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There can be a lot of arguments against starlink as envisioned but the reasons you gave don't seem to hold up. > cityfolk won't really use Starlink I don't th
by SahAssar 5y ago
There can be a lot of arguments against starlink as envisioned but the reasons you gave don't seem to hold up.
> cityfolk won't really use Starlink
I don't think starlink was ever meant to replace current high speed internet.
> 5G will cover many rural areas
5G means many different things. The high speed bands don't have enough range to make them economical to build in rural areas from what I've read.
> directional WiFi (Fixed Wireless) works surprisingly well out in rural areas for 50-mile ranges
Yes, if it's directional, and the directionality is pretty narrow if you want to get any reasonable performance. I don't think it's feasible for each town to have a dedicated antenna for each house within a 50 mile radius.
- dragontamer 5y ago> Yes, if it's directional, and the directionality is pretty narrow if you want to get any reasonable performance. I don't think it's feasible for each town to have a dedicated antenna for each house within a 50 mile radius. You're asking the wrong questions. So lets say Starlink is 4000-customers per satellite (10x oversubscription of a 40Gbps underlying, 100Mbit per customer, seem fair to you?). It costs $1000 to $3000 for the Starlink Satellite dish right now. The total costs of Starlink, per customer, is therefore 1/400th of a satellite launch + $1500 or so (depending on how cheaply the dish can get). Can you run an antenna from a town center to a house 50-miles away for less than $1500 + SatelliteLaunch/4000 ?? EDIT: 4000, not 400. I admit that I don't know how much a Satellite Launch costs, but Elon Musk is asking $30 Billion for a reason. I assume the satellite launches are a good chunk of those costs.
- wmf 5y agoA dedicated point-to-point link costs $300 or less which is even cheaper than Starlink.