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Comment by tgsovlerkhgsel | Hacker News Reader

Any idea on pricing?

I wonder how many people would switch over if it was priced ~$10 higher than a Comcast plan, just to avoid having to deal with Comcast. I hope this ubiquitous competition will force prices for wired Internet down and customer service quality up.

And if it is able to scale, this will be a VERY attractive offer in underdeveloped countries like Germany. (Germany may be a first world country, but the Internet access options sure don't feel that way.)

Will Starlink offer mobile solutions? I could see this being a game changer for Internet on ships or for temporary use in extremely remote locations where a sat phone at eye-watering prices were the only options right now.

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It is not intended as a competitor for Comcast. A well built, engineered and maintained DOCSIS3 system with channel bonding can easily support 600Mbps+ down per user (not all at once simultaneously, the standard metrics of oversubscription apply), and 20-25 Mbps up. Starlink is intended for more fringe or impossible to reach areas.

It's weird but I've watched and cheered on almost every SpaceX launch since the Falcon 1 days, including Starlink launches. Starlink isn't the pinnacle of all that work, but I almost want to buy it just to celebrate it.

And though not a competitor to Comcast for the reasons you point out, I'm probably not the only person who's very happy to finally have a decent alternative showing up. Just a shame it didn't come in at half the monthly cost.

Part of me wonders if the price is artificially high in order to reduce the initial rush. You know if they were to offer high speed Starlink for half the typical land-based internet, there would be so many orders it would be pretty problematic.

I'm definitely in some of these same boats.

I currently have Comcast, but I really despise them. Starlink will be a small step up in price, and a small step down in speed for me, but I'm going to do it just to be away from Comcast.

Starlink today slightly beats my Comcast performance-- both up and down. Starlink costs a bit more, but the service, bandwidth, latency is getting better every week--I'd rather be hitched to a modern company that knows how to improve.

> well built, engineered and maintained

Fortunately for Starlink, there's not much worry about Comcast having any of those things.

$499 to get the equipment and $99/m for service.

Right now service is locked to the cell you purchase in. The intent is to allow mobility eventually.

Keep in mind the $99 is the price for the beta. I’m not sure if they’ve confirmed the non-beta price.

It feels weird that I pay some small SaaS products more than this. You'd think slinging a few hundred satellites into space would be a more difficult / expensive endeavor.

SpaceX is way in the red on this right now. But I'm sure they've done the math on how much profit they can extract from the constellation in the long term.

Yep - Profit and loss are pretty much meaningless while investors are still willingly to fling cash at them faster then they can spend it.

It is. The antennas are heavily subsidized to get that $500 price point.

We don't actually know that. There was one unknown source who once said it was some number X but the reliability of that claim is highly questionable.

We do know that. We know how much phased array costs, and many experts in that area have said so. Shotwell and musk both have said getting the terminal cost down is their biggest challenge. They wouldn't say that if it was $500.

Correction: We know how much phased array antennas produced by other companies have historically sold for. They’re not commodities with uniform costs.

No, they are commodity and we know how much they cost. SpaceX hasn't magically solved somehow decreasing the price of components they don't even make. They are paying over $1000 for a terminal.

Cool, can you link me to the BOM cost analysis you’re referring to?

Sure! You mean every phased array that's ever been built? I suppose you have the BOM for the starlink terminal that spacex themselves have said is too expensive? I guess the fact that musk is behind it means the cost is magic and you can discount all prior technology, right?

The burden of proof is the on the one making absolute claims like yours.

Nope. The burden of proof is on those suggesting history is wrong. Phased array doesn't just drop 3x in price overnight. I'm waiting...

"DaveMosher reports @SpaceX has contracted @ST_World already "a few years ago" to build 1m #Starlink user terminals at $2400/pc, hence current hardware subsidy for beta testers is $1900. Article suggests, SpaceX may be paying $2.4 billion for the order. https://t.co/jak0hKQBGn"

So the current estimate published in business insider means you are about four times off based on the contract with ST, who we now know builds the chips inside of it. Please show your sources of a $500 phased array terminal.

So we have $2.4 billion, but we don't know what this includes. This is likely for all the development, setting up the production system and so on. It could include a number of things.

To just take that number an convert it unit cost like that doesn't make sense. SpaceX will need many more then just 1M terminals, what matters is the marginal cost per terminal.

And if these numbers are accurate is also questionable.

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