It is no secret that I have been very critical of Starlink on Tildes, mostly for its very bad impact on publicly funded ground based astronomy which could be, in fact, very bad. The...
It is no secret that I have been very critical of Starlink on Tildes, mostly for its very bad impact on publicly funded ground based astronomy which could be, in fact, very bad. The counterargument is usually that this is a small price to pay for widely accessible internet, but $99/month is in my opinion hardly affordable for most people.
For what its worth, Starlink will hardly be the only company sending up constellations like this, and many more are likely to follow. I really believe we need better regulation of satellite launch approval, because the current system is simply overwhelmed in the approval process for constellations like these. I don't think private companies should get to unilaterally pollute the night sky and hamper complex, expensive, and publicly funded scientific endeavors.
Yeah, I completely agree. Things like water and electric service to homes are considered a natural monopoly because the huge up-front cost involved in building out the infrastructure makes it...
Yeah, I completely agree. Things like water and electric service to homes are considered a natural monopoly because the huge up-front cost involved in building out the infrastructure makes it infeasible for a competitor to really challenge an established company.
If Starlink jacks up their prices, how would a new startup go about competing with them? They'd need to spend billions to develop and launch a constellation before they could even reliably serve a single customer. And...the most likely launch provider for their satellites would be SpaceX itself, who would have a strong incentive to behave anti-competitively and slow-walk those launches.
I'll say up front that I don't have an answer to this question, but I think it bears discussion: how do we handle a natural monopoly of this type? The usual argument for infrastructure is let the...
I'll say up front that I don't have an answer to this question, but I think it bears discussion: how do we handle a natural monopoly of this type?
The usual argument for infrastructure is let the government do it (and/or a single regulated private player that must then lease back to the competitors on a level playing field), but that doesn't work in a global situation. I guess the UN could handle it, but I doubt that an ISP with competing interests from Saudi Arabia, Russia, the US, and China would find much to agree on.
GPS is the closest comparison, but a single-purpose broadcast signal is very different to a bidirectional communications network. Even then, the EU, Russia, and China are launching their own systems to avoid reliance on the US. Limiting to one megaconstellation per major geopolitical power would be arguably better than one for any private company that feels like it, but it feels like a patch rather than an actual solution.
Have you ever paid for existing satellite internet from either HughesNet or ViaSat? Both charge quite a bit for slow speeds and have bad data caps, not to mention the very poor latency of...
The counterargument is usually that this is a small price to pay for widely accessible internet, but $99/month is in my opinion hardly affordable for most people.
Have you ever paid for existing satellite internet from either HughesNet or ViaSat? Both charge quite a bit for slow speeds and have bad data caps, not to mention the very poor latency of geostationary orbit communications satellites.
FWIW, Starlink should not be compared to existing satellite ISPs. They are a new category of ISP, and are explicitly competing against ground-based Providers like Comcast. In that light, $99/month...
FWIW, Starlink should not be compared to existing satellite ISPs. They are a new category of ISP, and are explicitly competing against ground-based Providers like Comcast.
In that light, $99/month does not necessarily seem unreasonable, but it is on the high end of the spectrum.
I disagree. Starlink does not compete with many wired options. I live in a relatively small US city with access to fiber and speeds of 1 gb/s for $50 a month with no data caps. Starlink can be...
I disagree. Starlink does not compete with many wired options. I live in a relatively small US city with access to fiber and speeds of 1 gb/s for $50 a month with no data caps.
Starlink can be used anywhere in the world, just like traditional geostationary satellite internet. Once Starlink is up and running, there will be practically no reason for the other satellite internet companies to exist unless they drastically cut their costs to consumers. They lose out on speed, latency, and caps, and probably price.
That's simply not true. The maximum density of customer dishes on the ground is so low that Starlink absolutely cannot compete with Comcast et al. Both basic physical practicalities and everything...
That's simply not true. The maximum density of customer dishes on the ground is so low that Starlink absolutely cannot compete with Comcast et al. Both basic physical practicalities and everything Starlink/SpaceX/Elon have ever said line up behind the service competing squarely with GEO satellite internet providers and virtually no one else.
We don't know what the price will be later. This is for early adopters, some of whom will happily pay this much to beta-test. I would expect the price to remain above cable and DSL Internet prices...
We don't know what the price will be later. This is for early adopters, some of whom will happily pay this much to beta-test.
I would expect the price to remain above cable and DSL Internet prices due to limited bandwidth. It might be a good option for a business or school in a remote area, though.
I would actually think that prices would go up once they leave beta. The beta testers are probably being subsidized so that Starlink can test the feasibility of the idea.
I would actually think that prices would go up once they leave beta. The beta testers are probably being subsidized so that Starlink can test the feasibility of the idea.
In a sense it would be “subsidized” at just about any price. SpaceX has been spending their own money up front without getting revenue, so sure, it’s been operating at a loss, and the beta program...
In a sense it would be “subsidized” at just about any price. SpaceX has been spending their own money up front without getting revenue, so sure, it’s been operating at a loss, and the beta program probably won’t change that.
But I would guess that later there will be more limits on usage.
This doesn't really imply anything other than that $99 is what they think will maximise potential profit in the US market. This is the kind of business where a huge amount of the spending is a...
This doesn't really imply anything other than that $99 is what they think will maximise potential profit in the US market. This is the kind of business where a huge amount of the spending is a one-off investment, and then the marginal cost per user approaches zero by comparison. I'm expecting region-specific and/or priority tiered pricing, with dishes & hotspots designed to be used per-community rather than per-household.
The other concerns absolutely still stand, and I'm not dismissing them, but it's far too early to make a call on how people will access services like this over the next 5-10 years.
For reference, here is an old plot I found on Twitter showing that even if they got the price down to $60/mo, it would still be too expensive for the vast majorities of countries that need it. At...
For reference, here is an old plot I found on Twitter showing that even if they got the price down to $60/mo, it would still be too expensive for the vast majorities of countries that need it. At $90/mo it is even worse.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say for the unaffordable countries they will not be targeting consumers, but rather their gov or forign powers that provide aid money. It would totally kill any...
I'm going to hazard a guess and say for the unaffordable countries they will not be targeting consumers, but rather their gov or forign powers that provide aid money. It would totally kill any local initiative to establish internet, pushing them towards total dependence. It's fucking diabolical.
It is no secret that I have been very critical of Starlink on Tildes, mostly for its very bad impact on publicly funded ground based astronomy which could be, in fact, very bad. The counterargument is usually that this is a small price to pay for widely accessible internet, but $99/month is in my opinion hardly affordable for most people.
For what its worth, Starlink will hardly be the only company sending up constellations like this, and many more are likely to follow. I really believe we need better regulation of satellite launch approval, because the current system is simply overwhelmed in the approval process for constellations like these. I don't think private companies should get to unilaterally pollute the night sky and hamper complex, expensive, and publicly funded scientific endeavors.
Yeah, I completely agree. Things like water and electric service to homes are considered a natural monopoly because the huge up-front cost involved in building out the infrastructure makes it infeasible for a competitor to really challenge an established company.
Satellite internet constellations really should be the same way. Starlink has approval for 12,000 satellites and has asked for 30,000 more. Amazon wants to launch 3,200. OneWeb wants 48,000 despite filing for bankruptcy.
If Starlink jacks up their prices, how would a new startup go about competing with them? They'd need to spend billions to develop and launch a constellation before they could even reliably serve a single customer. And...the most likely launch provider for their satellites would be SpaceX itself, who would have a strong incentive to behave anti-competitively and slow-walk those launches.
I'll say up front that I don't have an answer to this question, but I think it bears discussion: how do we handle a natural monopoly of this type?
The usual argument for infrastructure is let the government do it (and/or a single regulated private player that must then lease back to the competitors on a level playing field), but that doesn't work in a global situation. I guess the UN could handle it, but I doubt that an ISP with competing interests from Saudi Arabia, Russia, the US, and China would find much to agree on.
GPS is the closest comparison, but a single-purpose broadcast signal is very different to a bidirectional communications network. Even then, the EU, Russia, and China are launching their own systems to avoid reliance on the US. Limiting to one megaconstellation per major geopolitical power would be arguably better than one for any private company that feels like it, but it feels like a patch rather than an actual solution.
Have you ever paid for existing satellite internet from either HughesNet or ViaSat? Both charge quite a bit for slow speeds and have bad data caps, not to mention the very poor latency of geostationary orbit communications satellites.
FWIW, Starlink should not be compared to existing satellite ISPs. They are a new category of ISP, and are explicitly competing against ground-based Providers like Comcast.
In that light, $99/month does not necessarily seem unreasonable, but it is on the high end of the spectrum.
I disagree. Starlink does not compete with many wired options. I live in a relatively small US city with access to fiber and speeds of 1 gb/s for $50 a month with no data caps.
Starlink can be used anywhere in the world, just like traditional geostationary satellite internet. Once Starlink is up and running, there will be practically no reason for the other satellite internet companies to exist unless they drastically cut their costs to consumers. They lose out on speed, latency, and caps, and probably price.
That's simply not true. The maximum density of customer dishes on the ground is so low that Starlink absolutely cannot compete with Comcast et al. Both basic physical practicalities and everything Starlink/SpaceX/Elon have ever said line up behind the service competing squarely with GEO satellite internet providers and virtually no one else.
We don't know what the price will be later. This is for early adopters, some of whom will happily pay this much to beta-test.
I would expect the price to remain above cable and DSL Internet prices due to limited bandwidth. It might be a good option for a business or school in a remote area, though.
I would actually think that prices would go up once they leave beta. The beta testers are probably being subsidized so that Starlink can test the feasibility of the idea.
In a sense it would be “subsidized” at just about any price. SpaceX has been spending their own money up front without getting revenue, so sure, it’s been operating at a loss, and the beta program probably won’t change that.
But I would guess that later there will be more limits on usage.
This doesn't really imply anything other than that $99 is what they think will maximise potential profit in the US market. This is the kind of business where a huge amount of the spending is a one-off investment, and then the marginal cost per user approaches zero by comparison. I'm expecting region-specific and/or priority tiered pricing, with dishes & hotspots designed to be used per-community rather than per-household.
The other concerns absolutely still stand, and I'm not dismissing them, but it's far too early to make a call on how people will access services like this over the next 5-10 years.
For reference, here is an old plot I found on Twitter showing that even if they got the price down to $60/mo, it would still be too expensive for the vast majorities of countries that need it. At $90/mo it is even worse.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say for the unaffordable countries they will not be targeting consumers, but rather their gov or forign powers that provide aid money. It would totally kill any local initiative to establish internet, pushing them towards total dependence. It's fucking diabolical.
Is it viable to split the bill to multiple tenants?
In lighter-hearted news, TIL (from the PDFs linked in this Reddit comment) that the Starlink user antenna is referred to as "Dishy McFlatface".