Once the build out is complete, it'll be maintenance at lower costs. The satellites have a lifetime of about 5 years, so with 12,000 satellites they will need

Once the build out is complete, it'll be maintenance at lower costs. The satellites have a lifetime of about 5 years, so with 12,000 satellites they will need to replace 200, if they go all the way to 42,000 even 700 of them each month, indefinitely. While in some sense this is maintenance it also means building and launching one complete constellation every 5 years. Or they have to increase the lifetime which is at least currently probably mainly limited by the available fuel for station keeping.