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

zdnet.com

421–430 of 1001 posts

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

#421

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.

It's closer to only 10% the money to spend on such things, and that gap is closing rapidly. The poorest African countries these days still have a GDP in the low thousands per capita, and poorish central Europe trends to have low tens of thousands per capita. I could see 5 families in rural west Africa or something deciding to pool their funds to get one shared Starlink connection if they didn't have cheaper internet available some other way.

Moreover the utility of internet connection faces an extreme amount of diminishing returns - hear me out on this. You can very easily download an entire plaintext book on a subject you need to study up on in a few seconds with even a 100 Kbps connection, from any where and for any reason, and that's immensely valuable if previously you didn't have access to it before. You can't stream YouTube on it, but a YouTube instructional victory makes whatever you're doing merely easier, not possible.

WhatsApp and text messages, as well. It's very cheap to send a couple bytes back and forth to coordinate eg local market prices in fish, and so if you and a couple buddies team up to get one starlink connection you can very quickly tear the volatility of your local first market prices to shreds. I'm extrapolating from an earlier study that found just such an effect after cell phones were introduced to rural areas.

I guess my overall point is don't rule out the transformative effects that a few very reliable low bandwidth connections can have on an area. If the Romans discovered AM radio (possible given their late tech) we'd probably all still be speaking Latin, even though they couldn't play Fortnite.

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

#422
My understanding is that Starlink can only service ~6-7 houses per square mile today. The US is ~95/sq. mile on average. 80% of Americans live in "cities."

Anchorage metro is ~15/sq. mile; Yuma, AZ is ~36. The Nashville metro is ~250.

Also, Starlink satellites spend ~70% of their time over the ocean. This will impact the utilization ratio of their gear and force them to launch still more satellites.

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

#423

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.

Outside of war, ships and planes, I agree with you, that their benefit doesn’t seem like all that.

But then again, I never thought WiFi would take over wired network cables, but now even my desktop is connected with WiFi.

I also didn’t think cellular would be a replacement for copper or fiber, but now my modem for the apartment is 5G.

Both ended up being good enough, easier and cheaper (!)

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted “we” are billionaires. Not only you didn’t get the point, but you still hold on to your delusions: > life for our kin will only be better. Right? In this subscription economy? Where you have just limited time to watch the movie you loved? You can’t afford to rent the house you loved let alone buy it? (previous generations could afford) the list goes on and on. Maybe stop spreading lies and see things more obj…

[flagged]

..you good bro? Anyway, things are improving but that doesn’t mean people can’t have a say in what tradeoffs they are willing to accept in return for progress.

A lot of progress has externalities and the benefits and downsides of progress are rarely equally distributed.

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

#425

I just finished a long RV trip and I can tell you it's hard to underestimate the importance of internet access (which also means Wi-Fi calling and access to maps and weather) across our entire, enormous nation. It's important not only for individuals but even more for businesses. Despite cell phone company ads with handsome celebrities in the desert, cell phones actually do not work in many places. But people do need…

This is a very wasteful way of getting communications to somewhat compensate the lack of competition in US telco market.

The star link network is actually remarkably cost effective in getting internet access to rural areas. There's a reason that these areas still have poor connectivity: it's just not cost effective for anyone to build land based infrastructure there.

SpaceX spend a few billions on StarLink. But if you look at how much network operators have spent over the years on cables, base stations, etc. it's not all that much for a network that offers high bandwidth access all over the planet.

Adding 100K more satellites is going to make Star Link a direct competitor to many of these operators.

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

#426
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with competition. You could have as many competitors as possible and no one is going to put a cell tower up in a remote location.

It has everything to do with the lack of competition. US tax payers paid $4 billion to AT&T in 2004 for fiber to -every- home. And that was never delivered, yet they keep getting more money. This is regulatory capture.

We're not talking about fiber, we are talking about cellphone coverage. As I said, no company will put a tower up in a remote area.

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted “we” are billionaires. Not only you didn’t get the point, but you still hold on to your delusions: > life for our kin will only be better. Right? In this subscription economy? Where you have just limited time to watch the movie you loved? You can’t afford to rent the house you loved let alone buy it? (previous generations could afford) the list goes on and on. Maybe stop spreading lies and see things more obj…

[flagged]

>watching their children die from easily curable infections, enduring routine tooth extractions without anesthesia, working six-day weeks around lethal machinery, watching entire neighboring towns slowly starve to death in famines, living in huts that were crawling with insects, subject to the brutal whims of whoever their local thug ruler happened to be with no human rights at all, and often being enslaved by the millions and worked to death in brutal conditions. Those softies just couldn't possibly imagine how truly hard we have it today.

A significant portion of the human populace still lives like this in various degrees today. You are just blind to it because you'd rather live in your delusion for comfort.

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

#428
Always surprises me how people feel identified with progress they didn’t participate with. These satellites have nothing to do with you. You didn’t build them nor researched about them. These are the toys of a far-right asshole. It sucks

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

#430

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.

India? LOL, India has internet connectivity of scale the kind most other countries couldn't dream of. Though most of it, sadly, is IPV4 and concentrated in oligopolies (which for now are still "generous" enough to give us 5G for cheap).
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