Elon has finally started admitting to himself that the Starlink plan isn't going so well, and his scribbling on a napkin is usually nutball vaporware that is too expensive to pay for itself (i.e., no profit). He needs the Starship vehicle (to work as he planned) to get the launch cost per satellite down and the number of satellites way up in much less time (doing the present 48~60 per launch about every month it takes a while to get to 46,000 total): https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/elon-musks-spacex-financial-peril-133018601.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall Not going to happen IMO, and the Kessler Syndrome will puke up the whole idea anyway.
“If a severe global recession were to dry up capital availability / liquidity while SpaceX was losing billions on Starlink & Starship, then bankruptcy, while still unlikely, is not impossible,” Musk wrote. LOL funny he says that as I anticipate a severe global recession next year.
meh, Iridium went through a lot of teething pain, including insolvency and bankruptcy, but is still around today and providing good service.
SpaceX is building and launching it's own Starlink satellites. How can the other competitors possibly compete when they have to PAY huge amounts to others for launch services? .
By launching far, far, far less satellites (even though they have to include a profit payment to the Launcher). You know SpaceX doesn't launch its own satellites for free, right?
I think Starlink will be a global game changer. No more dependence on someone running a cable to your house or business for internet/tv/phone service. The infrastructure that keeps the internet running is in many cases 30-50 years old, all of the switches that Verizon runs (in their central offices and remote central offices) are from the 1980s and parts are getting harder to find, as well as Pascal programmers. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTD-5_EAX Its getting harder and harder to find people to work in trenches and holes in the ground, or climb a pole. While mobile access can work, they are still linked using wires (ok, some by microwave). If you not in an area served by cable or fiber, it costs a fortune to run it. You can't compare residential internet to justify the cost of Starlink, but go price a business cost or for any building without a conduit to it. Satellites are the future, IMHO.
You don't seem to know that satellite systems are already here (and the service is typically less cost than Starlink). The only "advantage" of the Starlink system is a shorter ping time (so important for a Gamer but no one else); the downside of Starlink is needing a HUGE number of satellites.
From what i know, at lease in the US, starlink is the fastest up and down of any other satellite system. If there is another one please let me know
I think you are confusing a Starlink beta test result (with virtually no users encumbering the system) to the other systems (with more users). Starlink says "up to 150 Mbps", not 150 Mbps always guaranteed. Since Starlink has the newest satellites, I can see it having faster hardware now, but there is no fundamental thing stopping other satellite providers from upping the speeds. Starlink satellites just have lower orbits (reducing the ping time, but needing more of them); also Starlink is about 2X the monthly price (plus an equipment charge). Long-term, if Starlink can do it better than others (i.e., provide better value) = great! But putting 46,000 satellites up that need ~3% of them to be replaced every year isn't a done deal.
twice the price of what? I don’t really care what they call it, if it delivers internet for $99 a month it is a bargain. ask any business what they pay for internet for a comparison. again, if you know of another satellite internet provider that can match both up and down speeds (even with a higher latency) I’d love to know about them. ps: NO internet provider guarantees speed that I am aware of.
Latest Article: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/starlink-inside-satellite-business-could-024304605.html What is Starlink? Inside the satellite business that could make Elon Musk a trillionaire. Michelle Shen and Elizabeth Pattman, USA TODAY Sun, December 5, 2021, 6:43 PM On Thursday, SpaceX launched 48 Starlink satellites into orbit off the coast of Florida. From Arizona to Alabama, people could spot glimmers in the sky as the satellites orbited the Earth's atmosphere. These streaks of light could be the reason Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire, according to an October report by Morgan Stanley sent to USA TODAY. Morgan Stanley predicted a $100 billion base valuation for SpaceX, chiefly driven by innovations within Starlink. "We have long seen SpaceX as multiple companies in one," the report states. "But the largest contributor to our estimated $100 billion base case valuation for the company ($200 billion bull case) is the Starlink LEO sat comms business which has had a number of important milestones in recent months." So what is Starlink, and how will it make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire? Starlink can bring broadband internet across the globe — along with loads of money for SpaceX Starlink is a broadband internet service, specializing in the expansion of coverage to rural and remote communities. It accomplishes this by launching a "constellation" of satellites into low Earth orbit via SpaceX rockets. Musk created a "symbiotic" relationship between SpaceX launches and Starlink satellite deployments, where advancements in either sector can reap benefits for both parts of the business, Morgan Stanley says. As SpaceX rockets become more sophisticated, they can handle larger and more frequent payloads of Starlink satellites. As Starlink satellites gain more customers around the globe, it validates and circulates cash back into the SpaceX rocketry program. Space travel: William Shatner went to space. Here's how much it would cost you. Rocket launches have been a key way for SpaceX to solicit the expertise of NASA, which has sustained a long presence in space through the International Space Station (ISS). "We've had continuous human presence in low Earth orbit for about 20 years now. But the ISS is nearing its end of life," says Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight at NASA. "Prior to that end of life, we want to have commercial destinations, commercial space stations in low Earth orbit so that we can continue our human research." The support and funding of NASA has helped SpaceX send a significant body of satellites up into space and create its own presence in low Earth orbit. Starlink now has more than 1,700 internet-beaming satellites circling above, according to Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network. Regular people can preorder a Starlink Kit that includes a terminal (used to connect to the satellite providing internet) that they would set up themselves in their own home. The Starlink Kit costs $499, and the internet service would cost $99 per month. Starlink Internet: SpaceX starts accepting orders for Starlink internet service While the upfront costs for consumers to set up the terminal is high, it costs SpaceX even more, with estimates from Morgan Stanley reaching over $2,000 per terminal. SpaceX hopes to achieve economies of scale and eventually bring terminal costs down to $250 for consumers, Morgan Stanley says. Rural broadband access is lacking, despite the rise of fiber Starlink's addressable market is significant, given that much of the world is still lacking broadband internet. In America, only about 72% of adults in rural areas have a broadband connection at home, according to February 2021 data from Pew Research Center. The Pew report also found that older people, racial minorities and "those with lower levels of education and income" are less likely to have broadband service at home. These issues are acute for people living in rural communities all over America, such as Dawn Sutton from Alamance County, North Carolina. Sutton lives on a rural country road in southern Alamance County where internet cables stop just a mile and a half short of her home. For the past several years, she and her neighbors have periodically reached out to internet service providers asking them to extend access and have continuously been turned down. In order to complete her work, Sutton goes to her son’s house every day and has been doing this for months on end. Theoretically, companies could lay cable in these areas, but the cost of doing so often outweighs the benefits, leaving people like Sutton stranded. US infrastructure spending: Charts show where billions of dollars would go “If you're a company … what's the return on investment for you if you're spending a whole lot of money to connect three households?” says Kathleen Stansberry, an Elon University professor who works with the university’s Imagining the Internet Center. “It doesn't make great business sense for most companies to do it and to build out services for just a handful of users.” While this may apply to fiber companies, it doesn't necessarily apply to SpaceX and satellite technology. With the existing rocket technology of SpaceX, shooting satellites into space may be a quicker way to help people in rural areas get internet, given the high cost of deploying fiber infrastructure, according to CNET. The revenue brought in from Starlink can help "the company attract large amounts of capital at attractive rates," says the Morgan Stanley report. This could fund further development of more complex launches, such as Starship, a rocket that Musk says could eventually take people to Mars.
Don't you mean that's the latest piece of fact-free future-future-hopey-changey bull **** from the Musk fanbois? The whole Starlink "plan" was based on launching 400 satellites at once, not 48, that's why Musk is presently having a cow about the Starship vehicle being so far behind schedule (Starlink NEEDS the Starship system working, not Starship follows Starlink as the idiot fanboi wrote). Also, "72% of adults in rural areas" is not a large number (nor will all of them necessarily want to buy an expensive internet service). And, finally, the only fundamental thing that (super complex) Starlink brings over a more practical system using far fewer satellites is a shorter ping time. Here's my prediction: SpaceX will never go public because publicly having to report the horrible financial results will be an embarrassing joke -- it's just a hobby paid for by the Tesla bagholders.
