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Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

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Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#101

Post by brandon272 »

pstuart wrote: post #99
brandon272 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this hard to imagine. There are so many rural customers where it is totally uneconomical to run fiber vs. just paying for Starlink.

5G internet seems to be a decent compromise for that -- much simpler infra at least.

I might be biased because I live in an area where it is fairly easy to find locations that don't have cellular coverage and won't have cellular coverage anytime soon.

Globally, there's a lot of places that are sparsely inhabited but too remote to warrant strong cellular connectivity. There's also a lot of "nooks and crannies" geographically that are not well served by cellular. As an example, I have a property in an area with excellent 5G coverage but my specific property is in a valley removing line of sight between me and the local tower, meaning reception is virtually nil. I can't even make a phone call. Without Starlink my only option would be to rely on a local WISP to set up some kind of repeater system that would have far lower reliability/performance and significantly higher cost.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#102

Post by lxgr »

crowcroft wrote: post #77
lxgr wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say there's plenty of room for competitors along multiple dimensions: Geopolitical security (this alone will probably preclude a single monopoly), price and lack of a moat (once a monopolist starts jacking up prices, there's an immediate incentive for an alternative), delivery profile (store-and-forward for IoT-like use cases vs. dumb pipe vs. in-space forwarding), frequency band (L- or S-band for direct to devic…

I disagree on some of those dimensions (esp. lack of a moat), but agree things like geopolitics and security would lead to multiple wholesale providers. My concern is that globally international relations are an absolute MESS, but there really needs to be some level of coordination here.

As I see it, the moat for terrestrial (and in particular wire-based) last-mile comms infrastructure is that each additional customer connected is often expensive, and if they switch to your competition, that wire is basically a sunk investment.

For wireless, the dynamics are very different (as long as spectrum isn't monopolized). As soon as you have enough satellites launched for global coverage, you can compete for all customers, and each one that switches away to the competition is more bandwidth available to you to undercut your competitor on pricing with.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#103

Post by lxgr »

mrguyorama wrote: post #96
bequanna wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Post-Jobs Apple seems paralyzed and unable to commit to any big moves. It is impossible to overstate the success of the iPhone, but there are so many recent examples where they dipped their toes in only to fail or be left behind (autos, VR, AI, etc). What will the next 20 years of Apple look like? Just more iPhones?

The same as it has for about the past 20 years? Take a 30% cut of all transactions that ever happen as long as an iPhone was somewhere in the process. Charging a high fee to be a middleman is insanely profitable. People shouldn't be surprised that companies that get there don't do anything else.

I'm not surprised, but I think it's fair to find it upsetting. It's a twofold loss: A loss of competition in all markets that Apple monopolizes, and a loss of everybody working towards protecting that golden goose instead of actually improving the product.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#104

Post by readitalready »

testing22321 wrote: post #89
readitalready wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real viable long-term business model for these constellations are for the military or other socialized use. They are completely unprofitable otherwise. Eventually even Starlink will lose money, as more and more rural regions around the world are wired for fiber.

> more and more rural regions around the world are wired for fiber. Ecuador has the highest rate of cell phone ownership in the world, because they never built landlines and just went straight to wireless. Same with electricity in many African countries -no grid, straight to local solar. When I see comments like this it’s obvious you’re talking about West Virginia or Nevada as “rural regions around the world” Go spen…

ok but that just makes Starlink even more unprofitable, as now you're limited by the number of customers.

The moment these people incorporate into a village, it becomes more profitable to build a fiber connection. Fiber will eventually get to Ecuador.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#105

Post by readitalready »

brandon272 wrote: post #87
readitalready wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real viable long-term business model for these constellations are for the military or other socialized use. They are completely unprofitable otherwise. Eventually even Starlink will lose money, as more and more rural regions around the world are wired for fiber.

I find this hard to imagine. There are so many rural customers where it is totally uneconomical to run fiber vs. just paying for Starlink.

There really aren't that many people around the world that would make Starlink profitable in the long run. Only about 1% of the global population are farmers, so that already limits your market. And the moment a village is formed, the economics favor fiber to that village over Starlink.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#106

Post by saltcured »

brandon272 wrote: post #101
pstuart wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5G internet seems to be a decent compromise for that -- much simpler infra at least.

I might be biased because I live in an area where it is fairly easy to find locations that don't have cellular coverage and won't have cellular coverage anytime soon. Globally, there's a lot of places that are sparsely inhabited but too remote to warrant strong cellular connectivity. There's also a lot of "nooks and crannies" geographically that are not well served by cellular. As an example, I have a property in an…

Yes, but the question is what fraction of the population is in these niches and does that provide enough subscription revenue to fund the constellation?

If many others find a cheaper and more reliable path, the customer base collapses.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#107

Post by saltcured »

kumarvvr wrote: post #2

So, Amazon wants to own the tubes too? I guess the stack should be completed with this. AWS servers, satellite communications, boxes to view content on TVs, apps on mobiles, content creation studios, advertising, product placement, product sales. Whew! I guess they also want expertise to launch stuff into space, in case it becomes feasible to run space data centers.

Well if they really want to be full stack, they need to also get down into pharmaceuticals and bio-engineering, right?

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#108

Post by brandon272 »

saltcured wrote: post #106
brandon272 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be biased because I live in an area where it is fairly easy to find locations that don't have cellular coverage and won't have cellular coverage anytime soon. Globally, there's a lot of places that are sparsely inhabited but too remote to warrant strong cellular connectivity. There's also a lot of "nooks and crannies" geographically that are not well served by cellular. As an example, I have a property in an…

Yes, but the question is what fraction of the population is in these niches and does that provide enough subscription revenue to fund the constellation? If many others find a cheaper and more reliable path, the customer base collapses.

Well, my point is that these niches are probably more commonplace than people who live in areas blanketed by multiple 5G providers probably assume. I'm sure there are Starlink customers using it as an option in some interim period while they wait for fiber to be rolled out to their neighbourhood or town, but anecdotally, I don't know any Starlink customers who are in that boat. We exist in locations that will not be served by cheaper, more reliable terrestrial options anytime soon.

Even "cheaper" is quickly becoming a question mark. Starlink is offering 100mbps plans for $50-$70/mo. which in my region makes it cheaper or on par with options from cellular providers (which are capped) or options from cable/fiber providers.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#109

Post by anvuong »

krisroadruck wrote: post #72
crowcroft wrote: post #54

Naive question - let's assume this all becomes a really competitive market and 10+ companies are pumping satellites into orbit. Are we going to run out of space? At some point it probably makes the most sense for there to be one wholesaler of satellite connections and then many retailers right? The market skews towards being an international natural monopoly, right?

It would be incredibly unlikely for there to be enough competition at a grand enough scale for it to become a problem. Space is just very big. Earth's surface is ~197 million sq miles. If you move up to a LEO shell at around 550 miles up, the surface area of that sphere is 34% larger than that. If you were to distribute 100,000 satellites across that shell, each one would have 2,600 square miles to itself. That's lik…

But crashing in LEO is not as disastrous as GEO or higher. It's an unstable orbit so eventually everything will deorbit, crash, and burn. May take a while though.

Re: Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network

#110

Post by testing22321 »

readitalready wrote: post #104
testing22321 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more and more rural regions around the world are wired for fiber. Ecuador has the highest rate of cell phone ownership in the world, because they never built landlines and just went straight to wireless. Same with electricity in many African countries -no grid, straight to local solar. When I see comments like this it’s obvious you’re talking about West Virginia or Nevada as “rural regions around the world” Go spen…

ok but that just makes Starlink even more unprofitable, as now you're limited by the number of customers. The moment these people incorporate into a village, it becomes more profitable to build a fiber connection. Fiber will eventually get to Ecuador.

Starlink was never supposed to be for anyone that can have fibre.

There are billions of potential customers.

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