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Starlink Maritime

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Re: Starlink Maritime

#161

Post by dreamcompiler »

tsimionescu wrote: post #56
scrumper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think at those prices you'd have a boat big enough to have the power budget. It's clearly aimed at commercial or scientific use with a side of super yacht. I'm guessing a more affordable version more like the RV product will become available for cruising sailors in time. I think the mammoth price delta over RV is because it'll be usable offshore (starting Q4 this year) and presumably that requires some more complex…

> I think the mammoth price delta over RV is because it'll be usable offshore (starting Q4 this year) and presumably that requires some more complex satellite-to-satellite data exchange (which at a guess they want to limit usage of until it works well. Sure, just like Tesla Autopilot is right around the corner, Starship will be flying this year, the Cybertruck has been released 2 years ago etc.

This is different. The problem of providing offshore satcom with LEOsats is a quantified engineering problem. IOW, the industry knows quite well what technologies will solve the problem and Starlink has those technologies in place. The only unknown is how fast, accurate, and reliable the laser-based intersat comms will be.

None of that is true for the self-driving car problem. That problem still contains a multitude of unknowns, including unknown unknowns.

Cybertruck is yet another kind of problem. I don't know what the issue with that is but I'd guess it's about manufacturing capacity.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#162

Post by gehsty »

yardie wrote: post #27

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." Definitely aimed at the champagne caviar, St Barts crowd rather than the hard scrabble, cruiser on a fixed income. In other terms, Iridium Go is still the best value around and truly global for the time being.

Or vessels working offshore industry… having that kind of uplink speed could really change how the industries work. More ‘over the horizon’ control for equipment, immediate upload of huge point cloud files from as built surveys, constant video comunication with onshore engineers and project managers…

Re: Starlink Maritime

#163

Post by [deleted] »

Cyberdog wrote: post #48

The second sentence in the paragraph at the top of the home page is pricing. Bravo. All web sites selling a product should make the pricing this prominent. At the least, have a pricing page with actual prices on it and not a "Call us for pricing" call to inaction. Me spending time on your site researching a product which turns out to be out of my price range is just wasting your time and mine, and I don't like you wh…

[deleted]

Re: Starlink Maritime

#164

Post by aml183 »

I work in the space industry and follow SATCOM closely. This is a very competitive space. Companies like Viasat, Iridium and Inmarsat already work in this vertical.

SpaceX beats all these companies from a marketing perspective, but the big question is will a LEO operator provide better coverage than a GEO operator?

Re: Starlink Maritime

#165

Post by bri3d »

gvb wrote: post #22
cronix wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they added a gimbal or something?

The antenna is electronically steered. The pictures do not show any gimbal but they probably had to add an IMU to measure the motion of the boat (antenna) and adjust the antenna beam steering to compensate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_measurement_unit

The Starlink Dishy already has an IMU in it. It does look like maybe the beam array is simply bigger.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#166

Post by McAtNite »

obloid wrote: post #108

I've been looking forward to marine starlink with the thought of being able to work remotely while sailing. Then I saw the pricing! I guess they're aiming for the megayacht crowd not average shmoes on small boats. Interestingly it does look like people are putting starlink on sailboats with ok results: https://www.reddit.com/r/SailboatCruising/comments/vovaxs/st...

I’ve been doing the same, and I was personally hoping it would follow the same standard price + $30 that the RV crowd has gotten. I’m pretty disappointed with the cost, and I would fear that they’ll use geolocation to force you to maritime billing if they detect you’re on a boat.

It looks like my sailboat remote life is still on hold for the time being.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#167

Post by silisili »

yardie wrote: post #27

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." Definitely aimed at the champagne caviar, St Barts crowd rather than the hard scrabble, cruiser on a fixed income. In other terms, Iridium Go is still the best value around and truly global for the time being.

I had the same first impression, but then realized there can't even be that many superyachts around to make the venture worth it.

Probably targeted more are commercial shipping vessels, cruise ships, and even militaries. I imagine that number would make the venture worth it.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#168

Post by bri3d »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #146

Can anyone explain how the ping is so low on starlink? I always assumed satellite internet was always going to be inferior for online gaming, but everything I find online says that starlink is great for it. I guess I don’t have a specific question. It’s just one of those engineering marvels that I never thought I’d see. No wires, but still frag people at <90ms ping.

Low orbit and it's currently just a bent pipe / single hop design. Your message just bounces off of a single LEO satellite and lands at a ground station nearby to you, as though you had a fixed-wireless point to point link to that station.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#169

Post by _moof »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #146

Can anyone explain how the ping is so low on starlink? I always assumed satellite internet was always going to be inferior for online gaming, but everything I find online says that starlink is great for it. I guess I don’t have a specific question. It’s just one of those engineering marvels that I never thought I’d see. No wires, but still frag people at <90ms ping.

Starlink sats orbit at around 550 km altitude; other services are over 35,000 km high. That's 2 ms for a transmission to make it up (or down) versus 120 ms. Multiply by four to get the theoretical minimum ping, not including any computation/processing or routing on the ground, and the difference becomes enormous.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#170

Post by infogulch »

bradrydzewski wrote: post #153
Flankk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call for pricing is usually B2B. Best case they want a salesperson to twist your arm, worst case the price is as much as they can squeeze out of you. If you ask why they waste people's time like this they'll say they're actually delivering maximum value. It's dishonest and archaic.

I think this is a matter of perspective. I founded a company that sold b2b software and experimented with removing pricing from my website. The challenge is the cost to complete each sale was highly variable which made it difficult to advertise fixed pricing. Consider the following: If the buyer is an enterprise they expect a discount. The buyer may require the seller to use a supplier management tool like Arriba whi…

    Honest Pricing/Licensing Plans

    Personal      | Business      | Enterprise
    $5/user/month | $8/user/month | $8/user/month 
                  |               | + $200/hour custom license business development rate
    Features      | Features++    | Features++
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