6 ms·

For comparison, DSL is 1.5 Mbps. 4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally starts at 50Mbps. Cable internet is usually 25

For comparison, DSL is 1.5 Mbps. 4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally starts at 50Mbps. Cable internet is usually 25 Mbps, and up to 1 Gbps if you're willing to pay, and fiber is up to 10 Gbps if you're lucky enough to live in an area with fiber built out to your home. So in other words, Starlink is useful if you live too far away from a major residential center to have access to better and cheaper forms of internet access. There aren't enough people in the US or EU that live in rural areas far from decent internet connections for Starlink to be more than a tiny fraction of the ISP market. On top of that, unlike existing forms of internet access, Starlink is susceptible to weather conditions.

arcticbull 6y ago
> There aren't enough people in the US or EU that live in rural areas far from decent internet connections for Starlink to be more than a tiny fraction of the ISP market. Oh, I'm not sure that's true. 41,000,000 Americans don't have access to broadband [1]. That's the entire population of Canada and then some. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/where-the-u-s-underestimates-the-digital-divide https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/where-the...
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Starlink can't handle that many people, so it's a moot point that there are a theoretical 41 million potential customers. You can build out landlines far more easily than you can launch satellites; you just need the cable/fiber and some guys to dig a trench. The reason it hasn't happened is because it's not worth the financial investment without government subsidies (and this is why the federal government provides some subsidies for rural broadband buildouts). Iridium tried to be Starlink a decade or two ago, and they ran into the same problem: the cost of servicing rural and remote areas far exceeds the money you would receive from rural customers without massive government subsidies.
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    > You can build out landlines far more easily than you can launch satellites; Each satellite costs SpaceX about $250K to build and $500K to launch and services thousands of customers. That same $750K might buy you a mile or so of trenching and cable. Many rural customers need multiple miles each.
    - fastaguy88 6y ago
      Century link quotes me about $5K / mile of copper (I assume). But they will only give me dial tone, not internet, because their equipment is saturated (rural Montana).
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      That same $750K might buy you a mile or so of trenching and cable. If you want to make this about the economics... All studies on this topic report that it costs less than $250k/mile in metro areas, which cost more due to the need to get permits, plan around utility lines and existing infrastructure, dig into asphalt/sidewalk, and then repair the damage. In a rural area where you can just dig into dirt and not repair anything, $750k should get you all of a town and then some, and I'm assuming we're talking about one scattered out across tens of miles. You're primarily paying for labor, and it's possible for a small team to dig dozens of miles of utility trenches in a day with common construction equipment. Once you lay the cable, your expenses are essentially fully booked. A single Starlink satellite, assuming maximum satellite bandwidth and minimal user bandwidth would service at most 2500 customers. At $750k/launch, assuming a useful life of 4 years (per Musk's Techcrunch interview from April 2020) and maximum customers, Spacelink would need to charge at least $6.25/month to each customer not accounting for operational or marketing costs just to break even. You would need to at least double the price to cover ongoing operational costs. Plus, Spacelink would need to pay other ISPs for interconnection agreements, which is another 1x cost there. Add in the costs of paying off R&D and other capitalized costs, and you're looking at a minimum of 5x the putative minimum price of $6.25/month, or roughly $30/month. Or in other words, Starlink would be charging no less than its current satellite and landline competitors already charge today.
petschge 6y ago
DSL might only be 1.5 Mbps where you are but it is standardized between (at least) 0.7Mbps and 300 Mbps. I personally have used it at speeds between 2 and 100 Mbps.
robotnikman 6y ago
The fact that people can actually switch from their current ISP to starlink is a big deal though. Most people just use the internet for social media and video streaming, which starlink provides more than enough bandwidth for
- gamblor956 6y ago
  People can switch from their current ISP now, unless they live in a rural area. They can choose between DSL, cable, or go fully mobile and rely on their 4G/5G connection. Starlink's bandwidth rates only apply to their beta test. Think about that: with minimal users, speed caps out at 60Mbps! 4G can handle that even when the network is fairly congested.
Reason077 6y ago
> "4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally starts at 50Mbps." Yup. I actually regularly get sustained speeds well over 50 Mbps on 4G with carrier aggregation (which some phones call "4G+"). And anything less than 200 Mbps is a bad day on 5G. (Vodafone UK network) https://www.speedtest.net/result/9898742367 https://www.speedtest.net/result/9898742367
bserge 6y ago
So, I'm on 4G right now, getting 45/25 Mbps, in what is considered a rural area (20km from the city). I lived in Birmingham, UK, a way more populated area, and got ~40/30 on 4G, as well. I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?
- gamblor956 6y ago
  4G is slower in the US, largely due to congestion.
  - adventured 6y ago
    4G in the US often matches the parent's reference speeds, it depends on where you're at. People often make poor comparisons with the US, they context drop, comparing eg the speed across the entire US or a state versus their experience in one large city in a smaller more densely populated country (and then cherry picking based on a good outcome). Cleveland, Minneapolis, Detroit, NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Baltimore are the best in the US, averaging at or above 30mbps across the cities in question. SF, Philly, Atlanta, Kansas City were also competitive with what the parent referenced (eg the SF avg was 27mbps, meaning people are routinely seeing the parent's ~40mbps in Birmingham). https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network-speeds/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network-speeds/
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?" It can depend on the network, the device, congestion levels, and location. Some networks are notoriously bandwidth-constrained (ahem Three UK) and will always be prone to bad 4G speeds. Some networks have added capacity on more exotic 4G bands that are only supported by relatively recent devices. If you're connected to a macro site in a major city it probably has fibre backhaul with plenty of bandwidth available, but if you're connected to a small edge cell it may have radio backhaul with less capacity available. And newer devices will support things like carrier aggregation and higher levels of MIMO that get faster speeds. Interesting site showing how the UK mobile frequency is allocated here: https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum Note that only fairly new devices will support the more exotic bands like 32/38/40 (and, of course, 5G).
wlesieutre 6y ago
The US does have a lot of people in rural areas where 5G coverage won't be good. And even if you have good 4G coverage, take take a look at the 4G home internet plans from Verizon: https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-installed/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-i... For $60/month you get 10 GB of data. For $150 you can go up to 40 GB. Overage is billed at $10 for each additional 1GB. If I did my math right, at 12 Mbps you can chew through the largest monthly data allotment in under 8 hours. In practical terms, for $150/month you can't even download one AAA game, and even if you buy all your games on disc you'll probably still go over the data cap just downloading mandatory updates. Starlink hasn't said anything about data caps yet, but there's plenty of room to compete with terrestrial broadband providers on things other than download speed.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  I get that people are placing their internet hopes and dreams on Starlink being cheap, but the financials they've provided just don't work out to them being any cheaper than any existing ISP unless (a) Starlink receives massive government subsidies (b) signs up a fuckton of commercial partners/sponsors, or (c) runs the network at a huge loss.
  - wlesieutre 6y ago
    They've provided financials?
    - bryanlarsen 6y ago
      They've indicated that each satellite costs about $250K to build, and launch costs per satellite are about $500K. Each satellite lasts 5 years. Each satellite gets 50Gbps (25Gbps actual since you have to go up & down). They haven't released base station costs, but there are some estimates that it'll be about $2K per. The other big unknown is the utilization factor. It's pretty hard to punch those numbers into a model and not show SpaceX making money hand over fist, but there are bears out there that have come up with some really contrived models.

arcticbull 6y ago

> There aren't enough people in the US or EU that live in rural areas far from decent internet connections for Starlink to be more than a tiny fraction of the ISP market. Oh, I'm not sure that's true. 41,000,000 Americans don't have access to broadband [1]. That's the entire population of Canada and then some. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/where-the-u-s-underestimates-the-digital-divide https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-19/where-the...

gamblor956 6y ago
Starlink can't handle that many people, so it's a moot point that there are a theoretical 41 million potential customers. You can build out landlines far more easily than you can launch satellites; you just need the cable/fiber and some guys to dig a trench. The reason it hasn't happened is because it's not worth the financial investment without government subsidies (and this is why the federal government provides some subsidies for rural broadband buildouts). Iridium tried to be Starlink a decade or two ago, and they ran into the same problem: the cost of servicing rural and remote areas far exceeds the money you would receive from rural customers without massive government subsidies.
- bryanlarsen 6y ago
  > You can build out landlines far more easily than you can launch satellites; Each satellite costs SpaceX about $250K to build and $500K to launch and services thousands of customers. That same $750K might buy you a mile or so of trenching and cable. Many rural customers need multiple miles each.
  - fastaguy88 6y ago
    Century link quotes me about $5K / mile of copper (I assume). But they will only give me dial tone, not internet, because their equipment is saturated (rural Montana).
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    That same $750K might buy you a mile or so of trenching and cable. If you want to make this about the economics... All studies on this topic report that it costs less than $250k/mile in metro areas, which cost more due to the need to get permits, plan around utility lines and existing infrastructure, dig into asphalt/sidewalk, and then repair the damage. In a rural area where you can just dig into dirt and not repair anything, $750k should get you all of a town and then some, and I'm assuming we're talking about one scattered out across tens of miles. You're primarily paying for labor, and it's possible for a small team to dig dozens of miles of utility trenches in a day with common construction equipment. Once you lay the cable, your expenses are essentially fully booked. A single Starlink satellite, assuming maximum satellite bandwidth and minimal user bandwidth would service at most 2500 customers. At $750k/launch, assuming a useful life of 4 years (per Musk's Techcrunch interview from April 2020) and maximum customers, Spacelink would need to charge at least $6.25/month to each customer not accounting for operational or marketing costs just to break even. You would need to at least double the price to cover ongoing operational costs. Plus, Spacelink would need to pay other ISPs for interconnection agreements, which is another 1x cost there. Add in the costs of paying off R&D and other capitalized costs, and you're looking at a minimum of 5x the putative minimum price of $6.25/month, or roughly $30/month. Or in other words, Starlink would be charging no less than its current satellite and landline competitors already charge today.

petschge 6y ago

DSL might only be 1.5 Mbps where you are but it is standardized between (at least) 0.7Mbps and 300 Mbps. I personally have used it at speeds between 2 and 100 Mbps.

robotnikman 6y ago

The fact that people can actually switch from their current ISP to starlink is a big deal though. Most people just use the internet for social media and video streaming, which starlink provides more than enough bandwidth for

gamblor956 6y ago
People can switch from their current ISP now, unless they live in a rural area. They can choose between DSL, cable, or go fully mobile and rely on their 4G/5G connection. Starlink's bandwidth rates only apply to their beta test. Think about that: with minimal users, speed caps out at 60Mbps! 4G can handle that even when the network is fairly congested.

Reason077 6y ago

> "4g is between 5Mbps and 12 Mbps (up to 50Mbps in burst mode), while 5g generally starts at 50Mbps." Yup. I actually regularly get sustained speeds well over 50 Mbps on 4G with carrier aggregation (which some phones call "4G+"). And anything less than 200 Mbps is a bad day on 5G. (Vodafone UK network) https://www.speedtest.net/result/9898742367 https://www.speedtest.net/result/9898742367

bserge 6y ago

So, I'm on 4G right now, getting 45/25 Mbps, in what is considered a rural area (20km from the city). I lived in Birmingham, UK, a way more populated area, and got ~40/30 on 4G, as well. I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?

gamblor956 6y ago
4G is slower in the US, largely due to congestion.
- adventured 6y ago
  4G in the US often matches the parent's reference speeds, it depends on where you're at. People often make poor comparisons with the US, they context drop, comparing eg the speed across the entire US or a state versus their experience in one large city in a smaller more densely populated country (and then cherry picking based on a good outcome). Cleveland, Minneapolis, Detroit, NYC, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Baltimore are the best in the US, averaging at or above 30mbps across the cities in question. SF, Philly, Atlanta, Kansas City were also competitive with what the parent referenced (eg the SF avg was 27mbps, meaning people are routinely seeing the parent's ~40mbps in Birmingham). https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network-speeds/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/31/state-mobile-network-speeds/
Reason077 6y ago
> "I noticed many people say they're lucky to get ~15 Mbps on 4G and I'm confused, why? Is it just congestion or is there some difference in the towers/implementation?" It can depend on the network, the device, congestion levels, and location. Some networks are notoriously bandwidth-constrained (ahem Three UK) and will always be prone to bad 4G speeds. Some networks have added capacity on more exotic 4G bands that are only supported by relatively recent devices. If you're connected to a macro site in a major city it probably has fibre backhaul with plenty of bandwidth available, but if you're connected to a small edge cell it may have radio backhaul with less capacity available. And newer devices will support things like carrier aggregation and higher levels of MIMO that get faster speeds. Interesting site showing how the UK mobile frequency is allocated here: https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum https://pedroc.co.uk/content/uk-commercial-mobile-spectrum Note that only fairly new devices will support the more exotic bands like 32/38/40 (and, of course, 5G).

wlesieutre 6y ago

The US does have a lot of people in rural areas where 5G coverage won't be good. And even if you have good 4G coverage, take take a look at the 4G home internet plans from Verizon: https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-installed/ https://www.verizonwireless.com/home-services/lte-internet-i... For $60/month you get 10 GB of data. For $150 you can go up to 40 GB. Overage is billed at $10 for each additional 1GB. If I did my math right, at 12 Mbps you can chew through the largest monthly data allotment in under 8 hours. In practical terms, for $150/month you can't even download one AAA game, and even if you buy all your games on disc you'll probably still go over the data cap just downloading mandatory updates. Starlink hasn't said anything about data caps yet, but there's plenty of room to compete with terrestrial broadband providers on things other than download speed.

gamblor956 6y ago
I get that people are placing their internet hopes and dreams on Starlink being cheap, but the financials they've provided just don't work out to them being any cheaper than any existing ISP unless (a) Starlink receives massive government subsidies (b) signs up a fuckton of commercial partners/sponsors, or (c) runs the network at a huge loss.
- wlesieutre 6y ago
  They've provided financials?
  - bryanlarsen 6y ago
    They've indicated that each satellite costs about $250K to build, and launch costs per satellite are about $500K. Each satellite lasts 5 years. Each satellite gets 50Gbps (25Gbps actual since you have to go up & down). They haven't released base station costs, but there are some estimates that it'll be about $2K per. The other big unknown is the utilization factor. It's pretty hard to punch those numbers into a model and not show SpaceX making money hand over fist, but there are bears out there that have come up with some really contrived models.