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$500 deposit, $2500 total cost for the dish, $500/mo for the service. Looks like it's targeting the enterprise market. The dish cost is probably closer to the

$500 deposit, $2500 total cost for the dish, $500/mo for the service. Looks like it's targeting the enterprise market. The dish cost is probably closer to the actual value of the dish. The original dish we bought for $500 I think I read actually cost closer to $3k for them to manufacture (I'm not an expert on this)? Regular service is $500 for a dish and $99 a month which is a great deal for 50-200mbps at pretty low latency. Particularly if you're in an area where your only other option is geostationary (which sucks and costs a lot).

gkhartman 5y ago
I was nodding along until I got to the $500/mo. service charge. I'd feel pretty good about $150/mo. or $200/mo., but I guess I'm not their target market since I have decent wired broadband. I was hoping that this would give Spectrum some competition in our area, but I'll have to wait a little longer.
- gonehome 5y ago
  The regular dish is great for normal personal use already in remote areas (and the costs are very reasonable). It’s not competitive in (most) areas with options from cable providers, but that’s also not its purpose. Starlink will give us high speed low latency internet anywhere on earth, it moves the lower bound up to 150mbps with pretty low latency which is great.
- nickvanw 5y ago
  Starlink won't really ever be designed to compete with wired internet. There is limited bandwidth per satellite, and the density of most places that have good wired internet far exceeds what is reasonable on the current generation of satellites. It's designed for people who are currently suffering on geostationary satellite internet, or some other low-bandwidth/high-latency setup.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Exactly. I'm typing this out over a first-gen Starlink connection, and the value is a lot better than most people realize. My other options include: - 4g hotspot, 150ms latency, ~15gb/month, speeds of ~10-20mbps, costs $50 + $15/gb overage per month - WISP network, 400ms latency, unlimited data at 500kbps-6mbps, ~95% uptime, costs $80/month - HughesNet satellite, 600ms latency, 50gb/month, less than 10mb/s down, 90% uptime, $150/month Or I could get Starlink with ~50ms of latency, unlimited data, ~100-150mbps down, 99% uptime at the fair price of $100 per month. Once you've lived away from broadband for long enough, you can bet everyone is fed up with the other 3 options.
    - Phylter 5y ago
      With the spread of 5G mid and high band home internet service I wonder if that might not cover enough ground at some point to make it worthwhile. Verizon is actually selling it as unlimited internet for a decent price. I don't know about other carriers.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        It certainly won't cover anything out where I live. Even if they did put up a 5G antennae, it would cover maybe 2 houses on my street if they placed it strategically.
    - shaklee3 5y ago
      you're getting better service than the others because they are not at capacity, and won't be until the chip shortage is over. enjoy it while you can, because speeds will get worse soon, and what you thought was a great service will be just like the rest.
  - plugger 5y ago
    *In countries with reasonably good wired internet I live in Australia, a 30 minutes drive from the centre of a state capital and I've had a near 10x increase in my download speed and a 4x increase in my upload speed by moving to Starlink. I'm paying $40 AUD extra per month ($130 for Starlink, $90 for pleb tier wired) for the privilege. My wired link will not go any faster, 5G still isn't available at my house, and even if it was it's metered so borderline useless for a primary home link with a family watching Netflix, YouTube for kids, etc.
aero-glide2 5y ago
It cost them around $1500 to manufacture.
markdown 5y ago
> The original dish we bought for $500 I think I read actually cost closer to $3k for them to manufacture $3k? Were they mining the metal by hand and then using only the most hipster blacksmiths shipped in from Portland to hand press the steel for the dish?
- matthewfcarlson 5y ago
  If I remember correctly there’s a fair bit of expensive electronics and fancy materials. The phase steered arrays I worked on in college were expensive and they were tiny. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/11/starlink-satellite-dish-x-rayed-to-unlock-rf-magic-inside/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/11/starlink-satellite-dish-x-ra...
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  It's not really the dish that's expensive (and it's not even a "dish antenna"). It's the integrated electronics and phased antenna array (which takes expensive tricky electronics to make it work).
- oxplot 5y ago
  There are 1500 antennas, and accompanying electronics for each, plus main board to deal with all that, GPS, motors. You also get a Wi-Fi router. Even $3000 is mindbogglingly cheap once you see what's inside of that "dish" and what quantity these are produced at (in 100K vs millions like smartphones).
mdasen 5y ago
Why does this seem aimed at the enterprise market (besides the price tag)? From what I've seen, Starlink uses CGNAT (carrier grade network address translation) so it's hard to handle incoming connections (given the lack of a public IP address). CGNAT seems like it would be a problem for enterprise customers. Would this be enterprises in cities where they'd be looking for a backup for a wired connection? I know that a lot of companies have wireless back-ups for their wired connection so I'm not sure that Starlink would be a better enterprise option for them. The question in my head is whether Starlink is going to slow down their $100-tier signups if they start seeing enough $500-tier signups. People have been waiting for years to get Starlink. If they start getting lots of $500-tier interest, it seems like they'd prioritize those users for new signups.
- plugger 5y ago
  How many enterprises are running their own DCs these days? Very few from what I see. Cloud for your services, StarLink for individual office premises. Sounds fine to me.
  - ale42 5y ago
    Many small enterprises probably aren't. But the CGNAT problem can be solved by a VPN seamlessly connecting to the rest of the enterprise network, for those companies that need incoming connectivity (might be for remote maintenance, for example).
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  From the page: > Unlimited Service Locations: Starlink is ideal for rural and remote locations. Order as many Starlinks as needed and manage all of your service locations, no matter how remote, from a single account. This screams corp fleet management of the equipment, similar to SSO price segmentation.
  - gonehome 5y ago
    Ah I missed this bit, yeah that’s definitely what they’re going for.
gremlinsinc 5y ago
That's sticker shock for me... I'm paying $50/month for 1Gig in Rural Utah... I'm good.

gkhartman 5y ago

I was nodding along until I got to the $500/mo. service charge. I'd feel pretty good about $150/mo. or $200/mo., but I guess I'm not their target market since I have decent wired broadband. I was hoping that this would give Spectrum some competition in our area, but I'll have to wait a little longer.

gonehome 5y ago
The regular dish is great for normal personal use already in remote areas (and the costs are very reasonable). It’s not competitive in (most) areas with options from cable providers, but that’s also not its purpose. Starlink will give us high speed low latency internet anywhere on earth, it moves the lower bound up to 150mbps with pretty low latency which is great.
nickvanw 5y ago
Starlink won't really ever be designed to compete with wired internet. There is limited bandwidth per satellite, and the density of most places that have good wired internet far exceeds what is reasonable on the current generation of satellites. It's designed for people who are currently suffering on geostationary satellite internet, or some other low-bandwidth/high-latency setup.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Exactly. I'm typing this out over a first-gen Starlink connection, and the value is a lot better than most people realize. My other options include: - 4g hotspot, 150ms latency, ~15gb/month, speeds of ~10-20mbps, costs $50 + $15/gb overage per month - WISP network, 400ms latency, unlimited data at 500kbps-6mbps, ~95% uptime, costs $80/month - HughesNet satellite, 600ms latency, 50gb/month, less than 10mb/s down, 90% uptime, $150/month Or I could get Starlink with ~50ms of latency, unlimited data, ~100-150mbps down, 99% uptime at the fair price of $100 per month. Once you've lived away from broadband for long enough, you can bet everyone is fed up with the other 3 options.
  - Phylter 5y ago
    With the spread of 5G mid and high band home internet service I wonder if that might not cover enough ground at some point to make it worthwhile. Verizon is actually selling it as unlimited internet for a decent price. I don't know about other carriers.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      It certainly won't cover anything out where I live. Even if they did put up a 5G antennae, it would cover maybe 2 houses on my street if they placed it strategically.
  - shaklee3 5y ago
    you're getting better service than the others because they are not at capacity, and won't be until the chip shortage is over. enjoy it while you can, because speeds will get worse soon, and what you thought was a great service will be just like the rest.
- plugger 5y ago
  *In countries with reasonably good wired internet I live in Australia, a 30 minutes drive from the centre of a state capital and I've had a near 10x increase in my download speed and a 4x increase in my upload speed by moving to Starlink. I'm paying $40 AUD extra per month ($130 for Starlink, $90 for pleb tier wired) for the privilege. My wired link will not go any faster, 5G still isn't available at my house, and even if it was it's metered so borderline useless for a primary home link with a family watching Netflix, YouTube for kids, etc.

aero-glide2 5y ago

It cost them around $1500 to manufacture.

markdown 5y ago

> The original dish we bought for $500 I think I read actually cost closer to $3k for them to manufacture $3k? Were they mining the metal by hand and then using only the most hipster blacksmiths shipped in from Portland to hand press the steel for the dish?

matthewfcarlson 5y ago
If I remember correctly there’s a fair bit of expensive electronics and fancy materials. The phase steered arrays I worked on in college were expensive and they were tiny. https://hackaday.com/2021/01/11/starlink-satellite-dish-x-rayed-to-unlock-rf-magic-inside/ https://hackaday.com/2021/01/11/starlink-satellite-dish-x-ra...
BenjiWiebe 5y ago
It's not really the dish that's expensive (and it's not even a "dish antenna"). It's the integrated electronics and phased antenna array (which takes expensive tricky electronics to make it work).
oxplot 5y ago
There are 1500 antennas, and accompanying electronics for each, plus main board to deal with all that, GPS, motors. You also get a Wi-Fi router. Even $3000 is mindbogglingly cheap once you see what's inside of that "dish" and what quantity these are produced at (in 100K vs millions like smartphones).

mdasen 5y ago

Why does this seem aimed at the enterprise market (besides the price tag)? From what I've seen, Starlink uses CGNAT (carrier grade network address translation) so it's hard to handle incoming connections (given the lack of a public IP address). CGNAT seems like it would be a problem for enterprise customers. Would this be enterprises in cities where they'd be looking for a backup for a wired connection? I know that a lot of companies have wireless back-ups for their wired connection so I'm not sure that Starlink would be a better enterprise option for them. The question in my head is whether Starlink is going to slow down their $100-tier signups if they start seeing enough $500-tier signups. People have been waiting for years to get Starlink. If they start getting lots of $500-tier interest, it seems like they'd prioritize those users for new signups.

plugger 5y ago
How many enterprises are running their own DCs these days? Very few from what I see. Cloud for your services, StarLink for individual office premises. Sounds fine to me.
- ale42 5y ago
  Many small enterprises probably aren't. But the CGNAT problem can be solved by a VPN seamlessly connecting to the rest of the enterprise network, for those companies that need incoming connectivity (might be for remote maintenance, for example).
toomuchtodo 5y ago
From the page: > Unlimited Service Locations: Starlink is ideal for rural and remote locations. Order as many Starlinks as needed and manage all of your service locations, no matter how remote, from a single account. This screams corp fleet management of the equipment, similar to SSO price segmentation.
- gonehome 5y ago
  Ah I missed this bit, yeah that’s definitely what they’re going for.

gremlinsinc 5y ago

That's sticker shock for me... I'm paying $50/month for 1Gig in Rural Utah... I'm good.