Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 399 posts

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#351

Post by modo_mario »

buckle8017 wrote: post #345
modo_mario wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this even more of a monopoly utility? In theory you could have multiple providers but it just doesn't happen much due to market dynamics and incentives. In this case if I understood it well there's a limit to the amount of satellites we can send into space at those heights and that space is essentially privatized for free uncontested and ESA and China's CNSA already complained about near collision events. So no…

ESA and CNSA were always going to complain, real problems or not.

Why would that be? Having to pull tricks to dodge satellites seems like a valid one.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#352

Post by bs7280 »

kevincox wrote: post #41
theultdev wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joining United MileagePlus is completely free, you just sign up. About the same work as filling out a hotel wifi login.

Completely free as in you don't have to give them money. But you need to give personal information which also has value.

That's why I exclusively pay cash and don't show an ID when I fly /s

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#353

Post by infinitewars »

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #295
infinitewars wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just created the straw man argument about the CIA directly funding SpaceX. Not that simple. Read the articles.

> SpaceX was in fact founded with the architect of SDI > Griffin who went from the CIA to become head of NASA and funded the early SpaceX (10x from what Musk himself put in!) Strawman eh? You pretty much claimed that Griffin funded SpaceX, and not just that, that he invested 10x as much as Musk. Now you go around editing your comments. Lol. It is not a strawman to say that what you said is non even nearly close to re…

Everything I said is correct. Griffin previous led SDI, later controlling NASA, directing 10x funding to SpaceX (before they had ever had any launch success), Griffin having previously been President of In-Q-Tel the venture capital arm of the CIA, Griffin was also part of the original visit to Russia with Musk on 2001 to look at ICBMs.

This is all very well documented. NASA provided the funds, not the CIA directly, so I'm simply not sure why you feel the need to keep insisting on that particular strawman argument. I do hope these facts aren't too bothersome just because they don't quite fit the usual Mars narrative.

Because, wouldn't you know it, Mr. Griffin was also a leader over at the Mars Society! He gave the co-keynote speech for Elon's original Mars Oasis pitch right there at their gathering. You can still find it written down in the old meeting agendas, if you'd ever care to take a look for yourself.

I've been in the industry for 35 years. Don't take everything these magical leaders say at face value. The reality is more down to earth.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#354

Post by vablings »

modeless wrote: post #197
devin wrote: post #126

I've written it elsewhere, but: it is such a shame that the United States saw fit to run electricity _everywhere_, no matter how rural your location, but instead of do the same for rural internet we had to wait for... a private company to launch a global network of satellites. Yes, this post is about internet access while traveling 500mph, which is a different problem, but it is so messed up that people fall over the…

You have it exactly backwards. It is far less complex and expensive and resource intensive to build Starlink than to run a new copper or fiber line with associated telecom equipment on both sides to every rural residence in the US, let alone worldwide. Yes, despite the large cost of launching satellites. And it's especially good that we don't have to force everyone to subsidize inefficient monopoly utilities with our…

For just ONE Starlink v3 it weighs around 2000kg and right now falcon heavy has an estimated cost per kg of $1,500 dollars so $3,000,000 per unit to orbit and let's say around $1,000,000 for the v3 itself. According to SpaceX each satellite can support 60 Tbsp downlink (I highly doubt this just purely based on the compute required) but assuming that is true that's 60,000 Gbps or 60,000 customers at 1 Gbps. The biggest issue here is that each satellite only lasts for approx. 7 years in LEO before its deorbited vs a fiber link last basically forever

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#355

Post by iknowstuff »

wooger wrote: post #321
TulliusCicero wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people will be really mad about this comment, but it's absolutely correct. Broadly speaking, very rural living is generally a lifestyle choice. Yes, not everyone can afford to live in big cities, but there are typically small towns in the general vicinity of rural areas that are quite affordable. Of course, there are exceptions where you truly need the space, like if you're a farmer, but that's not most people i…

Being a farmer is also a lifestyle choice.

So what, you want to give them everything for free? They make good money, they don’t need further subsidies beyond what they receive for farming

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#356

Post by iknowstuff »

gib444 wrote: post #325
vineyardmike wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the aspects of life "outside the city" are subsidized by the city. It's affordable because of this, and the cities are extra unaffordable as a result. There are many small towns who will never generate the tax revenue to cover their $50M highway off-ramp and associated infrastructure. The thread was about internet, which has also been subsidized. We subside oil so driving long distances is cheaper. We subsidi…

So if 10 million people from rural towns moved to their nearest cities, the cities would become cheaper? What would drop in price exactly?

Yes, if you compare the efficiency of China’s economy to America, you’ll find that their giant cities save them a ton of money on everything overall. As long as you’re willing to build a lot of dense housing very quickly.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#357

Post by infinitewars »

panick21_ wrote: post #318
infinitewars wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RV is a great use case but a tiny market. For fixed broadband the others are cheaper most everywhere in the U.S. that people actually live .

The markets are additive. The great thing about Starlink is that it is GLOBAL. Meaning if you want to offer it for ships and planes (where there are no alternatives) you might as well also offer it to RV. And to rural people. And to the military. And you can do so in every country on the whole planet at the same time. Having a few 1000s of sats to cover the whole planet is crazy efficient.

If you look at just the satellites, the build + launch costs are about $2.5M ea, which is impressive to be sure. But they only last 5 years, so that's $500k per year replacement costs. Then if you look at their capacity, they still can't meet their FCC / RDOF broadband designation speeds, but let's be generous and say they can serve 1000 simultaneous users per satellite (their current ratio, let's say it's good enough, incl. oversubscription ratio). So that already means 50%-100% of the entire monthly Internet bill from a consumer is going to just be replacing satellites. Let alone everything else to be an ISP.

This is very basic math. They need to launch more satellites if they want to hit their RDOF throughput goals and serve customers in the remaining areas. The most valuable extra-rural areas were low hanging fruit and already drying up.. the future addressable market is more dense and competitive suburban areas, which further limits the number of users per satellite because everyone shares the same spot beam spectrum.

But as you know well--having your personal connections to SpaceX it seems as you always defend them on HN--Starlink is about Golden Dome not consumer internet, so the private markets will fund it.

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#358

Post by nxm »

odo1242 wrote: post #282
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not groupthink to believe that the guy sucks and is a threat to humanity. Wow, that’s a wild misstatement; that is exactly groupthink nonsense. You (people) loved him before he went in for Trump.

Before he went in for Trump he created an obviously fake, insanely expensive system that could never work in practice (Hyperloop) just to slow down California rail projects

California rail projects fail because it’s California

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#359

Post by nxm »

iknowstuff wrote: post #355
wooger wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a farmer is also a lifestyle choice.

So what, you want to give them everything for free? They make good money, they don’t need further subsidies beyond what they receive for farming

You need to examine economics of being a farmer these days…. They do not make good money

Re: Show HN: Will my flight have Starlink?

#360

Post by mattmaroon »

infinitewars wrote: post #357
panick21_ wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The markets are additive. The great thing about Starlink is that it is GLOBAL. Meaning if you want to offer it for ships and planes (where there are no alternatives) you might as well also offer it to RV. And to rural people. And to the military. And you can do so in every country on the whole planet at the same time. Having a few 1000s of sats to cover the whole planet is crazy efficient.

If you look at just the satellites, the build + launch costs are about $2.5M ea, which is impressive to be sure. But they only last 5 years, so that's $500k per year replacement costs. Then if you look at their capacity, they still can't meet their FCC / RDOF broadband designation speeds, but let's be generous and say they can serve 1000 simultaneous users per satellite (their current ratio, let's say it's good enoug…

I live in a city. Like a large number of Americans, I had one broadband provider available for 20 years. (Something like 75% of us have 1 or 2).

The price was high and the service was bad. I struggled to reliably achieve 20mbs at $80/mo.

Starlink is better than that, and it’s millions of people. 5g home internet is slow to spread here too.

Their market is large.

Post reply on HN