disruption of the broadband industry : "Starlink is the company’s ambitious plan to build an interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites, to beam high-speed internet anywhere in the world. To date, SpaceX has launched more than 500 Starlink satellites. In addition to getting the satellites in orbit, SpaceX will need to build a vast system of ground stations and affordable user terminals if it is going to connect consumers directly to its network." But those thinking that Starlink is going to truly disrupt the broadband industry at large probably shouldn't be holding their breath. Even the industry-cozy FCC has expressed skepticism about Musk's latency claims . And Musk himself has made it clear the service won't be a big threat to incumbent broadband providers because there just won't be enough capacity available to offer the service in major metro areas. No limit of marketing hype will be able to defeat the law of physics: "The challenge for anything that is space-based is that the size of the cell is gigantic... it's not good for high-density situations," Musk said. "We'll have some small number of customers in LA. But we can't do a lot of customers in LA because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough." Again, that's not to say Starlink won't be a positive advancement for rural broadband users, but it's mostly a play aimed at a niche market American companies have, time and time again, deemed to costly to serve after some initial flirtation. In time, Space X may as well. Given there have been so many failed attempts to disrupt the heavily monopolized residential US telecom sector (especially in low orbit satellite), it makes sense to wait for a fully commercial launch -- and to see what pricing and weird usage restrictions are applied -- before getting too excited about Starlink's potential for meaningful innovation. It's also worth noting that existing telecom monopolists just love using emerging technologies as justification for regulatory apathy (read: we don't need oversight because the sector is just so darn competitive ). As we saw with failed broadband over powerline (BPL) technology or wireless tech like WiMax, that usually involves radically over-hyping emerging competitors as mystical panaceas in a bid to suggest that reasonable adult oversight of the sector is no longer needed. That's certainly the tactic being used for 5G (another technology that won't be as disruptive as claimed for a laundry list of reasons), and I'd wager that Space X and Amazon's low orbit satellite experiments will soon be abused in the policy arena by AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon in much the same way -- even if the actual impact on incumbent businesses will likely be negligible. Filed Under: broadband , competition , elon musk , leo , low earth orbit , satellites , starlink Companies: spacex , starlink 1 Comment Read More Tennessee Court Strikes Down Law Criminalizing Calling Political Candidates 'Literally Hitler' Free Speech from the literally-the-worst-law dept Tue, Aug 4th 2020 3:13am — Tim Cushing Free speech keeps getting freer in Tennessee. The state was once home to a host of vexatious defamation lawsuits -- including one where someone subjected to mild criticism sued a journalist over things someone else said. Thanks to the state's new anti-SLAPP law , litigation is slightly less vexatious these days. But there are still state laws posing threats to free speech by criminalizing stuff the First Amendment says is perfectly acceptable. Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws (represented by Daniel Horwitz, whose work has made multiple headlines here at Techdirt) sued the state over a campaign law that made it a misdemeanor to publish false information about candidates. The statute says this: It is a Class C misdemeanor for any person to publish or distribute or cause to be published or distributed any campaign literature in opposition to any candidate in any election if such person knows that any such statement, charge, allegation, or other matter contained therein with respect to such candidate is false. The plaintiffs argued the law effectively criminalized satire and hyperbole. It pointed out it risked prosecution if it distributed its campaign material, which used a word that literally no longer can be taken literally in every context: "literally." From the decision [PDF]: [T]he Complaint explains that the Plaintiff has described in its literature one State Representative as “Hitler”, who supported eugenics, i.e. state-sponsored chemical castration of convicted sex offenders. The Plaintiff’s analysis in its Complaint is that, “Because Representative Griffey is not, in fact, ‘literally Hitler,’ and because Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws knows that Representative Griffey is not literally Hitler, Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws’ campaign literature would violate § 2-19-142, thus subjecting members of Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws to criminal prosecution carrying a sentence of up to thirty days in jail and/or a fine not to exceed $50.00. Here's the mailer the group says could get its members criminally charged: The activist group says this is unconstitutional. It certainly seems to be, but the state's Attorney General apparently believes prosecuting people for engaging in political speech isn't a Constitutional issue. Here's the opinion the state AG offered in support of the law : A prosecution against a newspaper or other news medium under Tenn. Code Ann. 2-19-142 would not raise any constitutional objections… This statement, made in 2009, has not aged well. The Constitutional challenge has arrived. And it's victorious. The campaign focused criminal defamation law violates both the US Constitution and the state Constitution. And for several reasons (all emphasis in the original): First, Tennessee Code Annotated § 2-19-142 punishes only false political speech in opposition to candidates for elected office, while permitting false speech in support of such candidates. Such viewpoint discrimination is incompatible with the First Amendment, and no compelling interest supports it. Second, Tennessee Code Annotated § 2-19-142 exclusively penalizes false campaign literature opposing candidates seeking elected office, while permitting all other false campaign literature and all speech regarding noncandidates. Such content-based restrictions on speech similarly contravene the First Amendment. Third, Tennessee Code Annotated § 2-19-142’s criminalization of “false” speech cannot be reconciled with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), which held that a statement’s falsity alone is insufficient to remove it from the ambit of protection guaranteed by the First Ame...