On Thursday, a three-judge panel struck down net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had hoped would stop broadband providers from varying speeds for users when connecting to different websites.
In his opinion, US circuit judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote that the FCC lacked the authority to impose the net neutrality rules under the "telecommunications service" provision of the Communications Act.
"The core of the dispute here," Griffin wrote, "is whether Broadband Internet Service Providers" like Xfinity or Spectrum offer a "telecommunications service" or an "information service." Because judges agreed they offer the latter, the court ruled that they could not be subjected to the FCC's net neutrality policies.
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The Kremlin is believed to have cut off access to the internet in some areas of Russia as it continues to build its own sovereign network.
Russia's federal internet regulation agency, Roskomnadzor, restricted global internet access for a day in several regions so that VPNs couldn't bypass it, reports said.
According to local news reports, cited by the US think tank The Institute for the Study of War, Roskomnadzor has been conducting tests to more closely control internet access in Dagestan, a Muslim-majority region in the country's south.
Dagestani news site Chernovik reported that people in the impacted regions, which also included Chechnya and Ingushetiya, were unable to access websites including YouTube, Amazon, and Telegram, even with virtual private networks or VPNs, that use encryption to bypass public internet platforms.
In a statement to Kommersant in November, Roskomnadzor said that the purpose of the tests was to ensure that Russia's internet, RuNet, could be cut off from the global internet.
Russia has long sought to restrict the country's access to the internet, with some websites, including global news websites, inaccessible to normal users.
The Kremlin wants to tightly manage the flow of information available to Russians, with subjects including the war in Ukraine heavily censored.
Some citizens have used VPNs to overcome the restrictions and access information and services on the global web.
Demand for VPNs spiked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when tougher internet restrictions were enforced, Business Insider reported in 2022.
The ISW said the recent tests appeared to be focused on regions with a history of unrest against authorities in Moscow.
"Roskomnadzor likely intended in part to test its ability to successfully disconnect Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia — Russian federal subjects with Muslim-majority populations and recent histories of instability — from services like Telegram in order to control the information space in the event of instability in the future," it noted.
It said the tests were likely part of a plan to more broadly restrict access to the global internet in Russia.
Starlink
Elon Musk's Starlink is taking over planes and cruise ships, and traffic is booming as a result.
Global internet traffic from SpaceX's satellite internet service more than tripled in 2024, according to data from IT service provider Cloudflare.
Starlink, which uses a network of thousands of low-orbit satellites to provide high-speed internet to areas with limited web access, has expanded rapidly over the past year.
The service has launched in a host of new countries, including Chad, Mongolia, and Argentina, and has also become increasingly visible on planes and cruises.
United Airlines announced in September it had struck a deal to begin offering free WiFi using Starlink on all its flights from next year after Hawaiian Airlines began offering free Starlink access earlier in 2024.
Qatar Airways also launched its Starlink service, which Business Insider's Pete Syme found offered impressively quick internet speeds when he tested it in October.
Several major cruise companies have begun offering Starlink on their ships, with Carnival Cruises announcing in May that all of its cruise liners are now equipped with Starlink.
SpaceX also launched a laptop-sized version of Starlink's satellite dish called Starlink Mini in June, with the company offering a mobile "Roam" package for RV users and van-life enthusiasts.
Cloudflare said Starlink has seen rapid growth in areas with "pent-up demand" for alternative internet services. Traffic in Georgia and Paraguay, where Starlink launched in November and December 2023, has increased by 100 and 900 times this year, respectively.
It marks a second consecutive year of rapid growth for Starlink. It also almost tripled traffic in 2023.
Starlink has become a key part of SpaceX's business, though it has occasionally entangled the rocket company and Elon Musk in political controversy.
SpaceX is reportedly in talks to sell shares in a deal that would value the NASA contractor at around $350 billion. This would make SpaceX one of the most valuable private companies on the planet and double its $175 billion valuation at the end of 2023.
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SpaceX's Starlink and other mega-constellations of satellites could damage the atmosphere in ways we don't yet understand, scientists say.
The number of satellites in Earth's orbit has skyrocketed from about 1,000 in 2010 to more than 10,000 today. According to a government report, an additional 58,000 satellites could launch by 2030, largely from SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, and the Chinese government — all to connect the entire planet to the internet.
Research suggests the ozone layer that protects us from powerful solar radiation could be at stake.
About 100 scientists signed a letter in October asking the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates satellite launches in the US, to pause mega-constellations.
"We should look before we leap," the letter reads, adding, "The environmental harms of launching and burning up so many satellites aren't clear."
Elon Musk — who sits at the helm of the world's dominant satellite constellation, Starlink — has publicly criticized some regulations affecting his companies and has positioned himself to push against regulation with the new Trump administration.
Starlink accounts for more than half of the 10,560 active satellites as of November 15, according to tracking by the Harvard astronomer Jonathan McDowell. SpaceX has filed for permission to fly 30,000 more satellites.
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SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
Studies have found that rocket launches, such as those that put satellites into space, emit pollutants like carbon dioxide and black carbon, which could trigger processes that deplete Earth's protective ozone layer.
That's just the launch. Most satellites eventually fall out of orbit because of malfunction or because they're reaching the end of their lives. This "reentry" prevents dead satellites from becoming dangerous, uncontrollable space junk, but it also causes them to burn up as they plow through the atmosphere, releasing metals like aluminum.
Due to the sheer number of satellites expected to fly, die, and re-enter in coming years, future mega-constellations could inject 21 times more aluminum oxides into the upper atmosphere than 2022 rates, according to a paper published in the Geophysical Research Letters in June.
Aluminum oxides can linger for decades and cause "significant ozone depletion," the researchers wrote.
There may also be impacts scientists have not yet discovered — "unknown unknowns," Nilton Renno, an atmospheric scientist who co-signed the letter, told BI.
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An accurate prediction of all possible impacts "should be the basis for any relevant policy," Joseph Wang, a coauthor of the aluminum-oxides paper and a professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California, told BI in an email. At the moment, no such prediction exists.
For now, satellites are small potatoes compared to pollution from other industries. It's unclear how quickly their impact will balloon.
Another study found that about 10% of aerosol particles in the stratosphere contain metals from satellites and other spacecraft, and that amount could increase to about 50% in the next few decades.
The 100-scientist letter asks the FCC to pause new satellite launches, conduct environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and end a rule that excludes satellites from those review requirements.
The letter says the exclusion "offends common sense," given the number of satellites in play.
In a 2022 report, the US Government Accountability Office also recommended that the FCC reassess the exclusion.
Indeed, an FCC spokesperson told BI that the agency plans to review its NEPA rules, which would include the satellite exclusion. That's because the Council on Environmental Quality updated government-wide regulations for implementing NEPA in May.
If the FCC finds that large satellite constellations significantly affect the human environment (such as Earth's atmosphere), it may have to start requiring environmental reviews.
Michelle Hanlon, the executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, agrees that more studies are needed but doesn't think that stopping satellite launches should be the solution.
"We can shut down the American space industry and there's still going to be launches," she told BI.
The incoming Trump administration may not be the most environmental-review-friendly, given Musk's anticipated role in it.
"There is a lot of waste and needless regulation in government that needs to go," Musk wrote on X after Trump announced a plan for the billionaire CEO to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk and SpaceX have already clashed with regulators over environmental reviews. In September the company published a strongly worded statement about the Federal Aviation Administration's review requirements for operations in Texas, where its next-generation Starship rocket is based.
Then, in October, SpaceX sued the California Coastal Commission, an environmental regulator, after it blocked the company's request for additional launches. SpaceX alleged the commission had made the decision based on political bias.
Without an environmental review, it's unclear what the impact of SpaceX's Starlink plans will be.
