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Starlink Maritime

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Re: Starlink Maritime

#41

Post by cjensen »

adingus wrote: post #4

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." wow! Why cant you just take your normal starlink with you on your boat? Don't people do that with RVs?

People do install normal starlink on boats [1]. The $10K/$5K price tag really has me scratching my head about what they are thinking. Does look like they plan to cover the entire ocean, so at least there is a specific benefit they can point to. They're definitely giving up a lot of everyday coastal business in hopes of making it up with a few whales.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHHCK6aARn0

Re: Starlink Maritime

#42

Post by Tuna-Fish »

roflyear wrote: post #12
adingus wrote: post #4

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." wow! Why cant you just take your normal starlink with you on your boat? Don't people do that with RVs?

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.

They don't need any new development or that kind of stuff for wide coverage, just the intersatellite links, and they have launched 15 groups of them in the first 6 months of this year.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#43

Post by brk »

simplecto wrote: post #3
venti wrote: post #2

Is anything know about the power consumption of the Starlink antenna? Does the maritime version use less power than the conventional unit? The fixed-location version of Starlink consumes around 60 to 100 W constantly which is problem if you want to e.g. use solar panels on a sail boat to supply the device.

You probably would not run it 24x7 on a boat.

You probably would. At that price point they are targeting boats that are going to have multiple gensets, and be carrying 1,000+ gallons of fuel.

The additional load of the Starlink, relative to the chillers, water makers, and other onboard systems would be nothing.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#45

Post by Someone1234 »

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.

Iridium Go is 2.4 Kbits/s compared with 350 Mbps here, and data is charged in minutes (i.e. the slower/worse the connection the more it costs). Apples and oranges.

Iridium GO is cheap, but that's all you can really say positively about it. It is arguably not even offering "internet" in the normal sense, since loading a website would be incredibly expensive/bad and is therefore restricted to low data rate messaging and plain text weather updates.

Is $5K/month a niche product? Undeniably yes, and I hope to see more flex offerings later, but this isn't a good comparison.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#46

Post by hef19898 »

cjensen wrote: post #41
adingus wrote: post #4

"$5,000/mo with a one-time hardware cost of $10,000 for two high performance terminals." wow! Why cant you just take your normal starlink with you on your boat? Don't people do that with RVs?

People do install normal starlink on boats [1]. The $10K/$5K price tag really has me scratching my head about what they are thinking. Does look like they plan to cover the entire ocean, so at least there is a specific benefit they can point to. They're definitely giving up a lot of everyday coastal business in hopes of making it up with a few whales. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHHCK6aARn0

Another option could be, so, that this is a somewhat realistic pricing. Assuming Iridium and co. do know what they are doing.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#47

Post by yardie »

ok_dad wrote: post #28
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.

> Definitely aimed at the champagne caviar, St Barts crowd rather than the hard scrabble, cruiser on a fixed income. More like: commercial and military vessels

You can already get these speeds on Ku-band satellites, just higher latency, with real global coverage.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#48

Post by Cyberdog »

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 when you waste my time.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#49

Post by tsimionescu »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #42
roflyear wrote: post #12

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.

They don't need any new development or that kind of stuff for wide coverage, just the intersatellite links, and they have launched 15 groups of them in the first 6 months of this year.

"just" the intersatellite links, which is research-level technology given the speeds, distances and precision required.

Tesla Autopot also requires "just" a few software updates.

Re: Starlink Maritime

#50

Post by deelowe »

cronix wrote: post #11
gvb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Starlink for RVs is not designed for use while in motion." Marine starlink needs to compensate for rolling, pitching, and forward motion.

Sounds like they added a gimbal or something?

Starlink uses beam forming. It shouldn't need a gimbal.
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