| ▲ | luke5441 9 hours ago |
| I don't see how replacing mobile carriers with space based infrastructure is physically possible. |
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| ▲ | tristanj 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's not meant to replace terrestrial networks, it's a space-based alternative that serves areas carriers have no financial incentive to cover. Terrestrial cellular towers cost between $150k to $500k per tower, and are not economically feasible in less populated areas. There are also many dead-zones in mountainous regions, since cell signals are blocked by mountains. Starlink Mobile supplements this, it's simply cheaper for mobile providers to partner with them than do their own buildout. Currently only 5% of the earth's surface is covered by cellular signals. Starlink will push that up to 85+%, and is backward compatible with existing cellphones. |
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| ▲ | triceratops 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > it's a space-based alternative that serves areas carriers have no financial incentive to cover In a nutshell: they're serving a market that has less money to spend using more expensive tech than the current industry leaders. Maybe I'm wrong but it doesn't scream "massive profit". | | |
| ▲ | hattmall 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think Airplanes are going to be pretty profitable. They are sort of running a market cornering operation there. But, there will be competition eventually. Starlink is way faster than the alternatives so most airlines have switched and Starlink has rapidly increased their prices for aviation. Idk if it's enough though, they are definitely running lots of promos for home customers. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I think Airplanes are going to be pretty profitable.
Anything at sea, too. Going on a cruise? The cruise ship can offer you Wifi backed by Starlink for another few bucks. Or even your cell provider could get you hooked right up to Starlink for some phones.Container ships, military vessels, even fishing expeditions could enjoy an internet connection and cell service. | |
| ▲ | jaccola 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Amazon Leo just signed delta as a customer so competition is indeed close behind. I think SpaceX is an incredible company but at this valuation I’d expect it to have something as pervasive as the iPhone or Nvidia chips. It seems to have only small niches. | | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Delta’s ViaSat based Wireless is fine. The latency is hire. But it really isn’t a competitive disadvantage. | | |
| ▲ | telotortium 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | If Starlink becomes common enough on flights, I absolutely believe it will be a competitive disadvantage. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I have been flying a lot post Covid between it being a hobby of ours and consulting - I’m currently Platinum Medallion on Delta. Frequent flyers choose their airlines for a lot of reasons - which airline has the most direct flights from their city, who has the best frequent flyer program, etc. The latency of the Internet is seldom a factor or the difference between 10Mbps and 50Mbps. Non frequent flyers just buy the cheapest flights. The major three airlines make money off of business travelers, business and first class flights and credit cards. | |
| ▲ | 8note 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | would you choose a flight that's $200 more expensive because it has starlink? | | |
| ▲ | telotortium an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | If I’m flying for work and Starlink is that much better, quite possibly. My wife’s experience with other in-flight WiFi providers has been quite poor, often to the point that it barely works. Having said that, neither of us has been on a flight with Starlink yet. | |
| ▲ | wnc3141 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No but the airline might choose starlink. I think a gogo business install is on the hundreds of thousands and annual costs in the tens of thousand for their Eutelesat based system. | |
| ▲ | koolba 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Maybe not $200, but $20-$50 for a cross country flight for sure. | | |
| ▲ | kalleboo an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | If a flight had in-flight Wi-Fi that cost $50 you'd pay for it? Most people I know balk at $10 even on an intercontinental flight | |
| ▲ | ghaff 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wouldn’t. I have literally never bought WiFi on a flight in the course of probably hundreds of flights. Good opportunity to unplug. |
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| ▲ | tim-- 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Terrestrial cellular towers cost between $150k to $500k per tower I'd be interested to find out exactly where this cost exists. I would expect the majority of the cost (especially in rural/mountainous areas) to be more with power and backhaul, rather than the physical radio gear. Because it's rural, you should be able to easily just use coverage bands (ie 850 MHz or 900 MHz) with relatively high transmission power. This would easily be able to cover 300 km2. Because of the higher transmission power, and the fact that the tower would be in the middle of nowhere, wouldn't the OPEX be higher, with smaller numbers for CAPEX? | | |
| ▲ | laughing_man an hour ago | parent [-] | | A lot of the cost is regulatory. I used to work at a mobile provider, and it took months to get permission from all the various government agencies before we could actually start building. Even if the tower is in BFE, you still have to get all your plots to the FCC, you need EPA signoff for batteries and fuel tanks and such. Plus there's always state and local permits of various kinds. We had a custom workflow application just to track all of that and there were dozens of steps. Cell towers aren't very expensive on an ongoing basis, but every few years you're rolling out the next big technology (we went from analog to 1x to 3g to LTE while I was there) and it's a headache. |
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| ▲ | panick21_ 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Well if you make the argument that it will replace terrestrial networks and that's why its worth X trillion $ then yes, you do actually need to cover the 1% of earth surface where the waste majority of people actually spend most of their time. The question is not if its a good business, the question if its a 2 trillion $ business, and if you only cover the 95% of earth without coverage. That more like a couple 100 billion $ business at best. | | |
| ▲ | tristanj 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I never said it would replace terrestrial networks... you invented that claim yourself and are responding to a strawman. Starlink mobile is for rural areas, and the other 90% of the planet that's not well served by traditional terrestrial networks. And 40% of earth's population live in rural areas, so there is a large market for this kind of service. | | |
| ▲ | newguytony 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In regions like Nigeria or the Philippines, Starlink costs over 100% of the average monthly income. The individual addressable rural market really is closer to 1% than 40%. | | |
| ▲ | tristanj 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Starlink Mobile != Starlink You're talking about the wrong product. I am talking about Starlink mobile, their direct-to-cellphone mobile data offering, not Starlink internet... |
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| ▲ | thfuran 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | pnw 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) is already part of the 5G standard. It's not a replacement for terrestrial carriers, it's an expansion that enables devices to be always connected and select the appropriate terrestrial vs satellite connection transparently. ~75% of the land mass on Earth has no cell coverage, ~90% if you include the oceans. It's the same transition in theory that we had from landlines to cell towers. |
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| ▲ | panick21_ 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Great, but the overwhelming majority of money is made from the place people actually live. Those places are called cities. Only about a few % of earth are built on, and even among those the top 1% is where most people live. Don't get me wrong, that fucking great business, but its not 'replacing terrestrial ISP' level great. | | |
| ▲ | pnw 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | They said the same thing about cell phones vs landlines back in the day. Based on Starlink's revenue doubling year on year, and a six fold increase since 2022, I don't think anyone really knows what the upper bounds for global access is yet. And traditional telcos are usually limited to a region whereas Starlink is global. Just the top 20 global telcos alone are almost $2 trillion in market cap and $1.35 trillion in revenue. Starlink has captured less than 1% of that revenue to date. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Absolutely no one said that. | | |
| ▲ | laughing_man an hour ago | parent [-] | | There were a lot of people back in the early '90s who thought cell service would never be widely adopted because of the cost. It was clear you didn't need a mobile phone -- we'd all gotten long just fine without one. |
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| ▲ | hattmall 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >They said the same thing about cell phones vs landlines Did they? I don't really remember that tbh. | | |
| ▲ | pnw 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | McKinsey estimated the global market for cellphones would be 900,000 units in 2000. They were off by 100 million. Even until the 90s some telcos believed that cell usage would never eclipse landlines which would remain the base of their business. It sounds ridiculous today because cell numbers outnumber landlines almost ten to one and have been dominant for over two decades. | |
| ▲ | serf 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | my most altruistic view : they said it through actions. Rural areas were the last areas to join the mobile networks. This is just a practical thing though; why would you build a tower for a community of 900 people when there are still gaps in the major metropolitan areas? It can't all happen simultaneously regardless of how badly we wish it could. |
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| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | x0x0 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It doesn't not seem like anything approaching a lucrative business. TAM: How big is the market for high speed internet that can pay $1200+/year and isn't already well-served by comcast/at&t/etc? And of course, this is all with finite spectrum too. So you can't serve the major cities. No doubt there exist buyers. But rural Montana doesn't have that many households. Add that 5 year replacement cycle and Musk's Trump alignment that has Europe building their own for security reasons. |
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| ▲ | ericd 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | > well-served by comcast/at&t/etc These are US telecoms, the satellites blanket the entire Earth at all times. Lower ARPU, but still. Also, it seems like they're swallowing a large percentage of flight/cruise/military internet. And direct-to-cell data coverage of the entire Earth. |
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