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SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

zdnet.com

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Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#91

Post by dylan604 »

wolvoleo wrote: post #79
lowkey_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and,…

Who digs up fibres to sell? It's worthless material. Copper yes but nobody lays that anymore. If it even has to be metal it's usually mostly aluminium.

You'd be amazed at how unintelligent about things tweakers are. They don't know it is fibre when they are taking it. It doesn't keep all of the users on the other end of those lines from losing signal.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#92

Post by dmix »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

I have a friend who lives 1.5hrs outside Toronto and needs Starlink because ISPs don’t offer anything useful. Same with a family member with a house even closer to Toronto. These aren’t far off North Ontario rural houses and there’s tons of people living up there.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#93

Post by arpinum »

lowkey_ wrote: post #31
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and,…

Starlink is popular in rural England. Trenching fibre to farmland isn't economical and poor DSL is often the only other option.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#94

Post by 486sx33 »

dmix wrote: post #92
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

I have a friend who lives 1.5hrs outside Toronto and needs Starlink because ISPs don’t offer anything useful. Same with a family member with a house even closer to Toronto. These aren’t far off North Ontario rural houses and there’s tons of people living up there.

[dead]

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#95

Post by rjsw »

wolvoleo wrote: post #79
lowkey_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant. Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and,…

Who digs up fibres to sell? It's worthless material. Copper yes but nobody lays that anymore. If it even has to be metal it's usually mostly aluminium.

They dig up the fibre to check that it isn't copper.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#96

Post by jordanb »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

This was always the sour economics of satellite internet.

Satellite internet works for a low density of customers spread evenly across the globe. But customers are not spread evenly they mostly live in megalopolist regions that can be served more efficiently with land infrastructure.

Worse most of the people not in the megalopolists have less money to spend on internet services.

So your customer base are limited to people who aren't already served by better/cheaper terrestrial internet, but who can pay for better internet.

Those people exist but the history of satellite internet service hasn't been a massive money printer. Most providers have struggled to stay solvent let alone produce great returns for shareholders.

Paul Allen wanted to build a megaconstellation back in the 1990s but then Iridium went bankrupt twice.

Iridium ended up being rescued by the US military. I wonder if this is ultimately SpaceX's plan.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#97

Post by MostlyStable »

swingandamiss wrote: post #12
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

I have fiber (I can get up to 300 Gbps at my home in the Seattle area, but I got opted for the 2Gbps) and I have Starlink as backup/failover. I previously used my mobile service for that but learned the hard way that when there's a large internet outage in the area, as it did when we had a bad storm, so does mobile service, either power loss or it can't support the influx of everyone using their phone internet. So no…

300Gbps? Is that typo? Unless you are connecting to some very particular infrastructure on the other one, nothing you could possibly connect to could use it, and you would need gear that would be somewhat high end even for server grade.

(I know you said you didn't select that option, but just the idea that it's even offered to residential units is mind blowing).

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#98

Post by bergie »

tyjen wrote: post #80
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

There's many isolated communities abroad that benefit from this coverage. Plus, when I begin my solo sailing adventure, I intend to use Starlink as my primary method to maintain contact, of course with traditional methods serving as backup.

Starlink has worked great for us so far from Europe to Polynesia. Prices keep going up, so would be nice if the service had actual competition.

The backups are sadly becoming trickier, as fewer and fewer carry SSB radios or operate shore stations.

And yet we do have SSB, and also an Inreach as backups. You never know when Elon wakes up and decides he doesn't like sailors.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#100

Post by fragmede »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

But would that have happened that way if Starlink hadn't come about?
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