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On a totally unrelated note, I wad thoroughly surprised at how cheap satellite internet has become. If you spend $300 on a Garmin device and $50 a month, you ge

On a totally unrelated note, I wad thoroughly surprised at how cheap satellite internet has become. If you spend $300 on a Garmin device and $50 a month, you get unlimited global text messages receiving/sending. Considering that I spend $30 a month for Verizon prepaid, where the cell coverage is hilariously spotty and data is 1kb/s, an extra $20 a month seems entirely worth it, especially if you go off the beaten path like I do in random countries. Hooray commerce!

londons_explore 8y ago
From their point of view, their SMS capacity is effectively unlimited, so the marginal cost of having you as a customer is zero. Since there are no real competitors, pricing simply becomes 'maximize the area under the price-demand curve'.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  If the entire world was sending text messages through their satelites, they wouldn't really have a bottleneck? Not even trying to start an argument, I didn't think they had that much bandwidth. I suppose they do voice calls but definitely not video or pictures? I would be thoroughly, thoroughly, infinitely pleased to switch to a satellite only texting service. I've been seriously considering just making the switch now and porting all of my news consumption habits to text files that are texted to me. Their lowest tiers I think are 19.99 a month but only allow 10-40 text messages?
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    Quick back of the envelope calculation... Lets assume 10 texts sent per person per day worldwide on average. Lets also assume everyone has a phone (far from true, but hey). Assume an SMS message is 160 bytes, but with compression is significantly less, but there is also connection/presence metadata - so cancelling out. So we have 1600 bytes * 7 billion people. Thats spread across 66 satellites. That totals 2 megabytes per satellite per second. Very doable.
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      I'm going to contact them about a texting only package where they disable voice capability and you have to oay one year upfront at like 20 bux a month!

londons_explore 8y ago

From their point of view, their SMS capacity is effectively unlimited, so the marginal cost of having you as a customer is zero. Since there are no real competitors, pricing simply becomes 'maximize the area under the price-demand curve'.

anoncoward111 8y ago
If the entire world was sending text messages through their satelites, they wouldn't really have a bottleneck? Not even trying to start an argument, I didn't think they had that much bandwidth. I suppose they do voice calls but definitely not video or pictures? I would be thoroughly, thoroughly, infinitely pleased to switch to a satellite only texting service. I've been seriously considering just making the switch now and porting all of my news consumption habits to text files that are texted to me. Their lowest tiers I think are 19.99 a month but only allow 10-40 text messages?
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Quick back of the envelope calculation... Lets assume 10 texts sent per person per day worldwide on average. Lets also assume everyone has a phone (far from true, but hey). Assume an SMS message is 160 bytes, but with compression is significantly less, but there is also connection/presence metadata - so cancelling out. So we have 1600 bytes * 7 billion people. Thats spread across 66 satellites. That totals 2 megabytes per satellite per second. Very doable.
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    I'm going to contact them about a texting only package where they disable voice capability and you have to oay one year upfront at like 20 bux a month!