By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
World of SoftwareWorld of SoftwareWorld of Software
  • News
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gaming
  • Videos
  • More
    • Gadget
    • Web Stories
    • Trending
    • Press Release
Search
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
Reading: Report: Starlink Tries to Fix White House’s Wi-Fi Woes
Share
Sign In
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
World of SoftwareWorld of Software
Font ResizerAa
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gadget
  • Gaming
  • Videos
Search
  • News
  • Software
  • Mobile
  • Computing
  • Gaming
  • Videos
  • More
    • Gadget
    • Web Stories
    • Trending
    • Press Release
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
World of Software > News > Report: Starlink Tries to Fix White House’s Wi-Fi Woes
News

Report: Starlink Tries to Fix White House’s Wi-Fi Woes

News Room
Last updated: 2025/03/18 at 1:07 PM
News Room Published 18 March 2025
Share
SHARE

Elon Musk’s unprecedented role in the White House now includes having the presidential residence and its adjacent offices connected to SpaceX’s Starlink service, according to a report the New York Times published Monday night.

The story by Maggie Haberman, Kate Conger, Eileen Sullivan and Ryan Mac suggests that tourists should not expect to glimpse any Starlink dishes on the roof of the White House. 

Instead, the NYT piece says broadband from that constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit is “routed through a White House data center, with existing fiber cables, miles from the complex.”

Trump administration officials claimed that “some areas of the property could not get cell service,” according to the Times, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt describing the Starlink project as intended “to improve Wi-Fi connectivity on the complex.”

Neither of those explanations makes sense. Starlink’s direct-to-cellular service would not require an extra deployment to cover the White House grounds and, more important, only provides text messaging. And if a wireless network isn’t delivering adequate coverage, the fix is to install better wireless routers or mesh nodes instead of plugging a different connection into the same underperforming local-network gear. 

The latest Starlink Dish V4 and Router Gen 3 equipment (Credit: Brian Westover)

The White House itself should not be hurting for broadband, as the phrase “existing fiber cables” suggests. Nor should it lack for wireless signal strength; the FCC’s broadband map shows 100% coverage of the campus and nearby blocks from AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and even Boost Mobile’s 5G-only network.

“I was just in the East Wing in December, and had no trouble with mobile service,” emailed Waldo Jaquith, a longtime government technologist who was a senior advisor at the General Services Administration under President Biden. 

Yet the Times report recounts a SpaceX and X engineer named Chris Stanley venturing onto the roof of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just west of the White House, to investigate setting up Starlink there–where a uniformed Secret Service officer rushed to investigate the intrusion. 

The story describes this unique setup as a donation from Starlink that White House ethics lawyers cleared. It does not clarify whether this added connectivity provides the same security as existing wired broadband; security researcher Jake Williams told the Times that this “introduces another attack point.”

Starlink should not be able to snoop on the details of White House staffers’ usage, thanks to nearly-universal encryption of web site and app traffic. But senior government officials ought to regard themselves as highly targeted and of exceptional interest to nation-state attackers such as the Chinese operatives that attempted to compromise Trump’s phone last summer.

Jaquith, who called the Starlink arrangement “a huge security exposure” in a Bluesky post Monday, said he would be leery of using Wi-Fi in general around the White House: “Everybody should be using Ethernet to the greatest extent possible.”


Could Starlink Actually Be Useful at the White House?

In terms of bandwidth alone, Starlink’s own site suggests the service won’t perform well at this location. Searches for service availability at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW and eight nearby addresses on private property all advised that an order for service would come with the $100 “congestion charge” the service began tacking onto some bills last September.

Musk himself has historically described Starlink as only suited for service outside of urban areas. 

Recommended by Our Editors

“Starlink will serve the hardest to serve customers that telcos otherwise have trouble reaching,” he said at a satellite-industry conference in March of 2020. “We can’t do a lot of customers in L.A. because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough.”

He reiterated that at MWC Barcelona in July of 2021, saying Starlink is “really meant for sparsely populated regions.”

Starlink now reaches RVs, yachts and airliners, but its land-based customer base still mostly resides far from cities: A survey conducted by the research firm Recon Analytics last year found that 85% of Starlink subscribers lived in rural areas. PCMag’s own Starlink testing location in rural Idaho does experience satisfactory performance.

But things are different for Musk now that his work as the unelected head of the Trump administration’s government-disruption “DOGE” project has given him the keys to multiple government agencies, some of which he is illegally attempting to destroy. 

The FAA is reportedly considering using Starlink to connect some air-traffic-control facilities despite having already signed a $2 billion contract with Verizon to upgrade its connectivity. And the National Telecommunications and Information Administration appears to be considering handing much more of the government’s $42.5 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program’s subsidies over to Starlink.

BEAD’s outgoing director Evan Feinman denounced that idea in an email to his former colleagues that Politico reported Sunday: “Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington.”

5 Things to Know About Starlink Satellite Internet

PCMag Logo 5 Things to Know About Starlink Satellite Internet

Newsletter Icon

Get Our Best Stories!

Sign up for What’s New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning.

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links.
By clicking the button, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our
Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy.
You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.

Newsletter Pointer

About Rob Pegoraro

Contributor

Rob Pegoraro

Rob Pegoraro writes about interesting problems and possibilities in computers, gadgets, apps, services, telecom, and other things that beep or blink. He’s covered such developments as the evolution of the cell phone from 1G to 5G, the fall and rise of Apple, Google’s growth from obscure Yahoo rival to verb status, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe forums to Facebook’s billions of users. Pegoraro has met most of the founders of the internet and once received a single-word email reply from Steve Jobs.

Read Rob’s full bio

Read the latest from Rob Pegoraro

Sign Up For Daily Newsletter

Be keep up! Get the latest breaking news delivered straight to your inbox.
By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Email Print
Share
What do you think?
Love0
Sad0
Happy0
Sleepy0
Angry0
Dead0
Wink0
Previous Article The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is about to get a huge free upgrade
Next Article Pebble’s new smartwatches take on Apple Watch with better battery
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay Connected

248.1k Like
69.1k Follow
134k Pin
54.3k Follow

Latest News

AI told me how to invest in today’s crazy stock market — try it for yourself
News
So many people had no clue this Google app for managing photos and videos existed!
News
UK government websites to replace passwords with secure passkeys
News
The Linux Kernel Dropping Its Unused Built-In Software Echo Cancellation Code
Computing

You Might also Like

News

AI told me how to invest in today’s crazy stock market — try it for yourself

3 Min Read
News

So many people had no clue this Google app for managing photos and videos existed!

4 Min Read
News

UK government websites to replace passwords with secure passkeys

6 Min Read
News

PM gears up to fight Nigel Farage as he launches immigration crackdown

4 Min Read
//

World of Software is your one-stop website for the latest tech news and updates, follow us now to get the news that matters to you.

Quick Link

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Topics

  • Computing
  • Software
  • Press Release
  • Trending

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

World of SoftwareWorld of Software
Follow US
Copyright © All Rights Reserved. World of Software.
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?