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> And if they don't someone else will so I'm not worried... I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens here. I'm a little worried about it. Other tha

> And if they don't someone else will so I'm not worried... I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happens here. I'm a little worried about it. Other than Amazon's Project Kuiper, I don't really see who else can compete. Unlike EVs there's not an existing industry that's doing _mostly_ the same thing, that just needs to start offering a new line. Running a LEO megaconstellation is extremely different than putting up a handful of massive geostationary satellites. I just don't see the existing satellite internet players being able to compete. Frankly, it's a massive investment of resources to get started (which is true for auto manufacturers as well), but doing it economically requires launch costs that only SpaceX is currently able to provide. Nobody else wants to build a competitor to Starlink by paying SpaceX. Which is why I think Amazon's Kuiper is the best shot to compete—but it requires Blue Origin's New Glenn to come online to really get the economics working. I know Amazon has tapped ULA as a launch provider in the interim, so they'll be able to start getting satellites up and running soon, but the economics seem...painful if they're going to use expendable rockets for the bulk of the constellation. It's definitely possible that we see a flourishing of offerings, but I could also see a world where in 5 years time there's really only still Starlink.

dnadler 5y ago
A bit of a tangent, but is there any information about how many constellations are physically possible? Obviously there's a lot of space in LEO, but it's still limited. Given that each provider would need their own very dense constellation of satellites in different orbits, things would eventually start getting crowded. I don't think we'll get there any time soon (or ever), but kind of an interesting thought experiment.
- lazide 5y ago
  You’re underestimating the amount of space in space (sorry, couldn’t resist). Volume increases exponentially as diameter increases. I don’t think anyone would worry about 1800 or even 180000 things spread over the entire surface of the earth. We have billions of cars, and they mostly avoid running into each other. Even 100 miles up? Far, far more space - and a lot less ‘stuff’ to worry about too. They could pack a million satellites up there and basic traffic management would be more than enough to avoid collisions.
  - itzprime 5y ago
    But it is not the same thing, due to the speed that satelites travel.
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      Satellites aren't going to swerve, though.
  - rini17 5y ago
    We will see. But it's definitely don't comparable to cars. Say you want safety margin of mere 1 second, that means reserving 8 kilometers free corridor in front of every satellite. At all times. That isn't a small volume.
    - relativ575 5y ago
      Why one second and 8km? Satellites are not manually maneuvered. Airplanes are only required to keep 1,000 to 2,000 feet vertical separation. They travel at much slower speed than satellites (550 mph vs. 17,200 mph), but they are also much bigger. They tend to travel in narrow corridors, as opposed to being spread out like satellites. NASA and SpaceX have started working together to address the collision issues with their fleet: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-sign-joint-spaceflight-safety-agreement https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-sign-joint-sp...
      - rini17 5y ago
        They are not manually maneuvered but there's still unpredictable inteplay of solar wind and tenuous atmosphere to correct. And some sats will fail, the environment is harsh. So I believe some safety separation will be a must, used 1 second as a rule of thumb and the orbital speed is 7.8 km/s at the altitude. I suspect more safety time will be required. Say a micrometeoroid impact happens causing one satellite to go off track. Now the controller computer needs some time to recompute whole swarm trajectories to minimize debris impacts. Even sats that are currently on the other side of planet might need to start thrusters immediately, as it takes only 10 minutes on average to cover the distance.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  I haven't done the math and I'm certainly not an expert, but my lay understanding is that the number of constellations is much more limited by spectrum frequency availability, rather than the space constraints in LEO. That is, if we had an very large number of companies wanting to create satellite internet constellations, we would run out of useful EM spectrum before we would run out of LEO orbits. I'm not positive about that, though!
  - dnadler 5y ago
    Yeah, that occurred to me as well, though I don't know much about how the satellites communicate with eachother. I imagine each constellation would need its own band, but not sure how wide it needs to be? Intra-constellation communication could feasibly be done with lasers, in which case, all they may need to worry about is the Space-to-Ground leg. So maybe it's not too bad? I don't really know, but certainly interested in learning more...
- rcxdude 5y ago
  The limit is far more how tight you can beamform the signals and how much usable spectrum there is: this is the fundamental thing limiting the density and hence number of users starlink can have.
varelse 5y ago
HughesNet and ViaSat have both been around for a while but their rates and their service are terrible. But unlike Starlink, their service is reliably and predictably crappy so there's that I guess. There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services.
- agency 5y ago
  > There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services. Except the laws of physics I guess. Geosynchronous orbit is about 36,000 km out so best case scenario if you were going straight up to a satellite in such an orbit and back down even at the speed of light in a vacuum that’s a lower bound of a quarter of a second of latency. So unless these legacy satellite internet companies launch LEO constellations of their own, which there’s no indication they’re capable of doing, it seems pretty hopeless for them.
  - IPTN 5y ago
    I don't know when the project started, but ViaSat has been working toward constellation service of their own for at least 6 years: https://www.viasat.com/space-innovation/satellite-fleet/viasat-3/ https://www.viasat.com/space-innovation/satellite-fleet/vias...
    - ncallaway 5y ago
      ViaSat-3 is a geostationary constellation of 3 satellites, which I don't really consider to be a competitor to Starlink due to its physical inability to ever reduce the latency lower than 500ms
- ncallaway 5y ago
  > There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services. Well, they can’t improve the latency of their service due to light delay. If they want to compete on that front, they need to move to a LEO constellation. Neither HughesNet nor ViaSat has started working on LEO constellations (publicly anyway), and these things take years. If they want to get into LEO constellations, they’ve ceded a 5 year head start to SpaceX. I’m not optimistic that either of them will be able to remain competitive with Starlink over the next decade.
itsoktocry 5y ago
>Nobody else wants to build a competitor to Starlink by paying SpaceX I'm not sure what you mean here. Outside of, say, military usage, every single telecom company is a competitor to Starlink. Internet is internet. This commercial product is turning out to be what the "naysayers" thought it would be; brilliant if you're in a place with terrible internet, but noncompetitive in any kind of urban environment. Again, imho, the huge thing here is the ability to get a quick internet set up anywhere in the world that can't easily be taken down (...military).
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  If you want to build a competitor to Starlink that does the same thing and is ideal for terrible internet areas, you need to put up satellites, and SpaceX is the only company that you can pay to do so economically.
- skissane 5y ago
  > I'm not sure what you mean here. Outside of, say, military usage, every single telecom company is a competitor to Starlink. Internet is internet. With regard to satellite Internet mega-constellations, it is true thus far. The two other major constellations (OneWeb and Kuiper) have avoided SpaceX as a launch provider, choosing competitors instead – OneWeb has gone with Arianespace Soyuz and Virgin; Kuiper has chosen ULA (and is assumably going to choose Blue Origin too once they are ready). SpaceX has said they are happy to launch competitor constellations, but it makes sense that its competitors aren't happy to fund their competition. It is very unlikely that Arianespace or ULA can actually beat SpaceX on price, so avoiding funding your competition is the only logical explanation for OneWeb and Kuiper's decisions. SpaceX is launching other satellite telecommunications systems, that obviously also compete with Starlink to some extent, but less head-on. For example, they are contracted to launch one of the ViaSat-3 satellites. ViaSat-3 is a satellite Internet constellation, so in that sense does compete, but it only has 3 satellites in geostationary orbit, so it isn't really going after the same direct market as Starlink. (ViaSat appears to be getting scared of Starlink, as evidenced by their anti-Starlink applications to FCC and threats of a lawsuit; given that, I wonder how much longer they'll be willing to buy launch services from SpaceX.)

dnadler 5y ago

A bit of a tangent, but is there any information about how many constellations are physically possible? Obviously there's a lot of space in LEO, but it's still limited. Given that each provider would need their own very dense constellation of satellites in different orbits, things would eventually start getting crowded. I don't think we'll get there any time soon (or ever), but kind of an interesting thought experiment.

lazide 5y ago
You’re underestimating the amount of space in space (sorry, couldn’t resist). Volume increases exponentially as diameter increases. I don’t think anyone would worry about 1800 or even 180000 things spread over the entire surface of the earth. We have billions of cars, and they mostly avoid running into each other. Even 100 miles up? Far, far more space - and a lot less ‘stuff’ to worry about too. They could pack a million satellites up there and basic traffic management would be more than enough to avoid collisions.
- itzprime 5y ago
  But it is not the same thing, due to the speed that satelites travel.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    Satellites aren't going to swerve, though.
- rini17 5y ago
  We will see. But it's definitely don't comparable to cars. Say you want safety margin of mere 1 second, that means reserving 8 kilometers free corridor in front of every satellite. At all times. That isn't a small volume.
  - relativ575 5y ago
    Why one second and 8km? Satellites are not manually maneuvered. Airplanes are only required to keep 1,000 to 2,000 feet vertical separation. They travel at much slower speed than satellites (550 mph vs. 17,200 mph), but they are also much bigger. They tend to travel in narrow corridors, as opposed to being spread out like satellites. NASA and SpaceX have started working together to address the collision issues with their fleet: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-sign-joint-spaceflight-safety-agreement https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-sign-joint-sp...
    - rini17 5y ago
      They are not manually maneuvered but there's still unpredictable inteplay of solar wind and tenuous atmosphere to correct. And some sats will fail, the environment is harsh. So I believe some safety separation will be a must, used 1 second as a rule of thumb and the orbital speed is 7.8 km/s at the altitude. I suspect more safety time will be required. Say a micrometeoroid impact happens causing one satellite to go off track. Now the controller computer needs some time to recompute whole swarm trajectories to minimize debris impacts. Even sats that are currently on the other side of planet might need to start thrusters immediately, as it takes only 10 minutes on average to cover the distance.
ncallaway 5y ago
I haven't done the math and I'm certainly not an expert, but my lay understanding is that the number of constellations is much more limited by spectrum frequency availability, rather than the space constraints in LEO. That is, if we had an very large number of companies wanting to create satellite internet constellations, we would run out of useful EM spectrum before we would run out of LEO orbits. I'm not positive about that, though!
- dnadler 5y ago
  Yeah, that occurred to me as well, though I don't know much about how the satellites communicate with eachother. I imagine each constellation would need its own band, but not sure how wide it needs to be? Intra-constellation communication could feasibly be done with lasers, in which case, all they may need to worry about is the Space-to-Ground leg. So maybe it's not too bad? I don't really know, but certainly interested in learning more...
rcxdude 5y ago
The limit is far more how tight you can beamform the signals and how much usable spectrum there is: this is the fundamental thing limiting the density and hence number of users starlink can have.

varelse 5y ago

HughesNet and ViaSat have both been around for a while but their rates and their service are terrible. But unlike Starlink, their service is reliably and predictably crappy so there's that I guess. There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services.

agency 5y ago
> There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services. Except the laws of physics I guess. Geosynchronous orbit is about 36,000 km out so best case scenario if you were going straight up to a satellite in such an orbit and back down even at the speed of light in a vacuum that’s a lower bound of a quarter of a second of latency. So unless these legacy satellite internet companies launch LEO constellations of their own, which there’s no indication they’re capable of doing, it seems pretty hopeless for them.
- IPTN 5y ago
  I don't know when the project started, but ViaSat has been working toward constellation service of their own for at least 6 years: https://www.viasat.com/space-innovation/satellite-fleet/viasat-3/ https://www.viasat.com/space-innovation/satellite-fleet/vias...
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    ViaSat-3 is a geostationary constellation of 3 satellites, which I don't really consider to be a competitor to Starlink due to its physical inability to ever reduce the latency lower than 500ms
ncallaway 5y ago
> There's nothing stopping them from improving their own services. Well, they can’t improve the latency of their service due to light delay. If they want to compete on that front, they need to move to a LEO constellation. Neither HughesNet nor ViaSat has started working on LEO constellations (publicly anyway), and these things take years. If they want to get into LEO constellations, they’ve ceded a 5 year head start to SpaceX. I’m not optimistic that either of them will be able to remain competitive with Starlink over the next decade.

itsoktocry 5y ago

>Nobody else wants to build a competitor to Starlink by paying SpaceX I'm not sure what you mean here. Outside of, say, military usage, every single telecom company is a competitor to Starlink. Internet is internet. This commercial product is turning out to be what the "naysayers" thought it would be; brilliant if you're in a place with terrible internet, but noncompetitive in any kind of urban environment. Again, imho, the huge thing here is the ability to get a quick internet set up anywhere in the world that can't easily be taken down (...military).

spywaregorilla 5y ago
If you want to build a competitor to Starlink that does the same thing and is ideal for terrible internet areas, you need to put up satellites, and SpaceX is the only company that you can pay to do so economically.
skissane 5y ago
> I'm not sure what you mean here. Outside of, say, military usage, every single telecom company is a competitor to Starlink. Internet is internet. With regard to satellite Internet mega-constellations, it is true thus far. The two other major constellations (OneWeb and Kuiper) have avoided SpaceX as a launch provider, choosing competitors instead – OneWeb has gone with Arianespace Soyuz and Virgin; Kuiper has chosen ULA (and is assumably going to choose Blue Origin too once they are ready). SpaceX has said they are happy to launch competitor constellations, but it makes sense that its competitors aren't happy to fund their competition. It is very unlikely that Arianespace or ULA can actually beat SpaceX on price, so avoiding funding your competition is the only logical explanation for OneWeb and Kuiper's decisions. SpaceX is launching other satellite telecommunications systems, that obviously also compete with Starlink to some extent, but less head-on. For example, they are contracted to launch one of the ViaSat-3 satellites. ViaSat-3 is a satellite Internet constellation, so in that sense does compete, but it only has 3 satellites in geostationary orbit, so it isn't really going after the same direct market as Starlink. (ViaSat appears to be getting scared of Starlink, as evidenced by their anti-Starlink applications to FCC and threats of a lawsuit; given that, I wonder how much longer they'll be willing to buy launch services from SpaceX.)