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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 launch

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.

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.