91–100 of 127 posts
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OneWeb bought 21 Soyuz launches at once, which is enough for the initial constellation.
That was smart, wonder if they can get a refund. :)
I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.
Many companies pass through a time where the current business is marginal, but sustainable growth is just around the corner. COVID-19's worldwide supply and transport disruption coming at just the wrong time can absolutely sink a business that was skirting too close to the edge.
I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.
> an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail Not necessarily. SpaceX has an advantage in owning the rails. It isn’t, however, decisive. OneWeb failed to bring any advantages of its own to the table. It compounded its launch and first mover disadvantages by launching with ArianeSpace. It gave away any satellite advantages by using Airbus to make the birds. There…
SpaceX seems to be doing everything themselves. Amazon seems to be doing a lot but will likely outsource launching of the birds. Wouldn't be surprised if they fly on SpaceX rockets in part....
I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.
> an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail Not necessarily. SpaceX has an advantage in owning the rails. It isn’t, however, decisive. OneWeb failed to bring any advantages of its own to the table. It compounded its launch and first mover disadvantages by launching with ArianeSpace. It gave away any satellite advantages by using Airbus to make the birds. There…
It would seem that in this case, it was.
I don't think it's exactly fair of them to blame "financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19" for their bankruptcy. The history of space industry is full of companies that ran out of money when attempting to launch massive satellite constellations. And let's be frank, an attempt to out-compete SpaceX on mass satellite production and cheap launches was doomed to fail.
Many companies pass through a time where the current business is marginal, but sustainable growth is just around the corner. COVID-19's worldwide supply and transport disruption coming at just the wrong time can absolutely sink a business that was skirting too close to the edge.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Internet is a commodity for the average person, you can't make money in that market. This assumes that razor thin margins are bad, which is usually a safe assumption but in the case of Starlink, I say it's not open minded enough. To boot Starlink online requires a minimum cost for service area (sats), but once you've got that area booted, onboarding new customers is trivial (vs laying fiber, cable, digging holes).…
How about if the offer was $1000 plus $10 per Mb/s and the maximum is 10Mbps ? You would switch because you've imagined this service is magically cheaper and better, but now I say it'll be expensive and worse are you still enthusiastic? Providing network service is a utility, and so yes razor thin margins are typical and that's too bad. It does make very high capital investment (such as launching huge numbers of sate…
Yeah, there are a lot of places in the US--some of which aren't even really all that rural--that just don't have good Internet options. Today, satellite basically falls into the slightly better than nothing category but it's neither price-competitive nor good if you have essentially any other option. While I know people in tech who make do with only a satellite connection, I'm sure many reading this wouldn't consider that viable and it will be increasingly less so over time.
5G will presumably help in some cases as it rolls out but it certainly won't reach everywhere. And, presumably, over time places that don't have a certain level of Internet access will be increasingly unsuitable at least for long-term residence.
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They eventually re-enter the atmosphere and burn up, especially if they’re low orbit.
They aren't in a low orbit, the decay time is a lot more than 25 years.
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I grew up in a rural area. We had dial-up for years until we got point to point wireless, which capped out at 1.5 mbps. 3 of my team members live in a rural area and have similar internet. They’re all waiting to throw money at spacex as soon as it goes live. There’s millions of people in the US like them that would sign up. My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting d…
"My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting decent internet (we have symmetric gigabit fiber now)." Exactly my situation. I have symmetric gigabit and due to a nature of my business requiring symmetric fat pipe I have to live in a city. The minute I could get that gigabit in a wilderness I am out.
It definitely was an impactful change for us at first. I had to change some work workflows to do heavy network stuff on a remote machine. It took some time to refine and make (nearly) as efficient as doing it locally. I also had to sandbox all the streaming gadgets in the house and limit their bandwidth allowance.
But, the key for me was to move to an area with a reputable, locally owned WISP. It took a couple years but I found it. My WISP is run by an ex-IBMer down the road from me. The network is rock solid and goes down less than Comcast. I’m 10ms away from the nearest Google PoP. Everything on the network is solar-first.
These WISPs are out there and they make the decision to move to the country at lot easier.
Keep an eye out! I’m out in Colorado- Email me if you want to know where to look around here for good internet in a rural area.
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Ariane 6 only makes sense if you view launch capability as a matter of national security.
Given that most nations in Europe are happy to launch on US rockets (as the Germans did), that really basically means the national security of France. Seems to me its more of a jobs program that claims 'national security' as a reason.
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"My wife and I are planning to move further from the city, but one of our concerns is getting decent internet (we have symmetric gigabit fiber now)." Exactly my situation. I have symmetric gigabit and due to a nature of my business requiring symmetric fat pipe I have to live in a city. The minute I could get that gigabit in a wilderness I am out.
FWIW, I’m founder and CTO of a SaaS company and moved from an apartment in the city with symmetric gigabit out to the country with a 20/10 connection. It definitely was an impactful change for us at first. I had to change some work workflows to do heavy network stuff on a remote machine. It took some time to refine and make (nearly) as efficient as doing it locally. I also had to sandbox all the streaming gadgets in…