How much energy does it use?
I've seen wifi hotspots use this much and they don't have to connect to space.
Is this really "energy pig" level of usage for space based communications? My former experience was with gimbled / gyro pointing dishes which were very energy intensive by comparison. 100W and little physical movement would have been considered very efficiant.
How do other space com platforms handle deployment / install of end user terminals. I've not seen ones with the spaceX approach (simple end user install). Perhaps the professional installs get the energy use down to 10W or whatever is not considered "energy pig" usage.
As a point of reference, tesla's cars hit energy draws of 900,000W when driving. Their semi is likely to use even more. So I think worth being careful about energy pig label.
110 watts is a fair amount of power - at $0.20/kWh you're going to add $16 to your power bill monthly.
It's similar to leaving a desktop computer on 24/7.
Of course a gaming computer uses more than 100w. Of course a crypto rig uses more than 100w. And that's not "basic computer use", it's the most power-hungry computer use.
Meanwhile, my UniFi UAP-AC-Pro APs are powered via PoE and are using <4w.
1: https://www.legitreviews.com/netgear-nighthawk-x8-r8500-ac53...
https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/R8500/R8500_UM_4...
The power supply for an R8500 gives 19V / 3.16 A DC maximum.
And yes, a gaming PC can use a few hundred watts---that's why it has to have all of the thermal management and all of the hot air blowing out of it.
P.s. https://kb.netgear.com/23003/Maximum-power-consumption-for-N...
900,000W? Wow, that's about 1200HP.
So 100W may not be a big deal if you have an abundance of electricity around. But on the order of energy you can produce yourself, it's quite a lot.