Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k • Hacker News Board

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#211

Post by mrweasel » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 9:57 AM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #158

mrweasel wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't suggest that you can't find situation where having Starlink wouldn't be nice, but as another comment suggests: It's increasingly a niche product. Starlink may not be able to survive on being a product that provides internet access for campers and rural populations. That market might not be large enough to sustain the Starlink satellite fleet. There are entire countries where even to most remote areas have at…

> It's increasingly a niche product. I'd argue it is going to go the other way. It is going to find more and more broad usage over time.

There's going to be more and more use cases, but only in select geographical areas. There's no real reason to pick Starlink over e.g. 5G, when 5G is cheaper and cover 99% of your locations. You can then pick Starlink, microwave, or 2G (if you don't need a lot of data) for those special cases where 5G doesn't have coverage.

Then you have the truly remote areas where you have no choice, it's Starlink or OneWeb, but that's still a niche.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#212

Post by mattmaroon » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 11:03 AM UTC

justapassenger wrote: post #37

mattmaroon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their potential customer base is literally everybody because they are the only ISP that can cover the entire globe. Everybody’s potential customer base is technically limited because there are only so many humans, but they have the least limited potential customer base of anything that exists.

For any dense populated area, starlink cost explodes exponentially to support customers there, while fiber/5G is linear. You cannot just put more satellites on top of cities, as they aren’t geostationary (which is why they’re fast), so you need to add insane amount of satellites, that would do nothing most of the time, when they’re not on top of densely populated area.

Fair point. But they still have more potential customers than any other individual ISP. Lack of potential customers is not their limiting factor.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#213

Post by vel0city » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

r3trohack3r wrote: post #189

bigbadfeline wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess if you buy an entire house without checking We aren't talking about people buying hoses now , these fees weren't there before, so it becomes a typical bait and switch. "Congestion charge" means the starlink network lacks sufficient capacity to accommodate the areas that need it the most and where it was advertised the most. https://tech.yahoo.com/transportation/articles/elon-musk-cha... Jul 5, 2026The conge…

> Under Carr's leadership, Musk's rocket company has effectively been given carte blanche in its efforts to roll out its orbital Starlink broadband service to more Americans This article is profoundly disturbing. The audacity to think the government has _allowed_ people to voluntarily purchase Internet service from a provider capable of servicing their geography. As if this is an assumption to be broken! I’m sure gla…

What's the alternative? That anyone should just be able to be free to launch whatever into space or build whatever towers and have it blast whatever RF emissions it wants whenever and however? Sounds like a quick way to make the bands entirely unusable.

I'll go ahead and start a wireless home internet service. I'll just set my transmitters to 1575MHz, that'll be fine, its nice and quiet.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#214

Post by vel0city » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 1:47 PM UTC

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #205

wat10000 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've generally chosen to go with bandwidth caps and throttling instead. Different ways of managing the shared resource. I'm not really sure what people want here. Capacity is limited. They're adding more as fast as they can, to the point that they've launched more satellites than everyone else has combined in history. But it takes time. Until capacity meets demand, there are going to be limitations, one way or ano…

Back in the day when analog modems were becoming obsolete, there was a hue and cry from broadband enthusiasts that cable modem technology was inferior infrastructure. These folks all agreed that DOCSIS and cable modems would suffer crippling congestion in neighborhoods. That your cable modem's bandwidth would be shared bandwidth, shared on a medium with all your neighbors up to that head-end, and that this shared med…

> cable modems really have not suffered congestion beyond the ordinary

I've lived in and had friends live in apartments with absolutely terrible noisy neighbor problems on coax networks. Too much junk plugged in making all kinds of noise on the same run making internet services close to useless. DSL infrastructure lost out to cable at the start in that area so it got practically no upgrades since it was first implemented. While far more reliable it was ancient speeds at even higher prices.

It seems like it largely took 5G home internet actually being a thing in those areas for the cable companies to start fixing those buildings and rooting out the problems.

Cable modem congestion and line quality issues definitely vary greatly on the operator and the actual location installed at. A cheap old apartment building filled with poor residents is likely to have abysmal line quality. A well-off neighborhood of single family homes probably has no problems with line quality at all.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#215

Post by petilon » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 2:14 PM UTC

consumer451 wrote: post #210

petilon wrote: post #32

Blue Origin's Terawave [1] can't come soon enough. [1] https://www.blueorigin.com/terawave

Is it possible that you meant Amazon Leo? I thought Terawave was for terrestrial station backhaul.

Yes I meant Leo. But Terawave is also satellite based, it looks like.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#216

Post by wat10000 » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #214

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in the day when analog modems were becoming obsolete, there was a hue and cry from broadband enthusiasts that cable modem technology was inferior infrastructure. These folks all agreed that DOCSIS and cable modems would suffer crippling congestion in neighborhoods. That your cable modem's bandwidth would be shared bandwidth, shared on a medium with all your neighbors up to that head-end, and that this shared med…

> cable modems really have not suffered congestion beyond the ordinary I've lived in and had friends live in apartments with absolutely terrible noisy neighbor problems on coax networks. Too much junk plugged in making all kinds of noise on the same run making internet services close to useless. DSL infrastructure lost out to cable at the start in that area so it got practically no upgrades since it was first impleme…

It's a lot easier to upgrade the capacity at a central office than it is to upgrade an entire neighborhood. Plenty of cable infrastructure was built out when it was just a broadcast (multicast?) medium and the only concern was making sure signal strength was adequate at all receivers. If you repurpose that wiring for emulated point-to-point transmission, there may not be a whole lot for each individual.

Random example, my house has fiber and cable available. The internet plans are similar, except fiber offers 30x higher upload speeds, which is a direct consequence of better topology.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#217

Post by inemesitaffia » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 3:41 PM UTC

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #179

wat10000 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go to their home page, click "get started," and it asks me where I want service. If I put in a place with a congestion surcharge, then it shows me on the next page. In fact, you have to pay it up front to order service. Seems advertised to me. If you don't want to pay it, then you don't have to use their service.

> congestion surcharge I can't wait until our urban cable-modem and DSL providers pick up those "congestion surcharge" ideas! (FCC tariffs prevent this, right?)

They already do to run you service.

In the case of FWA they just say no.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#218

Post by inemesitaffia » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

ruszki wrote: post #106

mattmaroon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their potential customer base is literally everybody because they are the only ISP that can cover the entire globe. Everybody’s potential customer base is technically limited because there are only so many humans, but they have the least limited potential customer base of anything that exists.

First, they would need global coverage for that. Because looking at this map tells a different story: https://starlink.com/gb/map It’s still the best option, but far from “global”. Also Iran is an obvious lie with that “coming soon” color, so god knows what else isn’t true on this.

They have global coverage. You don't need a map to know that.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#219

Post by inemesitaffia » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 3:45 PM UTC

theturtletalks wrote: post #100

What’s even more concerning is that the current government changed their requirements for the rural broadband program so companies like StarLink can bid to bring internet to those remote areas instead of using wired or fiber connections. Not far-fetched that StarLink wins this contract and then squeezes those customers over time. ISPs will have little reason to expand in those underserved areas without government sub…

Amazon LEO was the primary beneficiary

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#220

Post by inemesitaffia » Thu, Jul 16, 2026, 3:47 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #183

ben_w wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people who can make a vastly superior product time and time again, and they all like to work with other people who can do the same These parts are likely pushing the best minds away from Musk these days. Not sure when that turned, perhaps Cybertruck?

I agree, though honestly it starts with any of Musk's product presentation events, which, frankly are all absolutely terrible compared to what Jobs would put on. Musk is good at getting money, he is not good at product design. Jobs had amazing taste, Musk has terrible taste. If Musk has a talent beyond raising money, it can be in making bold management moves, at least that's what I hear from CEOs that admire Musk. Bu…

But he didn't design that anyway.