10 ms·

SES and Intelsat both strike me as stodgy, old telecommunications companies. I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival Starlink as a consumer produc

SES and Intelsat both strike me as stodgy, old telecommunications companies. I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival Starlink as a consumer product. But I think competition in this space is good.

TheRoque 2y ago
Nice pun
imglorp 2y ago
For some use cases they're not even competitors. You can't do anything real time like a conference call, remote desktop, or gaming with GEO: 600ms latency is out of the question. MEO is marginal at 150ms.
- indigobunting 2y ago
  At least on an airplane, they don't want you doing conference calls ..
  - Denvercoder9 2y ago
    People in economy seats aren't the only demand for low-latency airplane internet. Probably not even the biggest.
    - indigobunting 2y ago
      In the U.S., it's banned for all classes (business, first, etc..) https://www.afacwa.org/nocalls https://www.afacwa.org/nocalls
      - lxgr 2y ago
        That's not the only way to fly, though. Business aviation (i.e. "private jets") has exactly the type of customer for whom being able to make phone calls in-air is a thing where cost is secondary. Gogo even pivoted to that market entirely [1], with the commercial segment now part of Intelsat. [1] https://www.gogoair.com/ https://www.gogoair.com/
willhackett 2y ago
This feels like a lot of industries lately. Competition is great, but the ongoing development of so many sub par products just feels so wasteful.
- lxgr 2y ago
  There is such a thing as an overcrowded market, but LEO data connectivity is definitely not it yet. - Nobody other than Starlink is offering anything at all to end customers; all alternatives are in GEO, which means much higher latencies. - There's no alternative to Iridium when it comes to reliable, 100% global coverage in the L-band (except if you're the military, presumably). Planes and ships are still carrying HF radios for redundancy in high latitudes. - Nobody, neither GEO nor LEO, other than Starlink, currently offers high-throughput connectivity for in-flight connectivity. (Inmarsat is planning to launch HEO satellites for the northern hemisphere, which will possibly extend their existing aviation coverage there.) - OneWeb does compete for high-throughput services in LEO in the Ku-band (requiring steered antennas just like Starlink), but doesn't seem to be offering inter-satellite links yet, i.e. no global coverage alternative for airlines either.
  - shawabawa3 2y ago
    Isn't LEO _literally_ crowded? I thought space junk was a real concern at this point, and a bunch of other crappy LEO satellite launches will exacerbate this https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographies/space-debris/ https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographie...
    - lxgr 2y ago
      In terms of satellites, yes, very. In terms of independent operators, not so much. If Starlink goes down or ceases operations in a given region or to a given customer, there are few alternatives right now.
    - sgtnoodle 2y ago
      Crowded? No. Littered? Perhaps, depending on the altitude. The article you linked says the bulk of the existing debris is from a few isolated incidents. These satellites are generally low enough tha their orbits decay after a couple years if they don't boost themselves, and then they burn up in the atmosphere.
grecy 2y ago
> I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival Starlink as a consumer product They already know they can't compete on merit alone, so they'll go for lobbying and regulatory intervention so they can "compete".
- AtlasBarfed 2y ago
  The physics of geostationary orbit make these services obsolete. Geostationary is a 44,000 mile round trip. So a request/response for a packet is 90,000 miles. Already at 1/2 of a second latency without any actual networking because of the speed of light. And that is if you are on the equator. Another tenth or two is probably lost at middle latitudes, and worse for higher latitudes. So in practical situations, your latency is a second or more. And they can only put one satellite in one position, higher power to send the signal, no cheap way to replace/upgrade the satellite, single point of failure. They cannot compete with a flotilla of low orbit satellites providing multiple powers of 10 better total bandwidth. Especially since Starlink has demonstrated it can communicate with current mobile phones.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    On the other hand, you can put very, very beefy satellites into GEO and cover roughly a third of the planet using them. If you don't care as much about latency (and many applications don't, e.g. asset tracking, news broadcasting or forwarding etc.), GEO is still very viable.
    - matt-p 2y ago
      I agree, still some applications for it, but LEO is cheaper per terminal and per bit, so GEO will just not be a product (for commodity services like internet access/Calls) in future.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        > LEO is cheaper per terminal Are you sure about that? High-throughput LEO inevitably requires steering (whether electronic or mechanical), while high-throughput GEO is possible using a one-time adjusted dish, at least to station-kept satellites (which all HTS these days are, as far as I know). For mobile applications, steering is obviously required for both, so there GEO has less of an advantage. The Starlink dish is quite expensive, and I'm not sure if it's really sold at cost or whether there's some subsidy baked in (since it's only usable with their service anyway).
lxgr 2y ago
They don't necessarily need to. There's big money in commercial aviation and shipping connectivity (Intelsat is effectively the successor of Gogo inflight wireless for many US airlines), to say nothing of government/military contracts. Offering a Starlink competitor not subject to the whims of a somewhat notorious CEO might just be a compelling value proposition to some parties. Don't forget that without the US DOD as a customer, Iridium would have been deorbited less than a year after its original satellite launches!
- whimsicalism 2y ago
  I'm not particularly a fan of Musk, but I would perceive switching contracts from Starlink to this consortium as likely political influence in what should be an apolitical process. Similar to what has been happening recently with the FCC's rural broadband program - where Starlink, in my view, is likely being punished by the government for Musk's outspokenness.
  - spankalee 2y ago
    > Musk's outspokenness It's far more than just "outspokenness"
    - whimsicalism 2y ago
      What is it then? And at what point does it justify governmental retaliation in awarding contracts?
      - kbenson 2y ago
        Market manipulation? Stupidity? In any case, it doesn't have to be political to want to avoid possible problems from a CEO that keeps running afoul of regulatory requirements, whether accidentally or purposefully. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219
        2y ago
Dig1t 2y ago
>Founded in 1964 as an intergovernmental organization >It became a private company in 2001, then went public in 2013 before filing for bankruptcy in 2020. Definitely agree about it sounding stodgy.
billfruit 2y ago
Yes, it will be more interesting when Viasat or Thales will be doing something in this space. Viasat seems to be on the path to building larger and larger satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  I’ve used Viasat before and geosynchronous is never going to be satisfactory. The satellites are too far away and consequently the latency is terrible (on the order of 500-1000 ms). It cannot be a viable competitor on that basis alone. I’ve also had starlink but it was relatively early days and even though the speed and latency were great, every time there wasn’t a satellite cluster in view the internet would drop out for up to 15 seconds at a time. Also Viasat seemed to work even if it was cloudy if I remember correctly but starlink did not.
  - MostlyStable 2y ago
    I was stuck with Viasat for two years. Not only is the latency horribly like you describe, but they were _consistently_ at least one OOM away from the speeds I was paying for. I'm pretty sure that, in those 2 years, I _never_ saw the advertised speed.
wrigby 2y ago
In a lot of ways, I think this is an accurate take. I worked at SES for years, starting at NewSkies Networks (I was there through the SES acquisition when they merged us with Americom), then a second stint at O3b (just before SES fully bought the controlling stake). My take may be a little short-sighted, as I was really young at the time. The thing that struck me is that they operated more like real-estate investors than tech companies. Geostationary satellite technology had remained largely unchanged for a couple decades, so these companies were engaged in the business of: - Obtaining real estate (an orbital slot) - Putting a big, expensive, largely commoditized[1] asset on that real estate - Operating that asset as efficiently as possible to achieve a good ROI This meant that the executives were often stronger at things like financing hundred-million dollar purchasing projects (a huge skill on its own) and running a skeleton technical operations staff (to keep OpEx down), but lacked the foresight to see what the Internet meant for their product relevance. 1: Of course something as technically complex as a spacecraft isn't a commodity, but there was largely no differentiator in what it _did_: receiving, shifting, and re-transmitting analog RF signals, almost always in 36 MHz and 72 MHz wide chunks. You could buy one from Thales, Lockheed, Boeing, etc., but to the operator's customers, they all basically looked the same.
- kiba 2y ago
  An orbit is basically real estate and probably should be treated as such.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - breckenedge 2y ago
    These are service providers, not rent seekers. By focusing on OpEx above all else, they missed an opportunity to build starlink first. They were doing the right thing as long as nothing ever changed. Now they’re forced to consolidate further and are probably going to disappear.
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
carabiner 2y ago
Seriously. It's like two taxi companies joining to fight Uber. Or JC Penney and Sears tackling Amazon. 1 + 1 = 0 in this case.
hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
[flagged]
- nebula8804 2y ago
  It actually isn't the first time he has done it. In fact the last time he did it, we ended up with what is the current Starlink.

TheRoque 2y ago

Nice pun

imglorp 2y ago

For some use cases they're not even competitors. You can't do anything real time like a conference call, remote desktop, or gaming with GEO: 600ms latency is out of the question. MEO is marginal at 150ms.

indigobunting 2y ago
At least on an airplane, they don't want you doing conference calls ..
- Denvercoder9 2y ago
  People in economy seats aren't the only demand for low-latency airplane internet. Probably not even the biggest.
  - indigobunting 2y ago
    In the U.S., it's banned for all classes (business, first, etc..) https://www.afacwa.org/nocalls https://www.afacwa.org/nocalls
    - lxgr 2y ago
      That's not the only way to fly, though. Business aviation (i.e. "private jets") has exactly the type of customer for whom being able to make phone calls in-air is a thing where cost is secondary. Gogo even pivoted to that market entirely [1], with the commercial segment now part of Intelsat. [1] https://www.gogoair.com/ https://www.gogoair.com/

willhackett 2y ago

This feels like a lot of industries lately. Competition is great, but the ongoing development of so many sub par products just feels so wasteful.

lxgr 2y ago
There is such a thing as an overcrowded market, but LEO data connectivity is definitely not it yet. - Nobody other than Starlink is offering anything at all to end customers; all alternatives are in GEO, which means much higher latencies. - There's no alternative to Iridium when it comes to reliable, 100% global coverage in the L-band (except if you're the military, presumably). Planes and ships are still carrying HF radios for redundancy in high latitudes. - Nobody, neither GEO nor LEO, other than Starlink, currently offers high-throughput connectivity for in-flight connectivity. (Inmarsat is planning to launch HEO satellites for the northern hemisphere, which will possibly extend their existing aviation coverage there.) - OneWeb does compete for high-throughput services in LEO in the Ku-band (requiring steered antennas just like Starlink), but doesn't seem to be offering inter-satellite links yet, i.e. no global coverage alternative for airlines either.
- shawabawa3 2y ago
  Isn't LEO _literally_ crowded? I thought space junk was a real concern at this point, and a bunch of other crappy LEO satellite launches will exacerbate this https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographies/space-debris/ https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographie...
  - lxgr 2y ago
    In terms of satellites, yes, very. In terms of independent operators, not so much. If Starlink goes down or ceases operations in a given region or to a given customer, there are few alternatives right now.
  - sgtnoodle 2y ago
    Crowded? No. Littered? Perhaps, depending on the altitude. The article you linked says the bulk of the existing debris is from a few isolated incidents. These satellites are generally low enough tha their orbits decay after a couple years if they don't boost themselves, and then they burn up in the atmosphere.

grecy 2y ago

> I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival Starlink as a consumer product They already know they can't compete on merit alone, so they'll go for lobbying and regulatory intervention so they can "compete".

AtlasBarfed 2y ago
The physics of geostationary orbit make these services obsolete. Geostationary is a 44,000 mile round trip. So a request/response for a packet is 90,000 miles. Already at 1/2 of a second latency without any actual networking because of the speed of light. And that is if you are on the equator. Another tenth or two is probably lost at middle latitudes, and worse for higher latitudes. So in practical situations, your latency is a second or more. And they can only put one satellite in one position, higher power to send the signal, no cheap way to replace/upgrade the satellite, single point of failure. They cannot compete with a flotilla of low orbit satellites providing multiple powers of 10 better total bandwidth. Especially since Starlink has demonstrated it can communicate with current mobile phones.
- lxgr 2y ago
  On the other hand, you can put very, very beefy satellites into GEO and cover roughly a third of the planet using them. If you don't care as much about latency (and many applications don't, e.g. asset tracking, news broadcasting or forwarding etc.), GEO is still very viable.
  - matt-p 2y ago
    I agree, still some applications for it, but LEO is cheaper per terminal and per bit, so GEO will just not be a product (for commodity services like internet access/Calls) in future.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      > LEO is cheaper per terminal Are you sure about that? High-throughput LEO inevitably requires steering (whether electronic or mechanical), while high-throughput GEO is possible using a one-time adjusted dish, at least to station-kept satellites (which all HTS these days are, as far as I know). For mobile applications, steering is obviously required for both, so there GEO has less of an advantage. The Starlink dish is quite expensive, and I'm not sure if it's really sold at cost or whether there's some subsidy baked in (since it's only usable with their service anyway).

lxgr 2y ago

They don't necessarily need to. There's big money in commercial aviation and shipping connectivity (Intelsat is effectively the successor of Gogo inflight wireless for many US airlines), to say nothing of government/military contracts. Offering a Starlink competitor not subject to the whims of a somewhat notorious CEO might just be a compelling value proposition to some parties. Don't forget that without the US DOD as a customer, Iridium would have been deorbited less than a year after its original satellite launches!

whimsicalism 2y ago
I'm not particularly a fan of Musk, but I would perceive switching contracts from Starlink to this consortium as likely political influence in what should be an apolitical process. Similar to what has been happening recently with the FCC's rural broadband program - where Starlink, in my view, is likely being punished by the government for Musk's outspokenness.
- spankalee 2y ago
  > Musk's outspokenness It's far more than just "outspokenness"
  - whimsicalism 2y ago
    What is it then? And at what point does it justify governmental retaliation in awarding contracts?
    - kbenson 2y ago
      Market manipulation? Stupidity? In any case, it doesn't have to be political to want to avoid possible problems from a CEO that keeps running afoul of regulatory requirements, whether accidentally or purposefully. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219
      - 2y ago

Dig1t 2y ago

>Founded in 1964 as an intergovernmental organization >It became a private company in 2001, then went public in 2013 before filing for bankruptcy in 2020. Definitely agree about it sounding stodgy.

billfruit 2y ago

Yes, it will be more interesting when Viasat or Thales will be doing something in this space. Viasat seems to be on the path to building larger and larger satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

dyauspitr 2y ago
I’ve used Viasat before and geosynchronous is never going to be satisfactory. The satellites are too far away and consequently the latency is terrible (on the order of 500-1000 ms). It cannot be a viable competitor on that basis alone. I’ve also had starlink but it was relatively early days and even though the speed and latency were great, every time there wasn’t a satellite cluster in view the internet would drop out for up to 15 seconds at a time. Also Viasat seemed to work even if it was cloudy if I remember correctly but starlink did not.
- MostlyStable 2y ago
  I was stuck with Viasat for two years. Not only is the latency horribly like you describe, but they were _consistently_ at least one OOM away from the speeds I was paying for. I'm pretty sure that, in those 2 years, I _never_ saw the advertised speed.

wrigby 2y ago

In a lot of ways, I think this is an accurate take. I worked at SES for years, starting at NewSkies Networks (I was there through the SES acquisition when they merged us with Americom), then a second stint at O3b (just before SES fully bought the controlling stake). My take may be a little short-sighted, as I was really young at the time. The thing that struck me is that they operated more like real-estate investors than tech companies. Geostationary satellite technology had remained largely unchanged for a couple decades, so these companies were engaged in the business of: - Obtaining real estate (an orbital slot) - Putting a big, expensive, largely commoditized[1] asset on that real estate - Operating that asset as efficiently as possible to achieve a good ROI This meant that the executives were often stronger at things like financing hundred-million dollar purchasing projects (a huge skill on its own) and running a skeleton technical operations staff (to keep OpEx down), but lacked the foresight to see what the Internet meant for their product relevance. 1: Of course something as technically complex as a spacecraft isn't a commodity, but there was largely no differentiator in what it _did_: receiving, shifting, and re-transmitting analog RF signals, almost always in 36 MHz and 72 MHz wide chunks. You could buy one from Thales, Lockheed, Boeing, etc., but to the operator's customers, they all basically looked the same.

kiba 2y ago
An orbit is basically real estate and probably should be treated as such.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- breckenedge 2y ago
  These are service providers, not rent seekers. By focusing on OpEx above all else, they missed an opportunity to build starlink first. They were doing the right thing as long as nothing ever changed. Now they’re forced to consolidate further and are probably going to disappear.
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago

carabiner 2y ago

Seriously. It's like two taxi companies joining to fight Uber. Or JC Penney and Sears tackling Amazon. 1 + 1 = 0 in this case.

hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago

[flagged]

nebula8804 2y ago
It actually isn't the first time he has done it. In fact the last time he did it, we ended up with what is the current Starlink.