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Starlink Direct to Cell

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Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#491

Post by wmf »

ethbr1 wrote: post #352
modeless wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is going to do it for sure. It doesn't have to be as efficient as SpaceX if it is massively subsidized for defense purposes. And China is pretty good at building things cheap. On the commercial side Blue Origin has been slow in starting but they are almost ready and will have relatively cheap launches. There are other up and coming private launch competitors too.

The issue is that space launch has some huge economies of scale. And {world space launch demand} is >> {one country's space launch demand} The argument for China overcoming SpaceX would be: - China needs to get within functional (not cost) technological parity with SpaceX ASAP (i.e. which means reusability, albeit for cadence/capacity reasons) - After that, they need to incentivize global demand to launch on Chinese…

I don't think China needs any third-party payloads. Even if they only launch Qianfan it should be enough to bring costs down.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#494

Post by lotsofpulp »

taeric wrote: post #383
ethbr1 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most successful businessman in the history of the world You're ranking Musk above Jobs, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Disney, Toyoda, Walton, and Buffett?

Many people don't have any real understanding of how wealthy people have been in the past. The Walton family is a fun case. Split the fortune among the family and there are still billionaires in the mix. Edit: should add that Elon is still valued at a good percentage of the US gdp. So, not unreasonable to say that is incomprehensible, as well. By that measure, is similar to Rockefeller, I think.

I wouldn’t use the Waltons in this example, considering Walmart is eclipsed by a few companies, and even by 50% by one business that Musk has a significant share of.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#495

Post by ANewFormation »

mmaunder wrote: post #304
modeless wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Starlink is indeed awesome and SpaceX deserves every bit of their success. But there will be competitors eventually, if for no other reason than foreign militaries sponsoring them. There's no inherent reason for this to be a winner takes all market. We can only hope the competitors are half as responsible as SpaceX has been about space debris risk and ensuring the satellites are not visible to the naked e…

Game that out for us. How government innovation competes with a private sector launch company whose main differentiator is lower cost.

And adding onto this it's not just cost, they also have the fastest turn around and the highest reliability.

It's vaguely analogous to the early automobile market where Ford was dominating by every single objective metric so competitors were left to compete on subjective metrics like styles. Incidentally this era is where planned obsolescence really took off.

Unfortunately for competitors I'm not sure coating a rocket in a chrome finish and running a sleek ad campaign is going to beat out price+speed+reliability.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#496

Post by ulfw »

infobot wrote: post #343
nikkwong wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2023 in the Pacific Northwest. We were given the argument that tree cover was a problem quite early on in our attempted troubleshooting. The house is a waterfront property, with a clear view of sky to the east. Anyways, the suspected issue continued to evolve, and we were not able to get to the bottom of it with the support we received. Certainly, our experience could be an anomalous. But I certainly hear this happen…

You…wouldn’t be bullish on the most successful businessman in the history of the world? Sometimes I come here for a good laugh

[flagged]

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#497

Post by inemesitaffia »

nikkwong wrote: post #474
hattmall wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not really sure what issues you could reasonably expect a satellite internet provider to be troubleshooting at all. It's very much a 0 or 1 situation.

Then tell the customer that, rather than string them along for 8 months promising fixes (software or hardware), that never come in

If they don't put people on the ground they don't have the insights required.

It's like trying to diagnose WiFi next to a radar station remotely when you don't know the user is next to one

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#498

Post by modeless »

la64710 wrote: post #475
modeless wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Starlink is indeed awesome and SpaceX deserves every bit of their success. But there will be competitors eventually, if for no other reason than foreign militaries sponsoring them. There's no inherent reason for this to be a winner takes all market. We can only hope the competitors are half as responsible as SpaceX has been about space debris risk and ensuring the satellites are not visible to the naked e…

This is already available in iPhone with their text based coverage: https://support.apple.com/en-us/120930 Probably they are using GSAT satellites.

Apple's feature is not comparable. It is extremely low bandwidth and requires special hardware and holding the phone pointing in a certain direction. Starlink acts as a regular (albeit low bandwidth) 4G tower in space.

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#499

Post by inemesitaffia »

CodeArtisan wrote: post #346
mmaunder wrote: post #283

Vertical integration by Starlink of the cheapest launch capability in the world (by far) is the reason there are no competitors, and there will be no competitors. The pace of innovation at SpaceX is not THE reason - it’s an additional reason that no one has a snowballs chance in hell of ever catching Starlink. I’ve seen talk of competitor satellite networks or a possible competitor emerging. Folks it’s game set and m…

The European Union wants its own satellite network to counter Starlink. It will be build by SpaceRISE, a consortium that include Airbus, Thales, Deutsche Telekom... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIS%C2%B2 https://www.spacerise.eu/ https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...

Expect it to be worse than OneWeb for more money

Re: Starlink Direct to Cell

#500

Post by inemesitaffia »

nehal3m wrote: post #330
mmaunder wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you’re not aware that SpaceX sued the US government to break ULAs monopoly on national security launches and brought down costs. And perhaps you’re unaware just how many national telcos world wide have a national monopoly and for the first time ever may have to compete with Starlink? Perhaps you’re also unaware of the grip that Russian rocket engine manufacturers had with the RD180 engine on the US launch sec…

On the one hand you’re arguing that SpaceX is awesome for breaking monopolies. On the other you’re saying it’s awesome that “it’s over” and they own the market now. Perhaps you missed the irony.

There's no real non cost barrier here
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