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I think the main thing is their Starlink satellite internet constellation, which I recently saw was estimated to bring in $30 billion/year once it’s fully opera

I think the main thing is their Starlink satellite internet constellation, which I recently saw was estimated to bring in $30 billion/year once it’s fully operational. They also have basically taken over the satellite launch market, and I think their recent progress on the BFR isn’t hurting.

Robotbeat 9y ago
Could be more like hundreds of billions in the very long-term, as they plan to just keep growing it in size, capability, and per-satellite mass. Enabled by BFR. That’d put SpaceX in league with other telecommunications giants. That’s, of course, not the only possible outcome, but that’s why the valuation is so high.
- planteen 9y ago
  Maybe... but I see the system being bandwidth constrained. If each spacecraft is 20 Gbps and how many will be visible over the USA at a time? 50 or so? So 1 Tbps for the entire country? That's less than the capacity of a single neighborhood in Denver on gigabit fiber. Not to mention the capacity of 4G networks across the country. Some of this smells like the first round of Iridium to me.
  - ethbro 9y ago
    The key point is that, if the satellites are cheap enough, they're a safety valve for surplus rocket supply. Or padding if schedules don't make for full payloads. Essentially seeding their own demand in a market that didn't previously exist (cheaper launch on reused rockets). As a side benefit, they get the ability to put a constellation in orbit (and continue adding to it) at a fraction of the cost of their telecom competitors.
    - Robotbeat 9y ago
      Yeah, if Starlink merely breaks even (and continues to grow), they will have pushed the commercial launch market potentially one or two orders of magnitude larger (in terms of mass) than it is today. It'll help pay for BFR, their Mars rocket. Therefore, if Starlink suffers the same fate as Iridium (but without damaging the rest of SpaceX), that would actually be a big net win. Iridium emerged from bankruptcy, turned a profit and launched replacement satellites and is now in the process of a huge constellation refresh, using SpaceX's reusable rockets. If that happens with Starlink, that would be a complete success for creating launch demand.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    That's just the initial system, and they'll be selling globally, not just in the US. It's still about 10 times the aggregate bandwidth of their nearest competitor (OneWeb) plus the later constellation is going to be much larger and more capable. Additionally, there should be about 150-200 satellites above the US in the initial deployment. They also plan to upgrade the satellites themselves (according to SpaceX's Mueller) so they're much larger. That should, in principle, allow them to exceed the per-satellite throughput of GSO birds like Viasat's which are over 1Tbps per bird. They aren't competing with fiber in Denver. They're competing with high-latency and expensive satellite internet in rural areas. It's possible they may eventually dip into the cities a bit if they sell out their capacity and then build out their VLEO constellation (total of 12,000 or so satellites, but in much lower orbits enabling yet lower latency and higher bandwidth). But Iridium's problem wasn't a lack of capacity, it was slow customer acquisition combined with very high interest rates and launch prices. If SpaceX fills up their network with customers to its capacity, they will be just fine.
    - planteen 9y ago
      Iridium's problem was they didn't know who they were marketing service to. It seemed like a good idea before cell service was common and before roaming agreements. Those things were in place before the constellation was operational. So they tried to target international business travelers and failed. The restart of Iridium succeeded by selling to the US government. I wonder if Starlink has the same problem, at least in the US. For rural areas, there are wireless ISPs for rural areas here in Colorado where you put an antenna on your roof. You get line of sight to an antenna on a nearby mountain for internet service. I don't see how Starlink can possibly compete with that on a technological or cost basis. It seems like most of the western US could have service like this for many rural markets, if it's not already available.
      - Robotbeat 9y ago
        Regular satellite internet already provides price-per-gigabyte that is competitive (or superior to, in the case of Viasat) with mobile internet services. It's the latency that's lacking. With a LEO (and the then VLEO) constellation, Starlink could actually do better than some mobile internet providers as far as latency. 25-35 milliseconds for Starlink (maybe more in some cases) versus like 80-100 milliseconds for LTE providers (much worse for 4G and terrible for 3G). So I definitely think Starlink could compete in that market. But more as an equal than as the only option.
- seiferteric 9y ago
  I was thinking recently.. once you have data uplink anywhere on the planet, whats stopping them from blanketing the planet in cell phone towers and taking over that industry as well? They won't be limited by where you can run fiber like the other guys.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    Providing backhaul for rural cell towers is expected to be a big part of Starlink's business, yes. Same for O3b and Oneweb.
  - hyperpallium 9y ago
    In super high density areas, fibre is going to be cheaper and faster and more easily maintained and upgraded etc than satellites
    - lev99 9y ago
      I think "super high density" is probably hyperbolic. As density increases shared airwaves become more crowded and wired infrastructure becomes cheaper to operate. I can see wired internet being competitive for a long time. Even in places more like St. Louis than Manhattan. I choose where to live because I can have two different fiber connections (for speed and a failsafe). How long will it be before satellite internet offers 2gbps symmetrical with low latency at reasonable prices?
      - jjeaff 9y ago
        The use case of someone who needs two gigabit fiber connections to their residence is exceedingly tiny and would have no bearing at all on spacex's market. I can hardly imagine a situation where internet access is so critical at a home that you need two fiber lines anyway. I have probably had 2 hours of downtime in the past 3 years with my cable connection.
      - analognoise 9y ago
        Are you camping out at the datacenter again?

Robotbeat 9y ago

Could be more like hundreds of billions in the very long-term, as they plan to just keep growing it in size, capability, and per-satellite mass. Enabled by BFR. That’d put SpaceX in league with other telecommunications giants. That’s, of course, not the only possible outcome, but that’s why the valuation is so high.

planteen 9y ago
Maybe... but I see the system being bandwidth constrained. If each spacecraft is 20 Gbps and how many will be visible over the USA at a time? 50 or so? So 1 Tbps for the entire country? That's less than the capacity of a single neighborhood in Denver on gigabit fiber. Not to mention the capacity of 4G networks across the country. Some of this smells like the first round of Iridium to me.
- ethbro 9y ago
  The key point is that, if the satellites are cheap enough, they're a safety valve for surplus rocket supply. Or padding if schedules don't make for full payloads. Essentially seeding their own demand in a market that didn't previously exist (cheaper launch on reused rockets). As a side benefit, they get the ability to put a constellation in orbit (and continue adding to it) at a fraction of the cost of their telecom competitors.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    Yeah, if Starlink merely breaks even (and continues to grow), they will have pushed the commercial launch market potentially one or two orders of magnitude larger (in terms of mass) than it is today. It'll help pay for BFR, their Mars rocket. Therefore, if Starlink suffers the same fate as Iridium (but without damaging the rest of SpaceX), that would actually be a big net win. Iridium emerged from bankruptcy, turned a profit and launched replacement satellites and is now in the process of a huge constellation refresh, using SpaceX's reusable rockets. If that happens with Starlink, that would be a complete success for creating launch demand.
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  That's just the initial system, and they'll be selling globally, not just in the US. It's still about 10 times the aggregate bandwidth of their nearest competitor (OneWeb) plus the later constellation is going to be much larger and more capable. Additionally, there should be about 150-200 satellites above the US in the initial deployment. They also plan to upgrade the satellites themselves (according to SpaceX's Mueller) so they're much larger. That should, in principle, allow them to exceed the per-satellite throughput of GSO birds like Viasat's which are over 1Tbps per bird. They aren't competing with fiber in Denver. They're competing with high-latency and expensive satellite internet in rural areas. It's possible they may eventually dip into the cities a bit if they sell out their capacity and then build out their VLEO constellation (total of 12,000 or so satellites, but in much lower orbits enabling yet lower latency and higher bandwidth). But Iridium's problem wasn't a lack of capacity, it was slow customer acquisition combined with very high interest rates and launch prices. If SpaceX fills up their network with customers to its capacity, they will be just fine.
  - planteen 9y ago
    Iridium's problem was they didn't know who they were marketing service to. It seemed like a good idea before cell service was common and before roaming agreements. Those things were in place before the constellation was operational. So they tried to target international business travelers and failed. The restart of Iridium succeeded by selling to the US government. I wonder if Starlink has the same problem, at least in the US. For rural areas, there are wireless ISPs for rural areas here in Colorado where you put an antenna on your roof. You get line of sight to an antenna on a nearby mountain for internet service. I don't see how Starlink can possibly compete with that on a technological or cost basis. It seems like most of the western US could have service like this for many rural markets, if it's not already available.
    - Robotbeat 9y ago
      Regular satellite internet already provides price-per-gigabyte that is competitive (or superior to, in the case of Viasat) with mobile internet services. It's the latency that's lacking. With a LEO (and the then VLEO) constellation, Starlink could actually do better than some mobile internet providers as far as latency. 25-35 milliseconds for Starlink (maybe more in some cases) versus like 80-100 milliseconds for LTE providers (much worse for 4G and terrible for 3G). So I definitely think Starlink could compete in that market. But more as an equal than as the only option.
seiferteric 9y ago
I was thinking recently.. once you have data uplink anywhere on the planet, whats stopping them from blanketing the planet in cell phone towers and taking over that industry as well? They won't be limited by where you can run fiber like the other guys.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Providing backhaul for rural cell towers is expected to be a big part of Starlink's business, yes. Same for O3b and Oneweb.
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  In super high density areas, fibre is going to be cheaper and faster and more easily maintained and upgraded etc than satellites
  - lev99 9y ago
    I think "super high density" is probably hyperbolic. As density increases shared airwaves become more crowded and wired infrastructure becomes cheaper to operate. I can see wired internet being competitive for a long time. Even in places more like St. Louis than Manhattan. I choose where to live because I can have two different fiber connections (for speed and a failsafe). How long will it be before satellite internet offers 2gbps symmetrical with low latency at reasonable prices?
    - jjeaff 9y ago
      The use case of someone who needs two gigabit fiber connections to their residence is exceedingly tiny and would have no bearing at all on spacex's market. I can hardly imagine a situation where internet access is so critical at a home that you need two fiber lines anyway. I have probably had 2 hours of downtime in the past 3 years with my cable connection.
    - analognoise 9y ago
      Are you camping out at the datacenter again?