This feels like a lot of industries lately. Competition is great, but the ongoing development of so many sub par products just feels so wasteful.
- Nobody other than Starlink is offering anything at all to end customers; all alternatives are in GEO, which means much higher latencies.
- There's no alternative to Iridium when it comes to reliable, 100% global coverage in the L-band (except if you're the military, presumably). Planes and ships are still carrying HF radios for redundancy in high latitudes.
- Nobody, neither GEO nor LEO, other than Starlink, currently offers high-throughput connectivity for in-flight connectivity. (Inmarsat is planning to launch HEO satellites for the northern hemisphere, which will possibly extend their existing aviation coverage there.)
- OneWeb does compete for high-throughput services in LEO in the Ku-band (requiring steered antennas just like Starlink), but doesn't seem to be offering inter-satellite links yet, i.e. no global coverage alternative for airlines either.
https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographie...
In terms of independent operators, not so much. If Starlink goes down or ceases operations in a given region or to a given customer, there are few alternatives right now.
These satellites are generally low enough tha their orbits decay after a couple years if they don't boost themselves, and then they burn up in the atmosphere.
I wonder if there is a market for worldwide coverage with fast data without the capacity for broadband users. That would lower the number and capacity of satellites.
Alternatively, it might be possible to do broadband with larger but fewer satellites instead of Starlink strategy of increasing capacity with more satellites. Other companies could save money by not having laser links and only do bent pipe.