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starlink won't scale and everyone knows it. At most, starlink can replace one tmobile. amz seem to be buying into everything under the sun and trumpling usage

starlink won't scale and everyone knows it. At most, starlink can replace one tmobile. amz seem to be buying into everything under the sun and trumpling usage agreements (i.e. "reselling" consumer broadband with people joining via dark-patterns despite it being against their ISP terms of service, via amz sidewalk product)... and that can scale up to O.G. Bell levels of monopoly.

skissane 5y ago
If Starlink won't scale, Kuiper won't scale even moreso. FCC has approved 12,000 satellites for SpaceX, and another 30,000 are going through the approval process. Project Kuiper has only applied for a 3,236 satellite constellation. And SpaceX is way ahead on deployment, and is likely to stay ahead. Other than Kuiper, Amazon has shown no signs of becoming a serious player in the consumer ISP space. Sidewalk is not a consumer ISP service in its own right, it needs to piggyback on a third-party consumer ISP service. Amazon is nowhere near becoming anything resembling Bell.
- shaklee3 5y ago
  The number of satellites is an extremely poor metric for capacity. A single GEO satellite has more USA capacity than about 900 LEOs
  - skissane 5y ago
    Don't you mean to say coverage, not capacity? Capacity would be aggregate bandwidth, which is determined by the satellite's communications technology (number of transponders, spectrum allocated, modulation used, etc) rather than directly by which orbit it is in. Comparing constellation sizes does make sense in determining total capacity (aggregate bandwidth of the constellation) assuming that Starlink and Kuiper use similar capacity satellites. I think that is a reasonable assumption, but we have limited info on what Kuiper are planning. Current Starlink satellites have on average 20 GBps capacity each. I can't find any public info on the planned capacity of Kuiper's satellites. Even if Kuiper has higher bandwidth satellites, they'd need a fourfold advantage in bandwidth to overcome Starlink's fourfold advantage in satellite count. And SpaceX is likely to increase the capacity of Starlink in future iterations, so even if Kuiper did have such a bandwidth advantage, it might not last.
    - shaklee3 5y ago
      Both. I specifically said the USA because that's where they're going to make the most money, and at a given time only about 10% of their satellites are over it. The satellite capability is one thing, but spectrum is another. SpaceX doesn't have priority on a lot of the spectrum they have, so it might be completely unusable by the time they go live.
      - skissane 5y ago
        Is Kuiper's spectrum situation any better than Starlink's? From what I've read, Starlink and OneWeb have priority over Kuiper for the same spectrum (since they were approved first). I feel like we are arguing two different things. I was saying Kuiper can't beat Starlink. You are arguing Starlink is not going to succeed. I'm more optimistic about its prospects than you are, but even if you are right, it wouldn't change my original point – if both fail, then Kuiper still doesn't beat Starlink.

skissane 5y ago

If Starlink won't scale, Kuiper won't scale even moreso. FCC has approved 12,000 satellites for SpaceX, and another 30,000 are going through the approval process. Project Kuiper has only applied for a 3,236 satellite constellation. And SpaceX is way ahead on deployment, and is likely to stay ahead. Other than Kuiper, Amazon has shown no signs of becoming a serious player in the consumer ISP space. Sidewalk is not a consumer ISP service in its own right, it needs to piggyback on a third-party consumer ISP service. Amazon is nowhere near becoming anything resembling Bell.

shaklee3 5y ago
The number of satellites is an extremely poor metric for capacity. A single GEO satellite has more USA capacity than about 900 LEOs
- skissane 5y ago
  Don't you mean to say coverage, not capacity? Capacity would be aggregate bandwidth, which is determined by the satellite's communications technology (number of transponders, spectrum allocated, modulation used, etc) rather than directly by which orbit it is in. Comparing constellation sizes does make sense in determining total capacity (aggregate bandwidth of the constellation) assuming that Starlink and Kuiper use similar capacity satellites. I think that is a reasonable assumption, but we have limited info on what Kuiper are planning. Current Starlink satellites have on average 20 GBps capacity each. I can't find any public info on the planned capacity of Kuiper's satellites. Even if Kuiper has higher bandwidth satellites, they'd need a fourfold advantage in bandwidth to overcome Starlink's fourfold advantage in satellite count. And SpaceX is likely to increase the capacity of Starlink in future iterations, so even if Kuiper did have such a bandwidth advantage, it might not last.
  - shaklee3 5y ago
    Both. I specifically said the USA because that's where they're going to make the most money, and at a given time only about 10% of their satellites are over it. The satellite capability is one thing, but spectrum is another. SpaceX doesn't have priority on a lot of the spectrum they have, so it might be completely unusable by the time they go live.
    - skissane 5y ago
      Is Kuiper's spectrum situation any better than Starlink's? From what I've read, Starlink and OneWeb have priority over Kuiper for the same spectrum (since they were approved first). I feel like we are arguing two different things. I was saying Kuiper can't beat Starlink. You are arguing Starlink is not going to succeed. I'm more optimistic about its prospects than you are, but even if you are right, it wouldn't change my original point – if both fail, then Kuiper still doesn't beat Starlink.