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Starlink is a big deal
- kresten 7y agoI'll get excited about fast broadband when it's actually available and delivered to me and I do the speed test and it's as fast as promised. There's so much talk about broadband and its potential and so little actually delivered. Show me the speed test. Everything else is just vaporware.
- gibolt 7y agoWe already have satellite internet. It is 100x further from earth and using ooooold technology, compared to the Starlink fleet. The scale of satellites planned for Starlink is nearly 2 orders of magnitude more than all satellites ever launched. Current count of everything humanity has sent up is less than 2000, 40,000 is planned for Starlink. The change in viable throughput and what it means to a globally accessible, high-speed network is worth discussing.
- kresten 7y agoAs I say, show me a product I can buy that delivers on the promise, then it's interesting.
- shaklee3 7y agoThis is completely false. Which new technology do you think starlink satellite have that others don't? They're actually significantly less sophisticated than many older satellites. The only difference is they're planning to launch such a large number of them, but that has nothing to do with the payload technology. There are plenty of others that will/do give good throughout globally by that time, or sooner.
- snovv_crash 7y agoQuantity has a quality all of its own
- ben_w 7y agoAre the laser links used elsewhere yet? I remember reading about various people being interested in them, but this is the first deployment I’ve heard of.
- shaklee3 7y agoThere have been many filings in the past to use them, but only iridium came to fruition.
- aerovistae 7y agothis was just posted the other day i believe
- sstanie 7y agonope that was "SpaceX Starship is a very big deal", same author, same series https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-starship-is-a-very-big-deal/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-sta...
- pdq 7y agoHow can this be cost competitive against cell towers connected to fiber backbones? This seems like the obvious future, as towers are already being built, upgraded, and replaced due to the explosion in data demand for mobile phones. For Starlink, launching satellites are both incredibly expensive and hard to maintain. And likely they will have much lower bandwidth than cell towers, and the uplink hardware will be much more expensive than cellular hardware.
- latchkey 7y agoRight... I have traveled all over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos by motorbike. Been in the deepest areas of nowhere, 100's of KM from anyone or anything. I had solid 4G connections everywhere except the deepest valleys, because the military has installed towers literally everywhere.
- mantap 7y agoIt's not about wealth it's about population density. Think not about dense areas like Vietnam but sparsely populated places such as Australia, Canada, Russia, etc. Of course the problem with this is that there's relatively not many people who live in the middle of nowhere because most people want to live near civilization. So I am doubtful that starlink will be an economic success.
- latchkey 7y agoNone of the 3 countries I mentioned are densely populated, especially in the areas I'm talking about, and especially Laos, who get all their telcom infrastructure from Vietnam and China.
- Baeocystin 7y agoIf you aren't on the coast, there's a whole lot of empty space in Vietnam. Same goes for Laos and places not bordering the Mekong.
- Baeocystin 7y agoI lived in Laos back in the late 70's/early 80's. One of the big treats we got was 30 minutes of phone call time back home to the states on Christmas. Barring that, it was 3-month-round-trip mail via diplomatic pouch. Now I can hop on to any number of free webcams in Vientiane and check out the happenings where I used to live just for the heck of it, no questions asked, no money required. Sometimes it still shocks me how much the world has changed in the past few decades!
- __sy__ 7y ago"There are only three trillion dollar industries in existence: energy, high speed transport, and communications" I really love Casey's writeups, but I can think of quite a few more trillion-dollar industries than just those 3 :)
- alehul 7y agoWhat are some? Is there a definitive list of the largest industries in the world, when we think in an abstract sense (i.e. energy, transportation, communications)? Barring how challenging it would be to calculate, of course. Or maybe a list that aims to encompass all major industries via abstraction? i.e. WhatsApp and Starlink could be layers in the “communications” bucket.
- labster 7y agoAccording to some random article[1] I duckduckgoed, agriculture is a $2.4T industry. [1]: https://croplife.org/news/agriculture-a-2-4-trillion-industry-worth-protecting/ https://croplife.org/news/agriculture-a-2-4-trillion-industr...
- X6S1x6Okd1st 7y agoStart at Maslow basic needs. Food, shelter, security, warmth (energy)
- malandrew 7y agoEnergy, Transportion and Communication are three basic necessities. Here are some more: Food ($3-4T), Housing ($16T), Healthcare ($11T), Education (?), Clothing/Apparel ($1T) Mining is just shy of $1T.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI’m most excited about the prospect of things like this delivering the truth via uncensored internet to places like China and North Korea. Am I naive to think there is no way they could stop this and that the real internet would be available world-wide?
- lxmorj 7y agoChina could easily require filters on any receivers sold in China and ban the use of uncensored receivers.
- shaklee3 7y agoYes, that's naive. You need landing rights in every single country you plan to put a signal down in. There's nothing special about starlink; plenty of other companies have satellites that could cover those countries, but are not allowed to due to landing rights. Here's some decent info: https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-regulatory-channels-a-to-do-list-for-satellite-service-operators-and-end-users/ https://www.accesspartnership.com/navigating-through-the-reg...
- gbear605 7y agoLanding rights aren’t particularly relevant for NK, since it’s not like they can fine or imprison SpaceX. China is more relevant since they could retaliate at other US owned property or at specifically Tesla.
- roca 7y agoMore ISP competition would be a good thing, especially outside cities. But it's hard to see how Starlink's costs, even with cheap SpaceX launches, could ultimately be lower than land-based ISPs where last-mile fibre is already installed. I guess Starlink might be successful in markets where last-mile fibre is not available. So it seems like a good thing but Starlink making a lot of money will depend on land-based ISPs being useless.
- zaroth 7y agoI’m a huge fan of Tesla and SpaceX but I’m not sure Starlink is a “big deal” the same way that Starship is a Big Deal. Starlink isn’t a paradigm shift unless the receiver can fit in the cell phone form factor. In the meantime, Starlink is a great way for SpaceX to print money using the same infrastructure and expertise they needed to build anyway.
- baq 7y agoSpaceX needs launches to make the Starship viable economically. Starlink is a way to get those launches and may be a good business in itself to finance Mars exploration.
- agildehaus 7y agoSmartphones will directly benefit from Starlink as suddenly is becomes much easier and cheaper to deploy cell towers. Starlink is the key to near-global cellular coverage.
- diminoten 7y agoIt's a Big Deal for folks who are behind Internet censorship, isn't it? No way for the various country firewalls to prevent these devices from working in their countries, is there?
- dzhiurgis 7y agoQuite the opposite. Your equipment will be promptly detected and you'll be sent to gulag... Most dictatorships forbid using satcom.
- jedieaston 7y agoElon has said that they'll allow Starlink partners to censor when they resell the service in their local market. Probably the only way that they'd be able to sell their service in that market.
- gdubs 7y agoA lot of people in rural areas — close to major metro areas in the US — have terribly limited internet options. Traditional satellite internet is a decent option if it works on your property, but there’s a substantial latency. Fixed wireless requires line-of-sight to a tower, and cell providers don’t necessarily have the desire to get towers in these areas in a meaningful number. Starlink could bring connectivity to a lot of people.
- shaklee3 7y agoThis article seems to be trying to get to a conclusion without a lot of support. >This works out to be around $100k per satellite, more than 1000 times cheaper than a conventional comsat launch A standard comsat satellite can potentially cover 1/3 of the globe with hundreds of Gbps of bandwidth. Starlink covers a tiny area with much lower bandwidth. Strength in numbers. > 100MB per second using advanced coding such as 4096QAM QAM isn't used in satcom, and certainly nowhere near 4096. Why the assumption? > Each Starlink satellite includes all the complicated electronic switching gear found linking optical fibers together Nope. The first batch likely had a problem and won't have inter-satellite links (per the hint from shotwell) > All up, 2500 channels each supporting 58 Gbps is a staggering quantity of data, roughly 145 Tbps The MIT study showed simulations that was about 20x less than that, so I'm not sure where these numbers are coming from without doing a proper simulation. The piece that was left out, and possibly the most important, is user terminal cost. It will certainly be more expensive than a GEO antenna, and you need to recover that cost from the user. So far, there have been no practical, cheap, high-performing phased array that I know of.
- mbar84 7y ago> So far, there have been no practical, cheap, high-performing phased array that I know of. Do you thing that is more due to technical limitations or more due to relatively small markets for such antenna that perhaps has not led to economies of scale?
- shaklee3 7y agoI think technology limitations. Directtv/dish would have used it already if it was cheap enough since it's easier to install.
- manicdee 7y agoThey would only have done it if an off-the-shelf solution was already available. StarLink is going global and the target price for their terminals is $USD200 or so.
- leecb 7y ago> There are only three trillion dollar industries in existence: energy, high speed transport, and communications. I would suggest that housing is a 4th trillion dollar industry.
- robotresearcher 7y agoAnd agriculture. https://croplife.org/news/agriculture-a-2-4-trillion-industry-worth-protecting/ https://croplife.org/news/agriculture-a-2-4-trillion-industr...
- mylons 7y agoand drugs
- chao- 7y agoAnd defense.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- buboard 7y agoand healthcare
- chrisco255 7y agoAnd financ e
- becomingknown 7y agoAnd food.
- hisnameismanuel 7y agotravel
- sudhirj 7y agoMaybe slightly off topic, but Musk’s companies are likely to be the biggest human decentralizing force in history. Leaving aside that Spacex is trying to decentralise at a planetary level, the solar roofs and batteries allow you to live anywhere in the world without an electric grid (water is generally easy to get with a borewell), Teslas will drive you anywhere (mostly) by themselves, and Starlink will give you high speed Internet. Given the way lifestyles are changing, I don’t actually think people of the future will cluster in cities.
- mellosouls 7y agoMusk’s companies are likely to be the biggest human decentralizing force in history. He's an interesting figure, but it's a little early to be eulogising him this way.
- twic 7y agoRight, because the reason i live in a city is the easy access to electricity, water, and high-speed internet access!
- hexomancer 7y agoI don't know if you were being sarcastic or not but for me the reason that I live in a city absolutely is easy access to those.
- riantogo 7y agoThen considering moving to cheaper rural places where in 2019 all three are easily available.
- navigatesol 7y ago>but Musk’s companies are likely to be the biggest human decentralizing force in history. Are you completely unaware that Musk and his family are being sued for self-dealing and fraud? Are you not paying attention to what's happening to cash bleeding companies? >the solar roofs The solar roofs that the CFO at the time they were demonstrated publicly didn't think were real, or that the global sales manager for Tesla energy didn't know if they sold a single one during his tenure? Those are changing the world? SpaceX can't go to Mars. Teslas don't drive themselves. The Solar Roof doesn't exist. Starlink has yet to prove viable. Neuralink and The Boring Company are jokes. These are money-burning "ideas" to get to the next funding round.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y agoSo - if the web infrastructure is disconnected from infrastructure on the ground- no more censorship and local gov surveilance?
- owaislone 7y agoI know ISP will use the Starlink network and then resell to consumers but I really hope over time there is some commodity hardware that people can use to directly access the network. It is very unlikely and would probably never happen but I can't help but think if people can use this somehow to bypass Government censorship like in Iran/China or use it to just get online in the face of complete internet suspension like in Kashmir.
- avmich 7y agoGovernment will ban the use of such technologies. And they will deploy technological means to ensure you're in compliance. Perhaps.
- perseusprime11 7y agoWill Starlink used to power Tesla Internet?
- avmich 7y ago> because only SpaceX had the vision to spend a decade struggling to break the government-military monopoly on space launch. This is completely wrong.
- avmich 7y agoThis is a great article. I don't think, though, that author adequately estimates counter-monopolistic actions. Those actions, I think, will happen if SpaceX even approaches the position which this article describes.