Now that SpaceX has applied for a Basic International Telecommunications Services (BITS) licence in Canada, what do people think about the potential of it working?
Video helps explain what it is. Apparently some pictures leaked yesterday of what the ground station looks like and it seems like version 2.0 is basically a small circular dish that can track where the satellites are. There are also some investors in SpaceX that have seen how the system works and done Speed Tests at SpaceX headquarters and have said that it'll be the easiest & most user friendly internet connection in the world with great speeds.
They are also saying that the latency will be around 20ms, with future satellites in lower orbit being around 8ms. That would be a massive improvement on traditional satellite internet.
What does everyone think? For rural areas this would be a massive potential. Canada will be one of the first areas that should have coverage which is why I started this thread.
Starlink is going to be huge! and many telecom companies should be worried about this. Companies like Sasktel, NorthwestTel (and any equivalent region specific carrier) will be hit hard when this launches. This will even get political, will there be a black market for antennas in China? to bypass the Great Firewall? Will people smuggle it into North Korea? I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing how this pans out!
It's also very self-serving for every business Elon runs as well. He'll be able to enable every Tesla vehicle and SpaceX shuttle with access to the system. With the Starlink antennas being a flat array, it'll make it easy for them to incorporate this into future builds of the vehicles.
The key for this to be an insanely successful, is to make it as accessible as easy as possible for the average home to sign up.
I don't think the intent so for the average homeowner, it's for people without access to high speed. And for that reason, I assume ti will be roe expensive. I don't think they'll have the bandwidth to offer it to everyone who wants it. I also don't see any black market gear working, they are going have this locked down.
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Originally Posted by Press Level
He has a blue checkmark next to his name, therefore his opinion is important.
I don't think the intent so for the average homeowner, it's for people without access to high speed. And for that reason, I assume ti will be roe expensive. I don't think they'll have the bandwidth to offer it to everyone who wants it. I also don't see any black market gear working, they are going have this locked down.
From a revenue perspective, they need to launch it ASAP, and get as many customers possible using it and paying each month. Right now they are dumping tons of money into it with little return, so they need to get some ROI going.
Each launch of 60 satellites is supposed to be able to provide enough bandwidth for another 40,000 customers?
From a Canadian perspective, if you live in the city or most average sized towns, the internet is actually very good. But once you get into rural areas, the internet options are terrible, and tend to be expensive. There are approximately 6 million Canadians living in rural areas, so that is a massive customer base to target.
Not sure what the average price is for rural internet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't around $100 per month. That is a potential $300 million per month in revenue if just HALF the people living in rural Canada sign up.
Obviously signing up business customers would be the target, however from what I understand the connection process will be the same regardless of whether you are a business customer or whatever you are a homeowner.
The potential is unreal though. As a WISP you could easily put a Starlink dish on a tower, connect sector antennas and setup a fixed wireless option for rural customers. But then again, why wouldn't Starlink just do that?
Starlink is going to be huge! and many telecom companies should be worried about this. Companies like Sasktel, NorthwestTel (and any equivalent region specific carrier) will be hit hard when this launches. This will even get political, will there be a black market for antennas in China? to bypass the Great Firewall? Will people smuggle it into North Korea? I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing how this pans out!
It's also very self-serving for every business Elon runs as well. He'll be able to enable every Tesla vehicle and SpaceX shuttle with access to the system. With the Starlink antennas being a flat array, it'll make it easy for them to incorporate this into future builds of the vehicles.
The key for this to be an insanely successful, is to make it as accessible as easy as possible for the average home to sign up.
Honestly seems like the biggest question is whether or not it will work the way Elon Musk and SpaceX says it will.
I.E. plug in receiver, point at sky, have instant super fast internet. If it does, almost all telecom providers in the world providing some kind of fixed internet service are screwed. Because SpaceX would have a customer base all over the world, while telecom providers tend to only have a very small customer base specific to a certain region. Suddenly even with the 10 million customers that the big 3 in Canada have, it is a drop in the bucket to the 1 billion plus that Starlink could have. How do you compete with that kind of revenue & fixed cost?
The only saving grace would be if Starlink can't provide mobile connectivity.
Makes you wonder how the tech will work in 10 years with cell phones.
While I agree there is a market for it, I don't think it is something many urban users would sign up for. Quick math of 40 000 ppl per 60 satellites, and the ultimate goal is 42 000 satellites says they can service 28 million. While that's a lot, it's nowhere near a billion. Which tells me this is going to be targeted at those who don't have access to broadband, and will be priced higher than traditional carriers. They would need 35x 42 00 satellites (~1.5 million) to reach a billion users. And I suspect you start running into other issues at that point.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Press Level
He has a blue checkmark next to his name, therefore his opinion is important.
With so many people working from home, I don’t think that $100 per month is expensive at all (depending upon speed of connection and allowed bandwidth per billing cycle). I’d go so far as to say that with a decrease in office costs, companies may be entirely willing to pay for people to use this solution.
Onstar as offered to all car manufacturers by GM and no one took it. I wonder if things might be different this time.
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With so many people working from home, I don’t think that $100 per month is expensive at all (depending upon speed of connection and allowed bandwidth per billing cycle). I’d go so far as to say that with a decrease in office costs, companies may be entirely willing to pay for people to use this solution.
Onstar as offered to all car manufacturers by GM and no one took it. I wonder if things might be different this time.
Facebook was going to start paying people less by allowing them to work from home anywhere in the US. Pay would be based on cost of living. So if you take away the requirement of needing to be in at least a suburban area companies could negotiate both lower office costs and lower Salary costs so this would easily offset $1200 per year in internet cost.
Facebook was going to start paying people less by allowing them to work from home anywhere in the US. Pay would be based on cost of living. So if you take away the requirement of needing to be in at least a suburban area companies could negotiate both lower office costs and lower Salary costs so this would easily offset $1200 per year in internet cost.
I haven’t seen anywhere else that is planning on reducing salaries but from a corporate perspective, the building overhead savings easily cover this cost too.
__________________
Rogers bias. Hit McDavid? Get Brandon Manninged.
We had joy, we had fun, we had a season in the sun, but the wine and the fun like the season is all gone.
Average team is average. Average drafts, average results, average trades, average asset management, average vision, average outcomes. Average.
With so many people working from home, I don’t think that $100 per month is expensive at all (depending upon speed of connection and allowed bandwidth per billing cycle). I’d go so far as to say that with a decrease in office costs, companies may be entirely willing to pay for people to use this solution.
I'd think that people who might no longer want to live or work in dense urban cores doesn't necessarily mean jumping directly to remote rural acreages but more like new suburbs/exurbs (with easy driving access to amenities) in low-tax, warm jurisdictions with access to broadband or high-speed cellular data.
While I agree there is a market for it, I don't think it is something many urban users would sign up for. Quick math of 40 000 ppl per 60 satellites, and the ultimate goal is 42 000 satellites says they can service 28 million. While that's a lot, it's nowhere near a billion. Which tells me this is going to be targeted at those who don't have access to broadband, and will be priced higher than traditional carriers. They would need 35x 42 00 satellites (~1.5 million) to reach a billion users. And I suspect you start running into other issues at that point.
They are saying that each set of 60 satellites they launch now (version 1.0) can handle 40,000 users. Future upgrades will increase the bandwidth significantly.
Either way, I agree that it won't necessarily be targeted at urban users.
Internet in most major cities is actually really good, especially in Canada. No reason to go over a market where users are paying $60 per month for 300mbps connections.
Hey, if this thing puts the fear of God into the big 3 telecom pirates in Canada, im all for it. I hate that we simply have gotten used to being the most expensive telecom buyers in the world. Doesnt matter if its internet or cell service. And doubly so for internet providers in rural Canada. They are literally the biggest scam artists out there. Whats the big one called in North Central AB... MSI? MTI? Whatever, there's like 5 or 6 and they are awful.
Yup. I feel bad for the rural WISP providers out there trying to make it work, and many do!
In Manitoba alone there are a lot of great WISP providers that have very decent packages and offer a great service / speed to their customers. Unfortunately I feel that Starlink could easily put them out of business very quickly.
Especially those guys that offer 10mbps speeds with 100GB of data for $140 per month.
Starlink Discussion
