SpaceX ships 100k Starlink terminals to customers
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Satellites on low orbits are expected to last for a few years only. Unlike Iridium etc., they are not designed for a decade of service. Thus the customers can expect their service to improve over years, probably significantly so.
The beta bandwidth is 100 Mbps downlink, but I would expect 1 Gbps within a decade.
This will determine how many customers they need to stay afloat.
The second key question is, are there enough customers that can pay $100 per month for service?
If not, Starlink will crumble.
You have to be fairly affluent to be able to afford $1200 per year for Internet service. If you can afford it, a lot of people would like to sell you terrestrial service for less.
That is what I expect in poorer countries to happen. Starlink may claim that one terminal is meant for one household only, but they will silently tolerate connection sharing as long as it gives them penetration.
And third world metropolises aren't exactly penetrated by optic networks. So the alternative is probably an overloaded 4G network.
This is of course a failure to regulate the telecommunication giants, which get fat and rich in the big cities, but are not good at connecting remote locations (this doesn't earn them money).
On the other side, Starlink was very helpful in setting up emergency WLAN hotspots in the disaster area of the recent floodings.
I really liked that, it was a good illustration of how global orbital coverage can improve lives even in rich countries.
If there is some real movement of people in office jobs now working 100% remotely moving to the countryside I can see how Starlink would be a good proposal. It's a small increase in internet costs with a much lower cost of living than in a city.
Elon Musk recently said SpaceX needs $30 billion for Starlink to survive[1] (meaning it isn't profitable now).
He also said that they are aiming for 42000 satellites.
And he said, that they are losing money on the Starlink terminals ($500 / unit).
Starlink is $99/month. If a Falcon 9 carries about 60 SL satellites, and they are aiming for 40000 satellites in orbit, that means they need to do 666 Falcon 9 launches every 5 years. That's 11/month, btw.
Even, if reused Falcon 9 launches are as cheap $10 million/launch (I don't think anyone outside SpaceX knows the actual price). That's $6.7 billion in launch costs alone every 5 years.
$6.7B/(60 months * $99/(month*customer)) = 1,127,947 customers
So they need at least 1,127,947 paying customers to cover launch costs alone just to renew the sky-side of the network. That doesn't include the cost of producing the satellites, ground infrastructure (including terminals), bandwidth cost when connecting to the rest of the internet, staff, marketing, etc.
Now, of course, Starship may make the launches cheaper, and 1.1 million customers is not completely unlikely. However, if he already foresee the need of $30 billion now, their costs are probably significantly higher than my estimated launch costs above.
So let's hope we will not be left with an abandoned constellation of satellites that ends up causing the Kessler Syndrome, because SpaceX abandons the endeavour or goes bankrupt 5 years from now.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-starlink-spacex-ba...
For future profitability of the scheme, I consider the terminal price to be pretty important. They cannot really afford to lose money on it long term. Fortunately, manufacturability tends to improve over time.
Modern fiber optic networks are really robust and will keep on chugging with minimal to no upkeep. Problems mainly arise when lightning fries equipment or backhoes run amok.
It’s a whole different ballgame, both in terms of bandwidth and upkeep, compared to needing to continuously launch new satellites.
Quite a large share of world population does not. Including rich places like Japan, which is part of the Pacific ring of fire.
Even in a former mining city where I was born, the soil shifts quite a bit, as the abandoned mine shafts underneath are filled with water and collapse. It sometimes has an effect on networks that are dug in.
Seriously, I really think that Starlink main purpose is to justify SpaceX rockets. It is nice having reusable rockets, but if you don't have anything to launch, that's useless. Currently, the market for satellites is limited, so SpaceX created its own market.
Sounds like a smart move, but we'll see.
Sometimes you'll see bold claims about the abundance of certain elements backed by the fact that they exist in ppm or even ppb [1] concentrations in Earth's crust, conveniently ignoring the infeasibility of processing teratonnes of material (and completely destroying huge parts of Earth's surface area).
[1] ppm/ppb = parts per million/billion
Tens of thousands of satellites looks like a huge constellation, but compared to the worldwide fleet of cars, bicycles, or even laptops, their total resource footprint isn't very big. Their ratio of users to machines is incredibly high. And they are designed to burn up completely, so they do not end up in a landfill somewhere.
Fast improvements of worldwide Internet coverage may well be net positive for the environment and future generations. For example, protection of animals in national parks of Africa against poaching may become easier / more efficient.
- rural area (with sufficient incomes to afford the price)
- urban area with highly expensive/bad quality landline internet (but still with sufficient incomes to afford the price)
With the development of fiber in most urban area (usually fist in high income part) and the small number in the first category, I don't see how deploying tens of thousands of satellites could be profitable. The only option will be to be able to lower the price but it will need a lot of customers... Could you help me understand ?
There are a lot of places where local providers act like robber barons.
I agree, this may be the best effect Starlink can have : create competition.
> Population of the world is around 8 billion
Yes but which part is able to afford 99$/month (+antenna) + bad local provider which refuse to adapt to competition (first at price/offer level before even infrastructure) + no political reason for a global-us based provider ?
They may find themselves unable to. Cable (including optic cable) networks are not that easy to build everywhere, including some tightly packed cities. And wireless has its limitations too.
"which part is able to afford 99$/month (+antenna) "
Easy. People will share connections, regardless of what the contract says. And Starlink will likely tolerate it in poorer countries.
Here is an overview that is likely quite a bit too conservative, but gives you an idea of the problem regarding somewhat dense areas: https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/11/capacity-of-starlink-n...
And once it starts to get rolled out to airplanes, which airline can afford not to offer Starlink connections?
I mean sure, I'd rather our legislators actually do their job and pass a law enforcing local loop unbundling, but until that point Starlink is a breath of fresh, competitive air.
I am disappointed they lied about order fulfillment taking place in the order received.
Edit to add: we ordered within a month of each other and two of us live 20-30 miles apart so "our area" (central NC) should be active.
Per https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html we are in the same cell
Full text:
Starlink will begin offering service in your area beginning mid to late 2021. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis. You will be notified via email prior to shipment, and you will be charged the remainder of your balance once your kit ships.
Your Starlink Kit will arrive with your Starlink, wifi router, power supply, cables and mounting tripod. For more information or to cancel your order, sign in to your account.
Well, sure, assuming you can actually get service at your location. They're not going to send the kit to someone who can't get service.
And just note that even though you are physically close to someone who has it, that in no way means you can get it. The way the earth is divided up is not intuitive due to the orbits.
Maybe the other commenter is right and now its saying not available because it is saturated?
There is a reason why rural customers have such a hard time getting decent internet service, and why satellite internet is more economical for them. It’s not immediately obvious to me that the infrastructure cost of Starlink service is larger than the cost of your cable service. You cannot condemn satellite internet services simply because they use a lot of satellites without also condemning terrestrial internet services.
And if it is at all worthwhile for you to have fast internet access in the city, then it is equally worthwhile for folk living in rural areas to have fast internet access too.
Please note that I'm against pollution as you, also I am not a Tesla or Musk fan; they make great products, but that doesn't prevent me to think he's an absolute ass.
You are being dishonest here
I prefer this to an alternative where a failed constellation would be left as garbage to orbit the planet for decades/centuries. And I'd bet a few thousand satellites in space (including fuel used to put it up there) has an overall lower impact in the environment than the sprawling equipment and cabling needed to do the same coverage if using ground technologies (including all the resources used to install and maintain said equipment, and ecological damage).
I'd imagine Starlink at least has less impact than our current infrastructure.
It's mathematically impossible for them to be more eco friendly
It is probably going to be particularly bad in this thread because pretty much everyone hates their ISP and is excited for an alternative that doesn't need to deal with every single municipality separately the way Google Fiber did.
Yes? Active satellites are not space junk.
It also means there are less space junk in orbit, where it can do the most harm. That's why it's in a low orbit.
Otherwise, orbital debris could potentially accumulates, making space access impossible.
Are you still running a Celeron from 2000 or a Nokia from 2010?
If yes, kudos to you. If not, you are being hypocritical.
This is absolutely the worse way of providing Low to Medium quality connection to richest world, at the expense of everyone else.
I am running my half broken laptop from 2016,that I d hope, would last much longer.
They really don't. Not in terms of bandwidth, not in terms of latency, and not in terms of maximum number of serviceable customers.
Cluttering of the sky is unfortunate, but people in the 19th century were really unhappy about electric wires or wagons without horses and we cope now. There are almost 8 billion people on this planet and we cannot expect them to enjoy certain standard of living without some sacrifices.
If Starlink parameters are Low to Medium for you, I wonder what your standards are. Perhaps you are very fortunate in where you live (a major urban center of a first world country?). An alternative to Starlink would be a very extensive network of optic cables all around, and it certainly isn't clear to me at all that this would be eco-friendlier than Starlink.
I also don't think that Starlink is going to be a first world project only. On the contrary, I think its biggest impact will be in the poorer part of the world. People there will likely share connections (100 USD a month is quite a lot in poorer countries), but still. Even a 10 Mbps shared connection is a huge deal for someone in Kinshasa.
The worst obstacle will actually be politics. Starlink won't be easily controlled/censored by politicians, so I expect them to hate it and go out of their way to ban it.
As for the laptop: yeah, 2016. Reasonably good hardware, you can run Windows 10 on it. But you wouldn't use PC hardware from 2000. The innovation cycle is real, only its length is different in various branches of industry.
The oldest computer I run is from 2008 and it is noticeably energy hungry; I am not sure if at this point, swapping it for something new wouldn't be easier on the Earth. Not a simple calculation at all.
- 4G works awesomely. There are already satellite internet providers if you live in such rural area, they offers up to 50mbps bandwidth, for 50$ monthly
- Huh? So you believe that 3rd world country is not able to build 4/5G towers, but their citizens are somehow able to pay monthly fees for internet to an American billionaire? Or maybe the fees will be somehow so low that 1$ per day will be plenty enough to pay for satellite infrastructure? Wait, for satellite infrastructure that needs to be replaced every 5 years? How does your math works? You are completely delusional.
- Not running windows, but I disgress. My point is to compare today available satellites, to SpaceX sattelites. You are comparing on different time periods, while I am not. Those 20 years serving ARE still made today! Your comparison is invalid.
Do you feel threatened by them, or just resent the fact that they will alter the look of the night sky, especially around sunset and sunrise?
I can understand the latter, but communication satellites in orbit aren't a safety problem for people on the surface, unlike, say, every drone that someone flies in your proximity.
"4G works awesomely."
This is very local, I can't even get 4G coverage at some places literally on the border of Prague, a major European capital. Not a wilderness by any means.
"You are completely delusional."
Stop that shit. And do not attack my math, I actually graduated in algebra and number theory.
Seriously, to calculate returns on Starlink in the future, you need to assess several variables such as launch cost, manufacture cost, personnel cost and total # of customers. These are not yet known with necessary precision into the future, so we can only guesstimate. If we take Musk's admission that Starlink needs 30 billion USD to survive, 10 million paying end customers worldwide should be more than enough. That is not that much, compared to the world population.
And we do not know how much extra money are getting from customers such as the US Army which is really intrigued with Starlink.
"Those 20 years serving ARE still made today! Your comparison is invalid. "
So yes, they are. Do they provide a service on 2021 quality level? There are steam engines still in operation, but that does not mean that the technology isn't obsolete.