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Starlink Maritime

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Re: Starlink Maritime

#251
post #164

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?

You could be 2 cups and a long string and beat most of those providers. I've been trapped in their horrible world for over a decade and can't wait for "any" other option. I don't even care how much it costs anymore.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#252

Just curious. Does anyone know anyone who has received their terminal who is not a SpaceX employee or opted for Mobile/RV? I keep hearing about how they're being deployed, but the only people I know who have received their terminals are SpaceX employees or people who agreed to the more expensive Mobile/RV service.

Me (for a client). I got it in January 2021 and deployed a few weeks later. At 10 below zero F in a fairly stiff wind natch, quite memorable :). Deployed up near 45°. This was of course a generation 1 circular unit, which actually turned out to be superior IMO since it has zero need for their router though it does have a fixed cable. I used an SFPethernet adapter to bring the signal the rest of the way to our OPNsense router and bypass any grounding issues in that respect, it's functioned continuously ever since. First few months as warned there were occasional dropouts, but I could watch those steadily become rarer and rarer as the weeks went by, and the bandwidth go up as well as more sats came online. There was nothing significant long before it went officially public.

Less anecdotally, Starlink passed 400,000 customers as of a month and a half or so ago [0]. I wouldn't be surprised if it was pushing towards the half million mark now or fairly soon. They're limited now in terms of terrestrial cell density primarily, and that cannot be solved without more and more powerful sats which can actually shrink the physical cell size and improve beam count and bandwidth. Mobile/RV is therefore useful for them because it's lower priority with no guarantees, but that's ok for that usage model. The times where it will tend to be very important are in remote areas where cells are not full, and the times where cells are full there is also more likelihood of LTE, and RV can by definition move around if necessary. Maritime (or aircraft for that matter) obviously also fits those current limits, the oceans are near empty of Starlink right now and it's high revenue per user given the competition.

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0: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/25/spacexs-starlink-surpasses-4...

Re: Starlink Maritime

#253
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely spot on. The market isn’t competitive, it’s artificial highway robbery to even be in business. The entry requirements and expenses are insanely high, preventing a lot of competition to begin with, and the few players are free to drive up their prices to disgusting altitudes while providing services of disgusting quality. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they have agreements going on between themselv…

Iridium’s profit margins do not seem like those of a company engaging in artificial highway robbery: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/IRDM/iridium-commu... Neither do Viasat’s: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/VSAT/viasat/profit... For some reason, Inmarsat has very nice profit margins though: https://craft.co/inmarsat/metrics Interesting that Viasat was able to purchase Inmarsat given the figures.

Viasat while it has a lot of consumer facing exposure (and contracts to do things like build teleports for the DoD) is not a major player in the market of actually owning geostationary satellites. Look at entities like Intelsat and SES.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#254
post #164

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?

For latency and bandwidth, LEO beats GEO hands down.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#255
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely spot on. The market isn’t competitive, it’s artificial highway robbery to even be in business. The entry requirements and expenses are insanely high, preventing a lot of competition to begin with, and the few players are free to drive up their prices to disgusting altitudes while providing services of disgusting quality. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they have agreements going on between themselv…

To be fair, a non vertically integrated geostationary-satellite-owning company like intelsat, ses, eutelsat or arabsat or similar has little to no control over how much Boeing charges for a fully equipped 702 series satellite bus, or the disposable rocket launch costs.

It’s incredible to behold. Can you imagine either being a satellite comms service provider or space vehicle provider trying to acquire or raise capital to acquire your compliment to vertically integrate and reap higher margins? You’ll get laughed out of the board room or the investment bank office. And instead, SpaceX knocks it out if the park with reusability such that they say to themselves (or rather, Musk tells the board) “well, we’re about to cannibalize the launch market and we’re running out of TAM, can we launch our own satellite constellation and consume another TAM with these F9s we’ve got laying around not being productive?”

Re: Starlink Maritime

#256
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.starlink.com/rv -- If I had to guess part of the reason would maybe be carrying capacity - a house that doesn't move is predictable - RVs & boats move so the per satellite bandwidth predictability of that class of object is lower - i think meaning the requirements for redundancy are higher - redundancy is expensive? - just a guess --

Starlink RV is only currently meant to be used while stationary and can't track while in motion, which is why the hardware is identical to the home unit. They're supposed to be coming out with new hardware that allows use while in motion. It was only a week ago that the FCC approved the application for "vehicles in motion."[1] It will be on airplanes as well, soon. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/30/fcc-approves-spa…

What I really want is hardware that is mounted on RV roof and can be deployed and folded with a press of a button. While I don't care if it works in motion, I do care about setup convenience, and I'm not getting current version because setting it up is just too cumbersome.

Or even better: just flat beam-forming antenna on the RV roof. Once thing there is enough on the roof is space.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the coverage map: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.... What a fucking joke. "coming soon" means nothing to me coming from a Musk company. Compare to the iridum network: https://www.groundcontrol.com/us/knowledge/calculators-and-m... Granted, iridium is much slower. But $5k a month for barely any coverage is an insult.

-- coverage is literally perfect for anywhere I take my (imaginary) yacht! - south of france? check! italian riviera? check! miami? Check! LA? Check! $5k a month? In YachtLand $5/mth is pocket change --

It's true that sometimes $5k is pocket change when owning a boat :(

Re: Starlink Maritime

#258
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the coverage map: https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.... What a fucking joke. "coming soon" means nothing to me coming from a Musk company. Compare to the iridum network: https://www.groundcontrol.com/us/knowledge/calculators-and-m... Granted, iridium is much slower. But $5k a month for barely any coverage is an insult.

Do you think running Starlink is cheap? Something seems to have struck a nerve.

No. I just think that their other products and their talk around this was out of touch. They were responding to people who are average cruisers saying it was coming soon. It ended up being a joke.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#259
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...

Depending on the type of sailing you do, probably can get away with using the RV service. If you're sailing within their current maritime coverage map https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.... you're just using the direct CPE-Starlink-Uplink Station connection. Provided you're still in that coverage cell, there is really no difference to the entire system if you're 10 miles from shore inland or at sea.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#260
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mar 31, 2022 datapoint is -0.21%. They do make a good profit in the years they do, but my point is they also have quite a bit of volatility. I would not touch that business without the 10%+ profit margin opportunities.

Definitely agree, I probably wouldn't touch them at this point any more at all. Was just replying to the notion that this couldn't be artificial highway robbery just because their net margin isn't great. I believe it definitely still can be, because apparently the only way these companies are even in business right now is exactly by highway robbery.

I cannot agree with that characterization. How can a business be a suboptimal or undesirable investment because it does not earn enough profit relative to risk, and simultaneously be committing highway robbery (i.e. charging too high a price for its products/services)?

If anything, it seems like the customers should feel lucky the investors are risking their money on this product/service, and it is being offered at all.

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