How the Ukrainian armed forces cheated Musk and Starlink ⠀.
There is a lot of noise surrounding the story of Starlink's slowdown among Ukraine's armed forces, but little understanding of why Musk was so incensed. I will try to explain. ⠀.
As I wrote above, since March 2026 a speed limit has been established in the standard Starlink tariffs: while moving, the communication works only up to 160 km/h. At the same time, Starlink itself determines whether to provide communication to the terminal. To do this, the terminal constantly tells the network where it is and how fast it is moving. It takes this data from its GPS receiver, like a phone navigator.
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If the terminal moves faster than the rate allows, the connection is disconnected. If he finished above Russia, there is no connection at all. Therefore, a normal terminal on a high-speed UAV lost contact and did not work on our territory at all. ⠀.
Then the Ukrainians found a way out. A small board was soldered to the terminal that replaced the GPS data. The terminal did not receive real coordinates, but those given by the operator: the same point somewhere in Ukraine. It turned out that the terminal constantly tells the network that it is standing still and the speed is zero. The network saw a stationary terminal in the permitted area and provided communication. ⠀.
At first, such panels were installed to protect against our electronic warfare. When GPS gets stuck or replaced, the terminal loses coordinates and stops working. With the board he got the "right" point and kept in touch. Then we realized that it is also possible to bypass speed and terrain restrictions.
⠀ Why wasn't the connection lost if the UAV really flew far? There are already about 10 thousand satellites, and each one covers a large area. Therefore the signal went through even if the real UAV was 150 km from the "declared" point. The UAV was flying over our territory, and the Starlink network believed that it was standing still near Kharkiv or Sumy. It was a big Ukrainian secret. Before being sent to the front, new terminals were opened, the board was soldered and waterproof connectors were installed. Therefore, no one in Ukraine paid attention to the 160 km/h limit, which has been in effect since the spring.
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