4 ms·

While I understand this will have superb latency, it's still not clear to me why would Starlink be cheaper than existing VSAT. VSAT is quite expensive (starting

While I understand this will have superb latency, it's still not clear to me why would Starlink be cheaper than existing VSAT. VSAT is quite expensive (starting from ~thousand dollars per month): http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-list.asp http://www.melatnetworks.com/price-list.asp Or those, with prices around 50usd/gb: https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-Dealer/var-services/rate-plan/ https://www.vsat-systems.com/service-offerings/VAR-VNO-Deale... Even if Starlink is 10x cheaper than existing VSAT it does not come even close to LTE cost. And we have 5g on the horizon.

Robotbeat 7y ago
That’s simply not true. Viasat offers much lower cost per GB. The higher speed plans are less than $1 per GB. The cheapest plan is $50/40GB. That’s already far cheaper than mobile data. Starlink and others are likely to significantly improve on that, too. Fundamental costs (especially for later versions) are cents per GB or lower, competitive with AWS transit fees.
- YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
  Touché. Where can I find such offers?
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    This one: https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/viasat-reviews/ https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/viasat-reviews/ (look for "data cap") ...note that, for instance, the $50/month plan goes up to $70 after 3 months. But the data cap of 40GB is a soft cap.
    - YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
      It is much cheaper than I thought. Thanks!
Tuna-Fish 7y ago
The reason to expect Starlink to provide lower cost than VSAT is that SpaceX is currently paying less than $500k per functional Starlink sat (including both manufacturing and launch cost), and intends to dramatically reduce the cost from that before launching the larger stages of the constellation. In contrast, the geostationary satellites that are used by VSAT cost near billions per each. This three orders of magnitude difference in cost can be expected to be reflected in the price of the service.

Robotbeat 7y ago

That’s simply not true. Viasat offers much lower cost per GB. The higher speed plans are less than $1 per GB. The cheapest plan is $50/40GB. That’s already far cheaper than mobile data. Starlink and others are likely to significantly improve on that, too. Fundamental costs (especially for later versions) are cents per GB or lower, competitive with AWS transit fees.

YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
Touché. Where can I find such offers?
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  This one: https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/viasat-reviews/ https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/viasat-reviews/ (look for "data cap") ...note that, for instance, the $50/month plan goes up to $70 after 3 months. But the data cap of 40GB is a soft cap.
  - YjSe2GMQ 7y ago
    It is much cheaper than I thought. Thanks!

Tuna-Fish 7y ago

The reason to expect Starlink to provide lower cost than VSAT is that SpaceX is currently paying less than $500k per functional Starlink sat (including both manufacturing and launch cost), and intends to dramatically reduce the cost from that before launching the larger stages of the constellation. In contrast, the geostationary satellites that are used by VSAT cost near billions per each. This three orders of magnitude difference in cost can be expected to be reflected in the price of the service.