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SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

zdnet.com

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Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#51

Post by Sparkle-san »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

I feel like no-earth orbit is always going to beat out low-earth orbit in the long-term. I live an area that the USDA classifies as rural and I now have multiple fiber options, including municipal. This isn't to say that Starlink doesn't have its place and I only see it becoming more niche over time and facing more competition in the LEO segment.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#52

Post by StuMarkSez »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#53

Post by sailingparrot »

usui wrote: post #4
ck2 wrote: post #3

no, just no make them pre-pay a multi-trillion cleanup and cancer fund for all the toxic waste, not just the launches but pollution burning up in the atmosphere * https://satellitemap.space/ * https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit... * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787042

You want them to pay a multi-trillion dollar clean-up and cancer fund for car-sized multi-year-service-life satellites burning up in the atmosphere? How much do you want incumbent multi-decade culprits to pay? EDT: I should have clarified I'm not only talking about incumbent satellite companies because people are replying about the launch volume. Think about pollution from oil companies and coal plants and consider h…

> How much do you want incumbent multi-decade culprits to pay?

You are clearly not grasping the magnitude change in how many satellites we used to launch vs how many we are launching nowadays.

In 2026, we are putting 10x as many objects in space as we did just 8 years ago, with Starlink being the bulk of it: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-....

Starlink has 12.5k satellites in space and looking to ramp up massively, the biggest "multi-decade incumbent", oneweb, has 5% as many, about 600.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#54

Post by small_model »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

[flagged]

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#55

Post by ceejayoz »

basisword wrote: post #27
usui wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I flew on a long-distance (so at least a dozen hours of flight time) low-budget airline that had 60 Mbps download/12 Mbps upload and it specifically called out SpaceX Starlink for being able to provide this for free. A video call went smoothly. There was connectivity from takeoff to landing with no interruption in between. This was the best airline experience I've had yet.

And this is exactly why we don't need internet on planes.

Yeah, planes are noisy enough without making them into a call center cubicle farm.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#56

Post by deaton »

Sparkle-san wrote: post #51
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

I feel like no-earth orbit is always going to beat out low-earth orbit in the long-term. I live an area that the USDA classifies as rural and I now have multiple fiber options, including municipal. This isn't to say that Starlink doesn't have its place and I only see it becoming more niche over time and facing more competition in the LEO segment.

I live in what is probably the first place to get these things in the world, but it feels like fiber is being built at an extremely rapid pace. Just in the past couple of years it seems like Google and AT&T fiber went from being a relatively confined thing to being available everywhere in the city, and everywhere outside, and at my friend's ranch 100 miles in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#57

Post by deaton »

usui wrote: post #16
consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

Recently I flew on a long-distance (so at least a dozen hours of flight time) low-budget airline that had 60 Mbps download/12 Mbps upload and it specifically called out SpaceX Starlink for being able to provide this for free. A video call went smoothly. There was connectivity from takeoff to landing with no interruption in between. This was the best airline experience I've had yet.

I flew Delta about 6 months ago and they had something similar, also for free, but they use Viasat. I think most of the big airlines were moving this way anyway to be honest, Starlink just has a good opportunity for advertising.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#58

Post by luke5441 »

palmotea wrote: post #47
jampa wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When COVID hit, I knew a lot of engineers who decided to move to rural areas / small farms because they could leverage Starlink to work remotely. Last year, when I asked whether they still liked Starlink, all of them said it is amazing, but they had gotten fiber coverage in their area from a local provider, so they don't use it anymore, or just use it as a backup. I think Starlink was a huge demand signal that there…

> But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation. There's also drones and front-line trenches, but your point still stands.

And for that reason the EU, India, China and Russia will build their own Starlink alternatives.

To offset costs they'll then provide it for civilian use, competing with Starlink in the above areas.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#59

Post by gwbas1c »

consumer451 wrote: post #5

When Starlink first became available here in poor-ish Central-EU, I was excited. Then, only months later, but after years of planning: EU funding brought fiber to my farm area, at ~$25/900mbps 10ms. While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.

It's very popular in rural US where running wired broadband is cost prohibitive.

There are many parts of the US that are very spread out, and thus running wires to every home is expensive without subsidies.

Re: SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth

#60

Post by StuMarkSez »

formvoltron wrote: post #2

soooo good that they'll burn up one day and this nonsense can finally end. investors provide infinite capital to nonsense projects so that the showman can create an endless show that will attract new nonsense capital. sorry but already in rural morocco they have 200 mbit internet for 20 bucks a month. Yes there are some 6 wheeled vehicles roaming the planet that might really benefit from these 100k satellites. but fo…

"...we're good." ? It seems that you are excluding all of the actual users onboard with Starlink tech. I'm one. I had choices and Starlink was a welcome addition to the short list.

In a short time, Starlink proved to be that disruptive "invention" that changed everything. There are already millions of users. Nobody is forced to use Starlink. Yet here we are.

Whether there are investors or not, a positive cashflow and the millions of users prove that Starlink is not just valid to our society at large, but wildly so. My opinion is that it is almost as disruptive as cell phones when they became affordable.

Current number of paid subscriptions: 12 million +. So, actual users is many times that, if subscribers generally represent multiple users per account. Think "Household". And then, if one extrapolates users under institutional, municipal, state or military, the numbers are astronomically increased. Just, individuals walking around inside a Dollar General store...

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