Starlink Aviation

You bought the FSD feature as well? Still haven't been invited to beta but my bigger problem is the backup camera doesn't work due to a frayed cable and the cable has been back ordered for 11 months now. Musk never prioritizes his current customers. Need those cables for new cars.

SpaceX pays for service of ~14k terminals out of 25k and wartime service uses a lot more resources than regular business or residential grade.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1582523481345835008

> Planes spend a lot of time in areas that aren't populate

no, planes spend most of their time in populated areas. specifically near major airports, and the WiFi needs to work on the ground as well.

It’s hard to say the rest of the auto industry is dragging its feet when several of them make objectively superior EVs. They’re putting in the effort.

I understand the frustration, but I don't think that ignoring aviation would help Starlink serve you faster. I know, anytime a company launches something new while you're waiting for something else, it feels like they're prioritizing that over you. That's often not really how things work. Going with aviation could give them cash flow to be able to move faster while not really using up capacity in your area.

Personally, I think that Starlink should pursue deprioritization of heavy users. Note, that's not a bandwidth cap or limit. If there's excess network capacity, there's no reason to prevent a user from using it. However, when there's congestion, I think it makes sense to give priority to lower-usage users. I think it would be reasonable to do this in stages. The average US household uses about 350GB/mo (according to data made available by T-Mobile US and Comcast/Xfinity).

Given that Starlink has capacity constraints and given that they are serving as a bit of an internet lifeline to people without other options, it seems reasonable that they could have staged deprioritization maybe like this: first 250GB/mo is full-speed; next 250GB at 80% speed when there is congestion such that their usage would be reducing speeds for others; next 500GB at 60% speed when congested; next 1TB at 40% speed; next 2TB at 20% speed...

I know, many people's reaction would be that they shouldn't slow you down, they're advertising unlimited service, etc. At the same time, it's a shared link and a user using 10TB of data means that Starlink can't provide service to around 30 people. Do you prioritize one person using a lot over the needs of dozens? And this is only at times of congestion and realistically 40Mbps or even 20Mbps is still quite usable - especially when the alternative is 3Mbps DSL. 20Mbps will even allow 4K streaming and many full-HD streams.

To make it even better, one could only count data usage during congested times, but that's a lot harder to reason about because we don't always know congested times in advance and while I have data on average monthly usage, I don't have information on usage during congested times. The different thresholds would need to be adjusted accordingly.

Still, given a shared link with demand way exceeding capacity, I think it makes sense to offer the service to more users with the knowledge that there will be some traffic shaping around usage. I worked in IT at a university and one of the big things was that the top 50 users on the network usually consumed more than half of the available bandwidth. The university liked supporting students, but thought it reasonable to give their traffic lower priority than the thousands of other users on the network. The techie students liked it because they could do what they wanted without impacting other users.

Starlink is more capacity constrained, but I think almost no one would notice being deprioritized to 80% during congestion. I think most usage wouldn't notice further deprioritization.

I think net neutrality is very important, but I do think with a shared link like Starlink there can be some opt-in traffic shaping that can work in concert with deprioritization. For example, let's say you want do download CoD Modern Warfare at over 200GB. Should that be given equal priority to someone trying to video chat with their family? Well, that might depend on your personal views - maybe you're really looking forward to the game. However, I do think that Starlink could build in an opt-in feature that would move bulk data transfers (like game downloads) from congested times to non-congested times. Even during peak times, there are lulls in congestion and I think many people would say, "yes, please save network bandwidth for 'important' or real-time needs compared to my non-time-sensitive transfer and in exchange that transfer doesn't count toward deprioritization limits." But you might also decide that you want CoD Modern Warfare as fast as possible - and that would be your choice. I'd also point out that there are lots of transfers that aren't "fun" like a new game. For example, you need to download OS updates for your smartphone or laptop, but you generally aren't champing at the bit to update and restart immediately - we've all played the "not today" game with updates. There's no reason for those downloads to happen during congestion while that Netflix show you're watching has packets that need to be delivered.

I think Starlink has been trying to offer an unlimited connection without caveats like deprioritization and I think it's putting them in a tough spot. I'm guessing many of their users got Starlink and had minimal usage the first few months. They weren't the types to spend a lot of time online because their connectivity was terrible - but as they became accustomed to Starlink's level of service, that changed. If Starlink was averaging 50-100GB per user, that might have gone up to 300GB per user or even more as people cancel things like satellite TV for streaming services and get accustomed to having a good internet connection. People without good internet wouldn't be in the habit of using it, but that would certainly change over the months and years.

> Shouldn't providing down payment legally guarantee to buy a service at original said price?

I can't comment on legally. Morally? Maybe the dish itself and maybe the service for a limited time like 1 year, but internet service prices usually only offer a 1 or 2 year price guarantee (yes, there are exceptions, but this is shouldn't be about holding Starlink to a higher standard than the industry in general).

Yes, it's frustrating that the price has gone up for both the service and the dish itself, but it can be hard to price new services. You don't quite know how much data people are going to use, you don't totally know how the network will perform, etc. As I noted, it seems likely that they're getting greater than expected usage as users get accustomed to using it more and more. Fuel prices, supply chain disruption, and general inflation don't help Starlink continue offering service or the dish at the original price.

Again, I really understand the frustration. However, I think Starlink's premium products (aviation, maritime) will only help the company serve home users better.