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Starlink Direct to Cell

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631–640 of 831 posts

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#631
Tangent: my understanding is the Zuckerberg wanted to do something similar and even paid SpaceX to launch a satellite (which was unsuccessful).

It seems Musk liked the idea so much that he decided to do it himself.

To me, this (along with Zuck's issues with Apple over the app store) explains a lot about why Zuck 2.0 has been so focused with avoiding platform risk with recent endeavours.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#632

This is the nomad dream. Have a single phone service and wander anywhere on the planet with it. No more having to swap SIMs out on every border, being unable to use text-based 2FA, forcing friends to contact only via messaging apps, system messages in a foreign language, etc. It's not the coverage; that's mostly good. It's not the price; mostly SIM cards and plans are cheaper when travelling than they are at home. It…

There are already services like Firsty[1] that use an eSIM to achieve this.

1. https://www.firsty.app/

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#633
post #226

[flagged]

I wish there was a competitor. I guess Amazon has project Kuiper, but sounds like it's way behind. https://www.aboutamazon.com/what-we-do/devices-services/proj...

Don't underestimate Bezos's ability to spend money. New Glenn's development has been extremely slow and dull, Blue Origin has never put anything into orbit after nearly 25 years, but despite this they've managed to produce engines that work (evidenced by a single Vulcan launch) and New Glenn may actually fly soon, in the next year or two maybe.

If New Glenn works, with first stage reusability, then Blue Origin could be a few years behind in launching Kuiper as a Starlink competitor. Outside of what's going on in China, Blue Origin is probably the most likely to succeed in competing with SpaceX.

Don't get me wrong, I like RocketLab. But going against SpaceX will be a long race requiring deep pockets that can fund years of unprofitable development.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#634

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

Odd. You seem to be overjoyed at the possible birth of a monopoly situation? I think your emotions and tribal instinct would be better served towards something more benign, like football or baseball ... Lest your voting intentions become equally malignant.

You seem to have a lot of creativity in your judgements as none of this follows from his comment.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#635

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

I would not count China out.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#636

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

Odd. You seem to be overjoyed at the possible birth of a monopoly situation? I think your emotions and tribal instinct would be better served towards something more benign, like football or baseball ... Lest your voting intentions become equally malignant.

Perhaps they merely mean it's awesome to have one global satellite broadband service, and one semi-affordable launch option, instead of zero which is what we had before?

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no inherent reason for this to be a winner takes all market. Economics? Competitors would have to match SpaceX's vertical integration: Satellite design, reusable launches at cost, its exiting armada of satellites, and its moving target of customer penetration. The latter is huge. Starlink is clearly not satisfied leaving any satellite demand on the table. There is no military on Earth that has demand for sa…

"SpaceX is really good and it's hard to compete with them" is not an economic reason for it to be winner takes all. Economic reasons would be, for example, regulations that either explicitly or implicitly prohibit others from competing, as are present in many terrestrial ISP markets. Some way for SpaceX to corner the market for some essential resource like spectrum or orbits and exclude competitors that way.

Vertical integration is definitely one. It's such a big factor it can cause regulators to break up a company. See Google/Chrome as an example from last week.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For obvious reasons I think it's pretty safe to say we can count on at least the next four years of zero regulation or government scrutiny of any company Musk is involved in, monopoly-related or otherwise.

Safe to say? You sure about that? I’d say it’s just as likely that six months from now there will be a falling out, Musk will be called a pathetic loser, government agencies will be turned against him, etc. If past behavior is any kind of indicator, it’s more likely than not. I would not be surprised if we see Musk doing a perp walk within 12 months.

Trump is likely to have an entirely unexpected terminal medical event before his term is over.

The nation will mourn his heroic patriotism. Then business will carry on as usual, only more so, with a more compliant leader.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd. You seem to be overjoyed at the possible birth of a monopoly situation? I think your emotions and tribal instinct would be better served towards something more benign, like football or baseball ... Lest your voting intentions become equally malignant.

You seem to have a lot of creativity in your judgements as none of this follows from his comment.

It's litterally the last sentence:

...any competitor. It’s over. And IMO it’s awesome.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#640
post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the reason that Starlink charges so much more for boats is low competition? Or is there something obviously much more complex / expensive about beaming gigs of data from space over the ocean vs land? I don't write this post with any spite; I am genuinely curious.

Starlink is normally a single hop from a home to a satellite and then down to a base station hooked up to fiber. To work over the ocean you pass messages between satellites potentially several hops and then eventually down to a base station, but that’s inherently constrained as with all mess topologies you get far less bandwidth than initially seems possible. So in part it’s overhead to deal with inefficiencies and i…

    > Starlink is normally a single hop from a home to a satellite and then down to a base station
Is this true? If yes, how do you know it?
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