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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 predic

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.
- matmatmatmat 5y ago
  Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, although Viasat-3 will be 1/4th the cost of Starlink (on a $/Mbps/month) basis and Viasat-4 will be about 1/15th. Even launching for "free", it's gonna be pretty tough for SpaceX to meet those numbers. The GEO satellites also require simpler and cheaper ground infrastructure, both on the ISP and on the customer side.
  - ncallaway 5y ago
    Oh, interesting, I hadn’t seen those numbers. Where did you see the ViaSat 3/4 pricing? All I could find was the current offerings (which are more expensive), but I didn’t look hard. I’d love to dig into the other offerings that the GEO players plan to provide. My dad was a Day 1 sign up for the Starlink beta, because it’s dramatically better than any offerings in his area (including existing Satellite), but I’d definitely like to share any better upcoming options with him. I think latency might be a deal breaker for him, because they do a fair amount of video calling and don’t like the audio lag
    - matmatmatmat 5y ago
      Ah, those numbers are from the Viasat earnings calls and some rough estimates. Each Viasat-3 satellite will have about 1 Tbps capacity and have a lifetime of 15 years. I don't know about cost, but Viasat-2 was in the neighborhood of $300e6, so, I assumed the same for Viasat-3. Viasat-4 is claimed to have a capacity of 3-5 Tbps and I assume a similar lifetime. Now, these numbers are all well and good, but they don't include the cost of the ground system and the terminals, and I don't know what those will be. But, I would expect them to be cheaper, most crucially because GEO gives you more flexibility in where you place ground stations (vs LEO) and once you aim the dish, you pretty much never have to move it (LEO dishes spend their whole life slewing to match the satellites; it turns out that requires some parts that aren't so cheap.) Anyway, I don't know what Starlink or Viasat's pricing will be in a few years, but I think Viasat will have a competitive edge in terms of overall cost. Latency is definitely an issue for some users and some applications. If you watch what Hughes has been saying for years, it's that the future is hybrid, where a terminal uses both LEO and GEO, for what they're best suited for (i.e., interactive traffic over LEO, big, cheap bulk bits over GEO.) If you Google a bit, you can see the Viasat press releases alluding to this same capability. I don't know if/when that tech will make it to residential service, but I would expect that if there's unmet market demand, they'll get it out there.

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.

matmatmatmat 5y ago
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see, although Viasat-3 will be 1/4th the cost of Starlink (on a $/Mbps/month) basis and Viasat-4 will be about 1/15th. Even launching for "free", it's gonna be pretty tough for SpaceX to meet those numbers. The GEO satellites also require simpler and cheaper ground infrastructure, both on the ISP and on the customer side.
- ncallaway 5y ago
  Oh, interesting, I hadn’t seen those numbers. Where did you see the ViaSat 3/4 pricing? All I could find was the current offerings (which are more expensive), but I didn’t look hard. I’d love to dig into the other offerings that the GEO players plan to provide. My dad was a Day 1 sign up for the Starlink beta, because it’s dramatically better than any offerings in his area (including existing Satellite), but I’d definitely like to share any better upcoming options with him. I think latency might be a deal breaker for him, because they do a fair amount of video calling and don’t like the audio lag
  - matmatmatmat 5y ago
    Ah, those numbers are from the Viasat earnings calls and some rough estimates. Each Viasat-3 satellite will have about 1 Tbps capacity and have a lifetime of 15 years. I don't know about cost, but Viasat-2 was in the neighborhood of $300e6, so, I assumed the same for Viasat-3. Viasat-4 is claimed to have a capacity of 3-5 Tbps and I assume a similar lifetime. Now, these numbers are all well and good, but they don't include the cost of the ground system and the terminals, and I don't know what those will be. But, I would expect them to be cheaper, most crucially because GEO gives you more flexibility in where you place ground stations (vs LEO) and once you aim the dish, you pretty much never have to move it (LEO dishes spend their whole life slewing to match the satellites; it turns out that requires some parts that aren't so cheap.) Anyway, I don't know what Starlink or Viasat's pricing will be in a few years, but I think Viasat will have a competitive edge in terms of overall cost. Latency is definitely an issue for some users and some applications. If you watch what Hughes has been saying for years, it's that the future is hybrid, where a terminal uses both LEO and GEO, for what they're best suited for (i.e., interactive traffic over LEO, big, cheap bulk bits over GEO.) If you Google a bit, you can see the Viasat press releases alluding to this same capability. I don't know if/when that tech will make it to residential service, but I would expect that if there's unmet market demand, they'll get it out there.