Many Starlink users have called for the FCC to reject Dish Network's 5G plan because it would render the service useless.
Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Starlink users messaged the FCC to reject Dish Network's 5G plan, which SpaceX claims would render its satellite internet service useless.
A SpaceX petition protesting Dish Network has resulted in 70,000 Starlink users bombarding the FCC with messages urging the US regulator to protect the satellite internet system.
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A week ago, SpaceX began recruiting users to sign the online petition, which argues that Dish Network's proposal to use the 12 GHz radio spectrum for a 5G risks rendering Starlink "useless" in the US.
Within a day, 3,000 Starlink users had sent messages to the FCC, and since then, the agency’s filing system has recorded tens of thousands more messages from Starlink customers. As of Friday, the FCC’s online filing system showed 3,309 entries regarding Dish Network’s proposal. As of Tuesday morning, the filing system contains 71,292 entries.
It's unclear how many of the entries are from duplicate users. But the first 10,000 results in the filing system are filled with messages from Starlink users calling on the FCC to reject Dish Network's plan to use the 12 GHz radio spectrum. PCMag tried to access messages beyond the 10,000 result limit, but the FCC's online system only gave them an error.
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SpaceX’s online petition is designed to send a pre-written message to both the FCC and U.S. lawmakers about terminating Dish Network’s 12 GHz radio spectrum proposal. This makes it easier for Starlink’s U.S. user base to flood the FCC with messages. But in some cases, many Starlink customers wrote custom messages alongside the pre-written message.
“We recently got Starlink and for the first time since we bought our house 20 years ago, we have good internet service,” wrote a subscriber named Dave Michaels. “If this rule is passed, we will be forced to pay more for a lower quality experience.”
"I can't do my current job without access to Starlink," wrote another user named Karin Draughn. "I'll be forced to move to another house or work from a Starbucks 30 minutes away if my connection is unstable."
Source: pcmag.com
