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It is odd that Starlink isn’t mentioned in the article. Starlink has impressive speed and latency and the potential to compete to some degree in every market in
by Robotbeat 6y ago
It is odd that Starlink isn’t mentioned in the article. Starlink has impressive speed and latency and the potential to compete to some degree in every market in the US. Twitter angst aside (some of which is fair but much seems to be either dishonest or ignorant, even by those who should definitely know better), SpaceX has also done a remarkably good job of addressing the light pollution problem such that the satellites are invisible to the naked eye once in operational orbit (mitigating impact on ground astronomy is something SpaceX continues to work with astronomers on). They’ve done so well, this should probably become industry regulation. And by choosing a lower (self-clearing) orbit, they’ve mitigated a lot of the concerns about space debris as well. I think their approach to these problems shows it is scalable (although IMHO we should actually codify some of these mitigation’s instead of just relying on good faith).
And thankfully, competitors exist. OneWeb has exited bankruptcy and is starting to launch again. Project Kuiper also shows promise.
I think people are still sleeping on just how big of a deal Starlink (etc) is going to be.
- baq 6y agostarlink cannot compete in densely populated area because the sats have comparatively (to dsl, fiber, etc.) limited total bandwidth to spare, just like any other shared medium. musk himself was very open about this. starlink is a game changer where the last mile is prohibitively expensive i.e. sparse/rural areas a few dozen miles away from population centers.
- yaacov 6y agoCurrently urban broadband costs are high in part because they’re subsidizing rural areas, right? So if starlink can cover the rurals for less costs can hopefully come down for everyone
- biggermike 6y agoBuilding in dense urban areas carries its own set of problems akin to how pushing changes to a live product can be more difficult than hacking one together from scratch. It requires aligning many stakeholders who often have conflicting interests e.g. all the building owners on the same block.
- daniellarusso 6y agoUrban broadband does not subsidize rural broadband. Are you talking about the Universal Service Fund?
- yaacov 6y agoNo, I just don’t know what I’m talking about. Looked into it a bit more and I was completely wrong. Thanks
- jfengel 6y agoAny idea how suburbs fit into that? The last mile isn't prohibitively expensive, but enough that you don't get any kind of competition, either, and the space isn't extremely crowded. By the time Starlink goes wide it probably won't be any cheaper than I'm currently paying, but what I am paying is quite absurd given that it's not a network of satellites. It's just a fiber optic cable that was long since amortized to zero.
- baq 6y agoIt depends completely on how many of your neighbors have the same idea in a few dozen mile radius, and perhaps if you have a tree blocking a large part of the sky nearby.
- Robotbeat 6y agoStarlink can, indeed, compete to a degree in more densely populated areas, as I said. (Especially DSL.) > SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has touted Starlink’s reach, saying it could bring 5G-like service to billions around the world while also handling up to 10 percent of the internet traffic in more congested regions “where people are stuck with Time Warner or Comcast.” https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/17/spacex-testing-its-own-satellite-broadband-internet-network.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/17/spacex-testing-its-own-satel...