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Comment by TimSchumann | Hacker News Reader

I'm very skeptical of anything Elon says on twitter with regards to timelines or capability of anything he's building.

My view on this 'announcement' is -- Possible? Yes. Economical at scale? Likely not.

Even Starlink V1 has essentially become 'Pay us 2500 USD up front and 500 a month to get access now'. I question the viability of adding cellphone levels of users to a network like this, from not only an economic standpoint, but a physics/bandwidth standpoint on the EM spectrum.

Would love to be proven wrong on this.

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Why was this downvoted? You may disagree, but EM is known for his wildly inaccurate or flat-out misleading statements. He’s literally in courts regarding his Twitter statements as well as the “autopilot” that was supposed to be perfect “next year”.

There are two other companies working on satellite based cellular service. One of them is publicly traded. Starlink costs $500 for the hardware and $99 a month. I think the pricing you are referring to is for a higher tier professional service (I.e. a school vs a single house)

https://www.starlink.com/business

From their own website, also currently the only way to ‘buy it now’ so to speak. Also the only way to get the main benefit of Starlink, internet service independent of geographic location.

The pricing you’re referring to is a waitlist for ? period of time for a vast majority of the US population, at least last I checked.

Waitlists are not a product, they’re marketing.

As someone who has a Starlink dish at this price point, I can assure you that it's a real product. The reason why there is a waitlist is to avoid over-saturating the bandwidth in a small area. If your area does not have a lot of users, you can sign up right away. Similarly if you order Starlink for EVs you do not have to wait.

https://www.starlink.com/rv

Starlink is providing broadband internet to more than half a million customers. That’s a product.

Everywhere except the southeast US is available now: https://www.starlink.com/map

Even in that region you can buy the RV product which is deprioritized but maybe better than some peoples’ alternatives.

The only reason I have some faith in this, is that it's enough for Verizon to make an announcement. While Musk doesn't mind looking bad, Verizon is much more risk averse and I assume they've done their homework

I thought Starlink was supposed to be reasonably priced. Like, wasn't it $99/mo. at one point?

That is the ‘wait in line and you may get it eventually’ version.

The ‘I want it now’ version is priced at 2500 USD up front and 500 USD/month thereafter.

I don’t consider things that are on a waitlist for ? long as ‘available for purchase’. See Roadster, Cybertruck, Tesla Semi, “Self Driving”, etc.

You don't need to purchase the upgraded version to bypass cell capacity limits. The RV and roaming plans can work as well. Sharing this so others aren't misled by inaccurate information.

Have a link for that info where you can be location independent on Starlink for 99 USD/month?

I’m all ears.

Starlink for RVs: $135/month. A premium over the standard product, but far less than $500/month for business service.

https://www.starlink.com/rv

Lol. Like many people, I too have $99/month service. I typed my name into the evil waitlist. I subsequently received a satellite dish that gave me space internet. For less than my cable subscription. For internet from space.

Haters gonna.

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