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Musk said that Starlink won't work in dense areas. This is a broader business question, but do you think there are there enough remote villagers and oil rig wor

Musk said that Starlink won't work in dense areas. This is a broader business question, but do you think there are there enough remote villagers and oil rig workers that can subscribe and eventually give Musk enough money to fund a trip to Mars? He has said that is the endgame for creating Starlink.

unionpivo 6y ago
yes, if you look globally. Just usa ? Not sure. But i think that they would have to become ISP and comply with local law with most jurisdictions if they want to have local ground stations. Not sure how that will go.
- martin8412 6y ago
  Who do you imagine will buy it on a global scale? Rural NA areas, rural Australian areas and a few places in Europe. At the price point offered it is insanely expensive unless your only other option is satelite or a very crappy DSL. Maybe a few people in Asia, Africa, South America can afford it, but it is very few, and in the places where people can they are likely to already have better service.
  - unionpivo 6y ago
    I mean, you can get several houses together. If you split between 5 houses, you still get decent bandwidth (you wont be watching 4k, but then again if you can afford 4k screens ...), and the price is 100 USD + 20 per month. If you don't have any other option this might be decent alternative
    - Geee 6y ago
      Yeah, lots of small villages in Africa or other poor countries will have shared Starlink connections.
      - qayxc 6y ago
        That remains to be seen. As it stands, these regions don't have the ability to pay for the service (no matter the price - they simply don't have access to bank accounts and credit cards). This is something to keep in mind and not obvious to people living in 1st world countries.
        Geee 6y ago
        They can pay with crypto. Obviously there are some hurdles too and they have to earn it first.
    - tuatoru 6y ago
      > you wont be watching 4k Netflix says you need 25 Mbps for "Ultra HD Quality"[1], so yes, you could watch a different 4K stream in every house simultaneously. And have 25 Mbps left over for other traffic. Edit to add: Netflix is right. If you can't get reliable 4K with a 25 Mbps connection, the most likely reasons are: - First by a wide margin, is that you are using Wi-Fi to connect your display device. Don't do that. Use ethernet (at least until you have 802.11ax everywhere). - Second, you have a flaky connection to your ISP. Misconfigured, marginal (e.g. DSL more than 2.5 kilometres from the cabinet) or in poor electrical condition. - Third, you have neighbours regularly operating very large electric motors or electric arc welders. - Fourth, your ISP doesn't know what it's doing, or is deliberately monkeying with your service to try to upsell you. 1. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
  - TheCraiggers 6y ago
    I can't speak for globally, but a quick search online says that around 43 million people in the USA don't have broadband. "Broadband" meaning 25/3 service. I'm willing to bet the true numbers are significantly higher than that, and I don't really count severely data-capped wireless service as being broadband like the FCC does. Anyway, even that number alone is a sizable market, and even Comcast would be happy with a fraction of it. I know some parts of the world are better off than the USA, but I also know many parts are worse off.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    > Who do you imagine will buy it on a global scale? About 3.5 billion people don't have reliable access to the internet[1]. That's a large market. The satellites are orbiting anyway. For household customers in OECD countries, Starlink will charge OECD retail prices. Customers in developing countries represent extra revenue for negligible extra cost, so Starlink can practise geographic price discrimination to maximise net revenue. Or Starlink could permit "village WISP" bandwidth reselling arrangements in specific geographic areas. A video call needs no more than 2 Mbps down and up, so you can probably serve up to 50 undemanding households plus a one-room school and a medical clinic on one connection (with appropriate rate limiting and local caching). Starlink can also price-discriminate by latency tier for high-frequency traders and arbitrageurs. They can price-discriminate by QoS for organisations that demand a guaranteed minimum bandwith (e.g. militaries). And then there are shipping lines and air lines. 1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-digital-divide-internet-data-broadband-mobbile/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-... ("weforum" is the World Economic Forum.)
  - igetspam 6y ago
    I work with an animal rescue. They're out in a somewhat rural part of TX, just beyond a major metro. Only available network is LTE or bad p2p microwave that's crazy expensive. This is 1/3 the price of the microwave and about the same as the LTE plan. I signed them up and I'll pay for it. The resident who lives on site has never had a decent network. Then I can finally setup the wireless perimeter cameras too.
  - ecpottinger 6y ago
    You do realize you could have tried the same argument about cell phones when they first came out. No-one in those poorer countries would buy the same cell phone my dad (real estate agent) had in his car, the cost would run up to $1000 a month, but he made good commission selling factory properties. Today every where in the poorest parts of the world are connected with cell phones.

unionpivo 6y ago

yes, if you look globally. Just usa ? Not sure. But i think that they would have to become ISP and comply with local law with most jurisdictions if they want to have local ground stations. Not sure how that will go.

martin8412 6y ago
Who do you imagine will buy it on a global scale? Rural NA areas, rural Australian areas and a few places in Europe. At the price point offered it is insanely expensive unless your only other option is satelite or a very crappy DSL. Maybe a few people in Asia, Africa, South America can afford it, but it is very few, and in the places where people can they are likely to already have better service.
- unionpivo 6y ago
  I mean, you can get several houses together. If you split between 5 houses, you still get decent bandwidth (you wont be watching 4k, but then again if you can afford 4k screens ...), and the price is 100 USD + 20 per month. If you don't have any other option this might be decent alternative
  - Geee 6y ago
    Yeah, lots of small villages in Africa or other poor countries will have shared Starlink connections.
    - qayxc 6y ago
      That remains to be seen. As it stands, these regions don't have the ability to pay for the service (no matter the price - they simply don't have access to bank accounts and credit cards). This is something to keep in mind and not obvious to people living in 1st world countries.
      - Geee 6y ago
        They can pay with crypto. Obviously there are some hurdles too and they have to earn it first.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    > you wont be watching 4k Netflix says you need 25 Mbps for "Ultra HD Quality"[1], so yes, you could watch a different 4K stream in every house simultaneously. And have 25 Mbps left over for other traffic. Edit to add: Netflix is right. If you can't get reliable 4K with a 25 Mbps connection, the most likely reasons are: - First by a wide margin, is that you are using Wi-Fi to connect your display device. Don't do that. Use ethernet (at least until you have 802.11ax everywhere). - Second, you have a flaky connection to your ISP. Misconfigured, marginal (e.g. DSL more than 2.5 kilometres from the cabinet) or in poor electrical condition. - Third, you have neighbours regularly operating very large electric motors or electric arc welders. - Fourth, your ISP doesn't know what it's doing, or is deliberately monkeying with your service to try to upsell you. 1. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
- TheCraiggers 6y ago
  I can't speak for globally, but a quick search online says that around 43 million people in the USA don't have broadband. "Broadband" meaning 25/3 service. I'm willing to bet the true numbers are significantly higher than that, and I don't really count severely data-capped wireless service as being broadband like the FCC does. Anyway, even that number alone is a sizable market, and even Comcast would be happy with a fraction of it. I know some parts of the world are better off than the USA, but I also know many parts are worse off.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  > Who do you imagine will buy it on a global scale? About 3.5 billion people don't have reliable access to the internet[1]. That's a large market. The satellites are orbiting anyway. For household customers in OECD countries, Starlink will charge OECD retail prices. Customers in developing countries represent extra revenue for negligible extra cost, so Starlink can practise geographic price discrimination to maximise net revenue. Or Starlink could permit "village WISP" bandwidth reselling arrangements in specific geographic areas. A video call needs no more than 2 Mbps down and up, so you can probably serve up to 50 undemanding households plus a one-room school and a medical clinic on one connection (with appropriate rate limiting and local caching). Starlink can also price-discriminate by latency tier for high-frequency traders and arbitrageurs. They can price-discriminate by QoS for organisations that demand a guaranteed minimum bandwith (e.g. militaries). And then there are shipping lines and air lines. 1. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic-digital-divide-internet-data-broadband-mobbile/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-... ("weforum" is the World Economic Forum.)
- igetspam 6y ago
  I work with an animal rescue. They're out in a somewhat rural part of TX, just beyond a major metro. Only available network is LTE or bad p2p microwave that's crazy expensive. This is 1/3 the price of the microwave and about the same as the LTE plan. I signed them up and I'll pay for it. The resident who lives on site has never had a decent network. Then I can finally setup the wireless perimeter cameras too.
- ecpottinger 6y ago
  You do realize you could have tried the same argument about cell phones when they first came out. No-one in those poorer countries would buy the same cell phone my dad (real estate agent) had in his car, the cost would run up to $1000 a month, but he made good commission selling factory properties. Today every where in the poorest parts of the world are connected with cell phones.