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This is history repeating itself. Many of you will be too young to remember this but there was a glut of these companies/constellations in the 1990s. For examp
by cletus 6y ago
This is history repeating itself.
Many of you will be too young to remember this but there was a glut of these companies/constellations in the 1990s. For example, Teledesic [1]. For awhile 20 years ago we had Internet access of international flights. We have it again but there was 10-15 years in the middle where we didn't.
The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand.
We're at the beginning of another cycle like this. Not all these companies will survive. My money is on Starlink being one of the survivors because SpaceX, of any of these companies, is vertically integrated with the biggest cost: launches. Even better, their launch costs are the lowest.
Maybe Amazon can do this since Bezos also is throwing big money at Blue Origin but, at best, I think Blue Origin is years behind SpaceX.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic
- supernova87a 6y agoFrom that era, wasn't the lesson: "the best way to make money on a satellite venture is to buy out a bankrupt satellite venture"?
- lsaferite 6y ago> The reason was that there just wasn't that much demand for LEO satellite Internet and the capacity way exceeded demand. I think you have to factor is the access cost though. There wasn't much demand at that cost.
- cletus 6y agoOh I get there are different economics now. To be clear, my point isn't that there isn't demand for things like Starlink. My point is merely that even with that demand, we'll end up building more capacity than we need and some won't survive, just like 20 years ago. I like the simplicity of the Starlink design, in that it's simply ground-to-satellite-to-ground. There are no satellite relays. I wonder if this will limit access in more remote places (eg Alaska, on the ocean, Antarctica). I guess SpaceX has decided this limitation is worth the cost-savings. I'm curious to know what the effective range is from subscriber to access point (via satellite). And also what if you can talk to multiple Starlink satellites but only some of them are within range of an access point? I'm sure they've thought about this. I'm just curious on the technical details.
- lostapathy 6y agoThe economics of getting satellites into orbit are drastically better now. The RF technology and thus bandwidth available between ground and satellite is drastically improved now. Pricing of these services should make them feasible for everyday use by something resembling an "average" rural user, whereas past services were really just a luxury for narrow circumstances. All in all, this time seems very different.