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SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

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Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#71

Post by mschuster91 »

ObsoleteNerd wrote: post #43
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Verizon 4G first launched I had a 45mbps connection all over silicon valley. Then adoption spread and my data rates on the same device dropped to 5mbps. Loading matters!

Our Wireless NBN install in rural(ish, 1 hour from a capital city) Australia went from 25mbps to 0.1-0.5mbps and has sat there for 2 years until we gave up calling them monthly to complain, and switched to a 4G booster and just tethered to our phones. Due to blatant corruption there’s zero competition for broadband here, just resellers of the same system. If Starlink can even sustain 20mbps+ and rolls out to rural Au…

> Considering it doesn’t require any infrastructure, I can’t see how our tech-illiterate decrepit government can stop it. Just sell the modems online and ship directly worldwide.

Make unlicensed operation of the dishes illegal, detect violators using an AWACS plane if detector vans are not sensitive enough to detect beams formed directly to the sky. Even if a country's government can't touch SpaceX directly, the users are still a good target.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#72

Post by tpmx »

mrauha wrote: post #3

I'm in the (slow) process of acquiring and fitting a sailboat for living at remote places. While I acknowledge that the cheapening of satellite internet will be nice, practical, and make my plans more realizable money-wise, I'm also a bit sad on what this implies to the taking a real distance to the information overloaded society.

A practical concern with Starlink in this scenario is that the dish consumes ~100 watts.

Bring 2 square meters of solar panel, an inverter and some batteries and hope for sun.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#73

Post by vidarh »

dkarp wrote: post #64
darkhorn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Starlink's main customer the USA army?

Early on there was also a lot of talk about High Frequency Trading firms being a prime customer. Once they have inter-satellite laser links, the latency over large distances can be significantly less than via undersea fiberoptic cables. I believe this is to do with the difference in speed of light in the cable and also indirect path that light takes as it bounces along a cable. Over inter-continental distances, the b…

Even if you did line-of-sight links on the ground, and had a "perfect" route that didn't require deviating to avoid any obstacles, the curvature of the Earth means you'd need far more relays introducing latency.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#74

Post by mschuster91 »

jcims wrote: post #60
unixhero wrote: post #50

I don't understand why they are slow to roll it out. The world needs this service, NOW.

It’s not ready yet. They don’t have enough satellites in operation yet and as a result it goes offline for short spells throughout the day. They are also estimated to be losing about $1900 per dish sold. I’m sure they want to get that number down before they really go into mass production. Lastly, there’s going to be regulatory hurdles in every country they release in.

> I’m sure they want to get that number down before they really go into mass production.

For what it's worth scale matters a lot in pricing - the more you order of chips, the cheaper they get. I've seen 30x differences in per-unit price for 10 to 10k pieces for chips. For PCBs and injection molding of plastic cases, the situation is similar - especially for plastic cases, where the actual material worth of the plastic is negligible, but the setup costs for (sometimes multiple) rounds of milling molds until the quality of the parts is sufficient are enormous, to the range of 80-100k per mold.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#75

Post by master-12 »

Someone wrote: post #48

Reading it cynically/critically/literally, one could interpret it as counting users, not customers (so a family of four sharing a link would count as four users). They also mention “thousands of customers”, so I guess that reading may be correct. Also, as to economics, Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink ) says there will be up to 30,000 of these satellites. Even if (from https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1…

I've read somewhere that Starlink has the potential of replacing private optic cable connections between world stock exchanges, providing its customers (read micro trading companies) latency advantage.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#76

Post by MrLeap »

A lot of these comments read kind of like the ones when dropbox did a ShowHN. "Why not just use rsync?"

I suspect starlink will change the course of human history in substantial ways. It already stands to be the most positive technological development for my life since I've been living.

At the very least, until the market adjusts, it will provide a verdant field of lifestyle arbitrage.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#77

Post by paranoidrobot »

mercora wrote: post #65
solarkraft wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One customer I weirdly haven't seen mentioned is high frequency traders. Shouldn't Starlink's latency be lower than that of cables?

would that help them though? i mean it appears to me they are already as close as possible to avoid latency and use microwave links and stuff so that is pretty hard to beat i guess. the only thing i can easily imagine being beneficial is getting information across the globe faster but then i lack the skills to see how one profits from that, ie. being closer would still be better, no?

Mark Handley has done a bunch of videos analysing this on his channel[0].

The TLDR is that there is a lot of room for Starlink to beat existing terrestrial options IF they can get the laser links working on-orbit. This video[1] shows estimates using what was known about proposed configurations in 2018

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-k1j7M2-hBfXeECd9YAQ_g

[1] https://youtu.be/QEIUdMiColU?t=237

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#78

Post by wscott »

vidarh wrote: post #73
dkarp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early on there was also a lot of talk about High Frequency Trading firms being a prime customer. Once they have inter-satellite laser links, the latency over large distances can be significantly less than via undersea fiberoptic cables. I believe this is to do with the difference in speed of light in the cable and also indirect path that light takes as it bounces along a cable. Over inter-continental distances, the b…

Even if you did line-of-sight links on the ground, and had a "perfect" route that didn't require deviating to avoid any obstacles, the curvature of the Earth means you'd need far more relays introducing latency.

But speed of light in space is faster than the speed of light in fiber making it an overall win. And high-speed traders will pay a lot for a millsecond.

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#79

Post by rich_sasha »

solarkraft wrote: post #56
kilroy123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I mostly agree with you, as I too have traveled a lot (I've been to all 7 continents). I've been to many places with very poor internet. Still, I think you're missing one very important point. The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. Just how they use the iridium constellation, only phone calls aren't enough in the 2020 and beyond. They need the same system but w…

One customer I weirdly haven't seen mentioned is high frequency traders. Shouldn't Starlink's latency be lower than that of cables?

How would they be faster than microwave / laser terrestial towers, that already travel around the great arc?

Re: SpaceX says Starlink now has over 10k users

#80

Post by rvnx »

kilroy123 wrote: post #55
clon wrote: post #51

As an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer, I'm biased against the massive cost of the StarLink pollution fleet to our ability to gaze at the wonders above. I think the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a much higher priority project for humanity, than StarLink. That said, I think Elon needs to travel the world a little more. Several of his attempts to solve purported world-relevant issues may be founded in limitation…

While I mostly agree with you, as I too have traveled a lot (I've been to all 7 continents). I've been to many places with very poor internet. Still, I think you're missing one very important point. The likely biggest user of this system will be the US military and Department of Defense. Just how they use the iridium constellation, only phone calls aren't enough in the 2020 and beyond. They need the same system but w…

About the DoD, I think Starlink will be beneficial as UAVs will be able to stream with less latency and higher quality, which eventually means better targeted democracy.
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