SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth(zdnet.com)
zdnet.com
SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/networking/spacex-wants-to-launch-100000-more-starlink-satellites/
356 comments
Here along the BC Coast, the organization I work for has an expansive sensor network. Weather stations, CTDs, custom equipment in watersheds, research facilities with all kinds of equipment to monitor, and so on. There is no broadband or fiber on remote islands along the coast. We used to use satellite internet, and getting data off of our main hubs (everything is relayed to the hubs by radio) was very slow and precarious. Since starlink it's a breeze. We will finally be able to get video feeds off of some of the stations; a totally untenable concept before.
> There is no broadband or fiber on remote islands along the coast.
I have family on the USA side of the islands. Kenmore Air is subsidized, but the trees are so darn tall that at many homes, Starlink is not an option. (they like the trees and use directional microwave, which sucks for Zoom)
I have family on the USA side of the islands. Kenmore Air is subsidized, but the trees are so darn tall that at many homes, Starlink is not an option. (they like the trees and use directional microwave, which sucks for Zoom)
Sure, and that's great, but this is an extremely small niche case right? No one is denying that there are some cases where Starlink is amazing, but niche products don't usually command a $1T value.
It’s a niche, yes, but there could be others like it. No idea about how the company should be valued. We pay them chump change for our services, but enough that with any scale it could be meaningful. And their reach is pretty incredible, so, there is a lot of potential there.
Starlink is wonderful for many reasons.
It allows technical folk to live wherever they’d like as long as they’re working remotely.
The mobile applications, particularly in the case of airline aircraft, have also been compelling and worth a lot of money to SpaceX.
Starlink has also brought broadband Internet to a vast number of people that would not have had it otherwise. This will boost the worldwide economy by an enormous amount.
It allows technical folk to live wherever they’d like as long as they’re working remotely.
The mobile applications, particularly in the case of airline aircraft, have also been compelling and worth a lot of money to SpaceX.
Starlink has also brought broadband Internet to a vast number of people that would not have had it otherwise. This will boost the worldwide economy by an enormous amount.
They do if they are the go to product or service for a few billion customers.
Fiber deployment is bottlenecked by Baumol's Cost Disease: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect. There's basically no productivity gains being made in how quickly skilled laborers can deploy fiber. Like everything else involving skilled labor, the price keeps going up.
> I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things.
India is rapidly expanding fiber internet connectivity, even in rural areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Broadband_Network
In addition, 4G/5G coverage is extensive: https://www.ookla.com/articles/india-mobile-connectivity-1h2...
See India in this 5G global coverage map: https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-map-2026
The number of people who are not covered by above-mentioned fiber/cell network, and can afford Starlink as it is priced now, will be extremely small (likely making Starlink unviable as a profitable business).
India is rapidly expanding fiber internet connectivity, even in rural areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Broadband_Network
In addition, 4G/5G coverage is extensive: https://www.ookla.com/articles/india-mobile-connectivity-1h2...
See India in this 5G global coverage map: https://www.ookla.com/articles/5g-map-2026
The number of people who are not covered by above-mentioned fiber/cell network, and can afford Starlink as it is priced now, will be extremely small (likely making Starlink unviable as a profitable business).
> The number of people who are not covered by above-mentioned fiber/cell network, and can afford Starlink as it is priced now, will be extremely small
People vastly overestimate the purchasing power in places like India. Most of the purchasing power is concentrated in the top 1% of the population and most of that 1% lives in urban areas with fiber connectivity. The bottom 90% don’t even make $1K/person/year. Even a $10/month subscription (1/5th of what it costs right now) would be 10% of the total income, which at those income levels, would never be a priority.
People vastly overestimate the purchasing power in places like India. Most of the purchasing power is concentrated in the top 1% of the population and most of that 1% lives in urban areas with fiber connectivity. The bottom 90% don’t even make $1K/person/year. Even a $10/month subscription (1/5th of what it costs right now) would be 10% of the total income, which at those income levels, would never be a priority.
Starlink accounted for 69% of SpaceX revenue pre-merger and is speculated to be already profitable including launch costs.
And this is all before they launch a phone or something, or replace global fiber interconnect with a lower latency space-based alternative, replace all forms of space based telecommunications (TV, Satellite Radio, etc). Starlink is a $1T+ business without even getting creative.
And this is all before they launch a phone or something, or replace global fiber interconnect with a lower latency space-based alternative, replace all forms of space based telecommunications (TV, Satellite Radio, etc). Starlink is a $1T+ business without even getting creative.
Will sending bits to space and back really be faster than fiber? How?
For context, that revenue was $18.67 billion in 2025, with a net loss of $4.94 billion.
And we must remember that 6G is in the final stages of development, which has peak speeds of 1 Tbps.
And we must remember that 6G is in the final stages of development, which has peak speeds of 1 Tbps.
We’ll how that prediction turns out…
My informed opinion says that you are wildly wrong.
(Also don’t forget the Starlink related military contracts that SpaceX has.)
My informed opinion says that you are wildly wrong.
(Also don’t forget the Starlink related military contracts that SpaceX has.)
Starlink is currently partnering with United Airlines for Wi-Fi coverage, so that's one thing.
Qatar just announced it's gate-to-gate and free on their aircraft.
Automated cargo ships. Traveling to automated ports.
Crews on those ships are spending nearly all their time maintaining them.
Many flag and port states already allow One Man Bridge Operation (OMBO) in many circumstances. This means there's basically on person on the bridge, and maybe one other person down in the engine room keeping an eye on a floating city block moving through the water at 15 knots
Many flag and port states already allow One Man Bridge Operation (OMBO) in many circumstances. This means there's basically on person on the bridge, and maybe one other person down in the engine room keeping an eye on a floating city block moving through the water at 15 knots
The 5 wage slaves on current ocean giants aren't even a rounding error on any calculation.
The wage isn’t the problem, it’s the regulations.
... would there really not be regulations on giant unmanned ships? That seems concerning, though I could certainly understand international / maritime law having a gap.
I give coastal piracy about 3-weeks to figure out how to commandeer unmanned cargo ships. I bet they’d be ecstatic.
taps head
cant' steer without a helm
cant' steer without a helm
you think they won't figure out how to hotwire the steer-by-wire controls?
Never going to happen in your lifetime.
Salt water, is nasty, it gets everywhere, the environment on boats is damp. Ships are complicated and require constant effort to keep running.
Any sort of "automation" you build in is subject to those same environmental conditions, and wont last long.
Salt water, is nasty, it gets everywhere, the environment on boats is damp. Ships are complicated and require constant effort to keep running.
Any sort of "automation" you build in is subject to those same environmental conditions, and wont last long.
When COVID hit, I knew a lot of engineers who decided to move to rural areas / small farms because they could leverage Starlink to work remotely.
Last year, when I asked whether they still liked Starlink, all of them said it is amazing, but they had gotten fiber coverage in their area from a local provider, so they don't use it anymore, or just use it as a backup.
I think Starlink was a huge demand signal that there were people willing to pay a premium for faster-than-radio internet. So, unless they manage to be cheaper and faster than fiber, I don't think there is much of an endgame there.
But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation.
Last year, when I asked whether they still liked Starlink, all of them said it is amazing, but they had gotten fiber coverage in their area from a local provider, so they don't use it anymore, or just use it as a backup.
I think Starlink was a huge demand signal that there were people willing to pay a premium for faster-than-radio internet. So, unless they manage to be cheaper and faster than fiber, I don't think there is much of an endgame there.
But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation.
Meanwhile, as one of those engineers, they ran fiber down the highway a mile from my house circa 2021, but they did not do any upgrades at all to the last mile infrastructure so I still only have a ~10Mbps DSL option for wired internet at that house, which is a big step up from literally no wired option before, but still vastly inferior to Starlink. (The terrain makes terrestrial wireless a nonstarter in the area). I've since moved back to civilization, but I still own the house. As far as I know, there are no plans at all to improve the last mile infrastructure.
Separately, from SpaceX's own prospectus, Starlink is only a tiny fraction of the overall conglomerate that went public recently. It "only" needs to support double digit billions of valuation to pull its weight inside of the company.
Separately, from SpaceX's own prospectus, Starlink is only a tiny fraction of the overall conglomerate that went public recently. It "only" needs to support double digit billions of valuation to pull its weight inside of the company.
> there are no plans at all to improve the last mile infrastructure
The economics of laying fiber to the premises are heavily driven by density of potential customers * probability that a potential customer will sign up if you run fiber down their street. You can get reasonable intuition by focusing on the density alone & ignoring the competition / pricing side of things.
I'm not familiar with current US construction costs to install fiber but have some intuition from Australia.
With Australia's national broadband network project from a decade or so ago, it'd cost in the ballpark of $100 AUD per meter to run fiber down the street in an underground trench - most of the capex is digging the holes in the ground etc, the cost of the cable itself is essentially free. The construction budget for a suburb would be something like $2000 / premises. To give a ballpark estimate, suppose 25% of your budget is the premises-specific work to connect the house to the cable running down the street, if they choose to sign up for your broadband plan. That leaves at most $1500 / premises for the rest of your capex budget, so the economics only work if you've got a neighbourhood with a density of least one house every 15 meters. Those numbers aren't exact but they'd be in the ballpark.
There's a bit of variability in the cost per meter to install, if you can reuse existing poles & run the cable aerially that might be only 30%-40% of the cost of digging holes, so you might be able to support a lower density suburb that way & still stick to your construction budget.
In Australia for the lower density rural / semi-rural areas they'd use fixed wireless, & finally satellite for the remote extremely low density areas where it didn't even make sense to build a wireless tower.
The economics of laying fiber to the premises are heavily driven by density of potential customers * probability that a potential customer will sign up if you run fiber down their street. You can get reasonable intuition by focusing on the density alone & ignoring the competition / pricing side of things.
I'm not familiar with current US construction costs to install fiber but have some intuition from Australia.
With Australia's national broadband network project from a decade or so ago, it'd cost in the ballpark of $100 AUD per meter to run fiber down the street in an underground trench - most of the capex is digging the holes in the ground etc, the cost of the cable itself is essentially free. The construction budget for a suburb would be something like $2000 / premises. To give a ballpark estimate, suppose 25% of your budget is the premises-specific work to connect the house to the cable running down the street, if they choose to sign up for your broadband plan. That leaves at most $1500 / premises for the rest of your capex budget, so the economics only work if you've got a neighbourhood with a density of least one house every 15 meters. Those numbers aren't exact but they'd be in the ballpark.
There's a bit of variability in the cost per meter to install, if you can reuse existing poles & run the cable aerially that might be only 30%-40% of the cost of digging holes, so you might be able to support a lower density suburb that way & still stick to your construction budget.
In Australia for the lower density rural / semi-rural areas they'd use fixed wireless, & finally satellite for the remote extremely low density areas where it didn't even make sense to build a wireless tower.
your numbers are completely meaningless.
it is well known that Australia has an extremely lazy workforce that refuse to put in any real work.
the best example here is the stupid residential building cost. nowadays it costs over $1m AUD or $700k USD do a first floor 2bedroom 1 bathroom extension for an existing house in good condition. That is significantly more expensive than building a big house in the US.
it is well known that Australia has an extremely lazy workforce that refuse to put in any real work.
the best example here is the stupid residential building cost. nowadays it costs over $1m AUD or $700k USD do a first floor 2bedroom 1 bathroom extension for an existing house in good condition. That is significantly more expensive than building a big house in the US.
I was only trying to talk about Starlink here, as that is what TFA is about. Starlink is AMAZING in-flight, out at sea, etc.. But since you brought it up:
> Separately, from SpaceX's own prospectus, Starlink is only a tiny fraction of the overall conglomerate that went public recently. It "only" needs to support double digit billions of valuation to pull its weight inside of the company.
So, where does the rest of the valuation come from?
It feels like it comes from the alien simulation-theory overlords.
> Separately, from SpaceX's own prospectus, Starlink is only a tiny fraction of the overall conglomerate that went public recently. It "only" needs to support double digit billions of valuation to pull its weight inside of the company.
So, where does the rest of the valuation come from?
It feels like it comes from the alien simulation-theory overlords.
According to SpaceX itself 93% of the company's value is in AI IIRC.
No joke, I need to learn how to do this.
A F50 demo client just told me that my single-builder product was better than their interal "AI chat with data" product.
I need a b2b SaaS smart partner. Please contact me at username at the big G, if anyone is down.
A F50 demo client just told me that my single-builder product was better than their interal "AI chat with data" product.
I need a b2b SaaS smart partner. Please contact me at username at the big G, if anyone is down.
99% of the value is goodwill towards musk
God I hope not. That’s terrifying.
> where does the rest of the valuation come from?
AI data centers in space, of course!
AI data centers in space, of course!
SpaceX is by far the most cost effective way in this world to send things into space.
That is very valuable.
That is very valuable.
There are areas where the bureaucratic hurdles to changing anything and the incentives for changing anything work out to nothing ever changing. I assume in 20 years most of Berlin is still going to have 50mbit/s max. I hear residents of New York have completely given up and are using 5G modems because putting up new cables just isn't practical. On the other hand, these cities do have a significant minority of flats with gigabit internet, so if you care you can pick a modern building with modern cabling. Maybe the segment who both live in old apartments and also are willing to pay for fast internet is too small to bother with.
Not just cruise ships, but practically every boat with a bed in it. People sailing on small boats all around the world have starlink now. It's kind of a game changer in a lot of ways for small boats.
> But there are a few places that will need Starlink, like planes, cruise ships, and islands. I'm just not sure if that will justify that $1T valuation.
There's also drones and front-line trenches, but your point still stands.
There's also drones and front-line trenches, but your point still stands.
And for that reason the EU, India, China and Russia will build their own Starlink alternatives.
To offset costs they'll then provide it for civilian use, competing with Starlink in the above areas.
To offset costs they'll then provide it for civilian use, competing with Starlink in the above areas.
India is super super poor still I cannot imagine they would build out domestic Starlink for hypothetical wars before other actual critical infrastructure.
They have an actual space program that launches actual satellites. They have also been in several actual, non-hypothetical wars.
They have nukes and are always on the verge of war with Pakistan (who also have nukes). I'm sure they have money for war, everyone always does.
What makes you think india is "super super" poor? India's GDP is humongous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...).
India's total exports are in the same ballpark as the Netherlands, a country with half the population of the city of Bombay.
India may not be a poor country, but GDP doesn't capture the real state of india's wealth.
India may not be a poor country, but GDP doesn't capture the real state of india's wealth.
The page you need to look at is GDP per capita:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
…which lists India as #148, below countries like Zimbabwe, Haiti, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Palestine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
…which lists India as #148, below countries like Zimbabwe, Haiti, Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Palestine.
The denominator
Same as Russia, yeah. But Reliance Jio seems to have announced something. Don't know if it'll actually happen.
Yeah who knows poor infrastructure might let India skip fiber in some areas entirely. Maybe it’s not that hard to launch a domestic Starlink if Blue Origin/ SpaceX will bring your satellites up cheaply .
In much of the US, internet companies run a racket. While there are often multiple providers to choose from, if you want reliable service at good speeds, you end up with two, or if you're really lucky, three options. One of those options is Starlink.
In NYC we’re often only wired for one provider. 5G home internet was a big deal in finally opening up that competition.
In Europe, even rural areas tend to be fairly close to cities, whereas in North America, lots of farms are really remote. This map from NASA [0] should give you an idea of how remote some areas can be.
Now, 99% of these areas have electricity from the grid and analogue phone lines, so there's no reason why we couldn't also run fibre out to them, but for political reasons that's fairly unlikely to happen anytime soon.
[0]: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/i...
Now, 99% of these areas have electricity from the grid and analogue phone lines, so there's no reason why we couldn't also run fibre out to them, but for political reasons that's fairly unlikely to happen anytime soon.
[0]: https://assets.science.nasa.gov/content/dam/science/esd/eo/i...
I think that while Starlink is a technical innovation its primary benefit is as a political innovation: it lets you sidestep a lot of politics.
Rural communities in the US should have high speed internet, just like efforts were made to give them electricity back in the day. But the layers of politics and dysfunction in the way are deep.
Rural communities in the US should have high speed internet, just like efforts were made to give them electricity back in the day. But the layers of politics and dysfunction in the way are deep.
If we can get internet from the sky, it's hard to justify digging up the earth with cables for the same thing.
I realize Space X "pollutes" space and astronomy is also important, but it's not more important than communications and information for people on earth.
I realize Space X "pollutes" space and astronomy is also important, but it's not more important than communications and information for people on earth.
I have fiber (I can get up to 300 Gbps at my home in the Seattle area, but I got opted for the 2Gbps) and I have Starlink as backup/failover. I previously used my mobile service for that but learned the hard way that when there's a large internet outage in the area, as it did when we had a bad storm, so does mobile service, either power loss or it can't support the influx of everyone using their phone internet. So now I have starlink as a backup. It's a very small portable unit that I can also take when camping. It's a great service. Also it's powering a lot of airlines now, it's fast and reliable to the point I can watch youtube and tiktok on my flights.
300Gbps? Is that typo? Unless you are connecting to some very particular infrastructure on the other one, nothing you could possibly connect to could use it, and you would need gear that would be somewhat high end even for server grade.
(I know you said you didn't select that option, but just the idea that it's even offered to residential units is mind blowing).
(I know you said you didn't select that option, but just the idea that it's even offered to residential units is mind blowing).
No, not a typo. Ziply has 300 Gbps at my house if I want to pay $900 a month. Instead I pay $65 for 2 Gbps
You likely meant 50 Gbps as its what come up on their website and some recent US fibre discussions.
In any case even 50Gbps likely a huge part of their total throughput and you wont be abble to use it at full speed. So its pure marketing.
In any case even 50Gbps likely a huge part of their total throughput and you wont be abble to use it at full speed. So its pure marketing.
Usually there is a 300 Mbps - 10 Gbps range of offerings.
That was my thinking as well here in EU farmland. I would use it as a backup. I really wanted to have an excuse to use the cool af Starlink tech. However, after half a decade the fiber has gone down 3 times, and I just shared my iPhone's LTE as a hotspot in 2 cases, and in the third I did yard work for 20 minutes.
There's many isolated communities abroad that benefit from this coverage. Plus, when I begin my solo sailing adventure, I intend to use Starlink as my primary method to maintain contact, of course with traditional methods serving as backup.
The sailing-around-the-world (and similar) market is obviously miniscule. The isolated communities probably tend to be on the less affluent part of the world, so it doesn't seem to justify a 100x expansion.
I think the theory is that they can expand the infrastructure enough that conventional fiber etc. stops being competitive.
I don’t see how. Maybe someone here can attempt the napkin math. But the satellites have much shorter lifespans than fiber.
We have starlink. It’s better than a lot of ISPs we’ve had. I think of them as the new hughes.net. If you are worse than them, you go out of business.
They can’t remotely repeat with local ISPs now that fiber is being rolled out.
Starlink: I have spent 4-5 days debugging cables because in some ketamine fueled manic episode, elon thought he could do better than RJ-45.
Local ISP: “We’ll be happy to run fiber and new ethernet through your existing network conduits, trench to the curb, and help bodge in active poe ethernet repeaters for runs that are too long.”
Edit: As for satellite light pollution, yeah, that sucks, but it’s something like 0.001% (if that) of the problems we have because Silicon Valley tech campuses stay lit up like Christmas trees all night. (And those are probably dwarfed by porch lights, street lights, etc.).
We’re in one of the darkest spots in the region and can pretty much always walk around without lights at night. Seriously, how bright do you need unoccupied spaces in the cities to be at night?
They can’t remotely repeat with local ISPs now that fiber is being rolled out.
Starlink: I have spent 4-5 days debugging cables because in some ketamine fueled manic episode, elon thought he could do better than RJ-45.
Local ISP: “We’ll be happy to run fiber and new ethernet through your existing network conduits, trench to the curb, and help bodge in active poe ethernet repeaters for runs that are too long.”
Edit: As for satellite light pollution, yeah, that sucks, but it’s something like 0.001% (if that) of the problems we have because Silicon Valley tech campuses stay lit up like Christmas trees all night. (And those are probably dwarfed by porch lights, street lights, etc.).
We’re in one of the darkest spots in the region and can pretty much always walk around without lights at night. Seriously, how bright do you need unoccupied spaces in the cities to be at night?
> Local ISP: “We’ll be happy to run fiber and new ethernet through your existing network conduits, trench to the curb, and help bodge in active poe ethernet repeaters for runs that are too long.”
I live in a major metro with a half a dozen apartments constructed within a block of me while I've lived here and this is very much not the case. I call them, they say they'll be happy too and then they ghost me. Of course I also can't get Starlink.
I live in a major metro with a half a dozen apartments constructed within a block of me while I've lived here and this is very much not the case. I call them, they say they'll be happy too and then they ghost me. Of course I also can't get Starlink.
> I live in a major metro with a half a dozen apartments constructed within a block of me
Good chance Starlink (or any satellite-based internet for that matter) probably won't do well for you either tbh. Too many clients in too tight of an area all fighting for such a small slice of bandwidth and birds overhead.
Good chance Starlink (or any satellite-based internet for that matter) probably won't do well for you either tbh. Too many clients in too tight of an area all fighting for such a small slice of bandwidth and birds overhead.
My area has both ATT fiber and the local cable service. Both fast and reasonably (for the US) priced.
My neighbor has starlink. Very weird.
My neighbor has starlink. Very weird.
How about the sea traffic and jet plane market?
About 36 thousand planes and 105 thousand of 100 tonnes ships (not a lot) or 57 thousand of over 1000 tonnes ships...
At what ever unit economic price... That is not exactly massive market globally.
At what ever unit economic price... That is not exactly massive market globally.
What about them?
Starlink has worked great for us so far from Europe to Polynesia. Prices keep going up, so would be nice if the service had actual competition.
The backups are sadly becoming trickier, as fewer and fewer carry SSB radios or operate shore stations.
And yet we do have SSB, and also an Inreach as backups. You never know when Elon wakes up and decides he doesn't like sailors.
The backups are sadly becoming trickier, as fewer and fewer carry SSB radios or operate shore stations.
And yet we do have SSB, and also an Inreach as backups. You never know when Elon wakes up and decides he doesn't like sailors.
I have a really good friend who used Starlink for his cottage in Canada and as soon as there was broadband he switched away. Starlink was unreliable and slow compared to what he has now.
In my country today the people who use it the most are in northern cities that don't even have roads going to them.
In my country today the people who use it the most are in northern cities that don't even have roads going to them.
I have it, I live in a very rural place.
I've had to reset the router 3 or 4 times in two years. I don't suffer outages even in thunderstorms.
It may be slow compared to fiber or something, but it's the fastest steam game downloads I've ever had personally (no big city life).
But reliability has been almost 100%
I've had to reset the router 3 or 4 times in two years. I don't suffer outages even in thunderstorms.
It may be slow compared to fiber or something, but it's the fastest steam game downloads I've ever had personally (no big city life).
But reliability has been almost 100%
He probably had it pointed at trees. It was super reliable for me when I worked from a rural location in Maine for a couple of months.
Unreliable usually means not a clear signal? May have needed to adjust the install.
I live in an area of the US where the only alternatives are 3.5 megabit DSL which stops working when it rains or Hughesnet, so basically no real competition at all.
In America for my lifetime I have never been able to get fiber and it’s because America is too large and I live in an affluent suburb.
Lack of competition is the reason. Not the size of the country. Especially in a suburb.
It works on planes, ships, and in remote areas with no coverage. I live in Canada where the whole of Europe would fit many times over, nothing else would work in the remote areas at that scale. My parents live in Panama and use starlink to get reliable high speed internet at the beach. Even when the power goes out, their solar panels keep the internet online.
So to me, in a tech panacea that inlcudes Starlink + Reliable EVTOL (flying cars) - this will entirely change property values for those of use living outside of traditional city limits. I ain't selling.
Its also a pricing thing; in Australia our nationalised provider keeps getting more expensive, starlink is now getting cost-competitive.
Stop using Telstra then. There’s an abundance of NBN resellers who sell better packages for cheaper than Telstra. At this point Telstra is just for old people who don’t want to change the services they’ve always been with.
Many places have incompetent government that can't/won't build proper infrastructure. For example, the US has allocated around $50B for rural broadband and almost nothing has been built.
1 billion of that rural broadband funds was allocated to SpaceX, but the Biden administration revoked it in 2020. I wonder which has connected more rural Americans
I don't think you have that right; BEAD funds were not originally allowed to be awarded for technologies other than Fiber. No one had been awarded in 2020. Many ISPs had been awarded for Fiber projects by 2025, but under this administration, the NTIA changed the rules so LEO could get the funds and rug pulled the original awardees. States had to start the bidding process over under the new rules. SpaceX took home something like a billion dollars at that point (it pays to make large campaign donations, I guess!). Projects should finally get underway later this fall in most states.
s1artibartfast is correct; Starlink was awarded RDOF money that was later rescinded.
Ah, fair. I read BEAD in another comment and conflated the two.
Obviously Starlink has connected far more Americans than unbuilt rural fiber. Starlink did get $730M in BEAD grants more recently.
India really has very deep penetration of 5g, and at very low cost. There might be a rare place that starlink might be needed but really I cannot image starlink having much consumer/retail uptake in india. Not needed, and too expensive. There might be commercial users - offshore rigs etc, but india is too densely populated for there to be many 'truly remote' locations.
India has still not permitted starlink to start ops.
India has still not permitted starlink to start ops.
Starlink is a problem that solves itself. If enough fiber rolls out that there's no more customers, they'll scale back satellites (since they only last 3-5 years).
Not if you're a publicly traded company and that's a major part of your revenue.
> I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things.
Starlink has a Military arm called Starshield. If strategically important to US military and other militaries who are partners of the USA, that will be many millions/billions.
https://www.spacex.com/starshield
Starlink has a Military arm called Starshield. If strategically important to US military and other militaries who are partners of the USA, that will be many millions/billions.
https://www.spacex.com/starshield
Recently I flew on a long-distance (so at least a dozen hours of flight time) low-budget airline that had 60 Mbps download/12 Mbps upload and it specifically called out SpaceX Starlink for being able to provide this for free. A video call went smoothly. There was connectivity from takeoff to landing with no interruption in between. This was the best airline experience I've had yet.
OK, so for this, Starlink is AMAZING! In-flight Starlink is undeniable.
The first time I experienced it, I could not believe what was happening. I messaged my nerd friends with screenshots of https://speed.cloudflare.com/
Also, their required zero-friction UX is the shiznit.
Then, I fell asleep as I finally had theoretical time off.
The first time I experienced it, I could not believe what was happening. I messaged my nerd friends with screenshots of https://speed.cloudflare.com/
Also, their required zero-friction UX is the shiznit.
Then, I fell asleep as I finally had theoretical time off.
I’ve read so many posts from both CEOs and programmers about their higher in-flight productivity thanks to be offline.
It used to be one of the best parts of a cruise, a week without internet! But it’s pretty decent these days
I flew Delta about 6 months ago and they had something similar, also for free, but they use Viasat. I think most of the big airlines were moving this way anyway to be honest, Starlink just has a good opportunity for advertising.
Starlink speed and bandwidth is way ahead of any of the existing satellite internet providers.
I believe Viasat internet satellites are placed in geostationary orbit, whereas SpaceX Starlink is not, so the service Viasat provides is already blown out.
There are many places, even in the US, where your only alternative is--believe it or not--dial-up modems. Others had painfully slow--1 Mbps up, 5 Mbps down--Internet.
Same. I bought a cabin, which had the equivalent of pretty good DSL. I got starlink and immediately cancelled it when 2gbps fiber arrived 9mo later. Fiber is rolling out faster than a lot of people think.
Would fiber have come so fast without starlink as a threat though
Thanks Elon!
What's the reasoning? That people won't switch away from the more expensive, slower, less reliable service if you get there a bit later?
Starlink isn't wildly expensive, nor is it unreliable or slow, but it loses the comparisons.
Starlink isn't wildly expensive, nor is it unreliable or slow, but it loses the comparisons.
When a telco provides poor quality service somewhere, people have no choice but to pay them as price takers. When there are options, telcos have to provide better service to win your business. Telcos with monopolies have always been rent-seekers. It happens time and time again that some newcomer comes up, and just the hint of competition gets Verizon/Spectrum/etc to suddenly build new tech and dig some trenches.
^^^ Exactly this. I live in just such an area (one where Cable and DSL providers successfully bribed local officials to get fiber blocked so the two of them could split the city between them). They're both literally the worst Internet service providers I've ever had, but the only two choices besides insanely expensive celphone service providers.
Spectrum here rolled out fiber when other companies did. I'm pretty sure it is because it is the same subsidized last mile fiber and not because they were inspired by competition.
See the reason Google Fiber existed [1]. It wasn't for a product, it was to kick the pants of all the monopolistic broadband providers. Now, you have similar motivation on a global scale.
[1] https://gdt.com/blog/whatever-happened-to-google-fiber/
[1] https://gdt.com/blog/whatever-happened-to-google-fiber/
How ironic that Google wanted to be a monopoly buster.
Starlink was an attempt to grab the rural broadband funding that supported that fiber rollout in the US. It was too slow, so the money went to fiber and traditional ISPs instead. Fiber may well have come faster without starlink.
It's very popular in rural US where running wired broadband is cost prohibitive.
There are many parts of the US that are very spread out, and thus running wires to every home is expensive without subsidies.
There are many parts of the US that are very spread out, and thus running wires to every home is expensive without subsidies.
Right the areas that companies took money to roll out high speed internet to, then just kept the money and called DSL high speed or just did nothing. The government should keep giving companies money and investing in them. It's brilliant.
I am also in rural EU and have 1 house that has fiber, and another, 10 minute drive away has nothing, not even cell signal and it won't get anything any time soon. Starlink is basically the only option.
Eeh even ther its a stretch , when people talk about Africa - they should really specify where exactly. PLaces like SouthAfrica [1] already have a robust Fiber network with accelerated buildout of FTTH. Ditto for most of Eastern Africa countries which have FTTH to most of the major cities and subururbs with accelerated buildouts ongoing.
Unless its a conflict area most regions are getting wired up pretty fast to enhancce business connectivity - the speeds and bandwith for starlink make noe economic sense once a developing pop are factored in.The only major push for many countries approvals is basically strong armed and shaken down by the US admin on behalf of Musk[2].
[1]https://ctcommunications.co.za/blog/south-africa-fiber-rollo...
[2]https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/us-pushes-nations-fa...
[1]https://ctcommunications.co.za/blog/south-africa-fiber-rollo...
[2]https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/us-pushes-nations-fa...
I feel like no-earth orbit is always going to beat out low-earth orbit in the long-term. I live an area that the USDA classifies as rural and I now have multiple fiber options, including municipal. This isn't to say that Starlink doesn't have its place and I only see it becoming more niche over time and facing more competition in the LEO segment.
I live in what is probably the first place to get these things in the world, but it feels like fiber is being built at an extremely rapid pace. Just in the past couple of years it seems like Google and AT&T fiber went from being a relatively confined thing to being available everywhere in the city, and everywhere outside, and at my friend's ranch 100 miles in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere.
Given that fiber's been around for literal decades, though, and the Internet hasn't recently gotten more popular or anything, why would this suddenly have changed? I could believe what people are saying re. Starlink providing competition and finally incentivizing fiber buildouts
The obvious is the cost of deploying. You don't need to dig to add cable. Full country coverage. Worldwide customers.
I agree with that, but it's great for a greenfield project/area. Say, Mars or very high and low latitudes, or ships/airplanes.
However, once you are in an area of "civilization," there is not only an opportunity for fiber, but also maybe the locals don't want a foreign power controlling your citizens' data access. India + China = 35% of the global population, and Starlink is not legal in either place.
Meanwhile, the free speech absolutist is focused on breaking up the ~5.4% of the globe, (EU) where Starlink is legal.
However, once you are in an area of "civilization," there is not only an opportunity for fiber, but also maybe the locals don't want a foreign power controlling your citizens' data access. India + China = 35% of the global population, and Starlink is not legal in either place.
Meanwhile, the free speech absolutist is focused on breaking up the ~5.4% of the globe, (EU) where Starlink is legal.
Yes, but those are different reasons. Eventually we'll have many different providers offering LEO internet. Competition is the best way to solve this. The benefits of LEO internet is obvious.
> The benefits of LEO internet is obvious.
No, I disagree, maybe. The terrestrial Internet was literally designed to route around a nuclear war. That was its initial purpose, was it not?
Starlink needs ground stations, which are visible from orbit, and can be Shaheded... unless every Starlink terminal can also become a down-link.. which would be cool. However, then it all still relies on terrestrial fiber, right? Or, then that would be a Starlink-only WAN?
I don't want to call out a specific HN'er, but he is an HN hero. Years ago, in person, he told me he was bored. I tried to convince him to work for Starlink in Redmond, as what could be cooler than working on an entire new satellite laser-based Internet 2 backbone?! This was back when GMaps labeled that office "A Place of Worship."
I failed at that, because he probably saw that the entire concept was questionable. My point here is that this is all very complicated, and while Starlink is the coolest tech in my lifetime, it still relies on terrestrial fiber in the end.
Please, help me work through this. I am likely very confused.
No, I disagree, maybe. The terrestrial Internet was literally designed to route around a nuclear war. That was its initial purpose, was it not?
Starlink needs ground stations, which are visible from orbit, and can be Shaheded... unless every Starlink terminal can also become a down-link.. which would be cool. However, then it all still relies on terrestrial fiber, right? Or, then that would be a Starlink-only WAN?
I don't want to call out a specific HN'er, but he is an HN hero. Years ago, in person, he told me he was bored. I tried to convince him to work for Starlink in Redmond, as what could be cooler than working on an entire new satellite laser-based Internet 2 backbone?! This was back when GMaps labeled that office "A Place of Worship."
I failed at that, because he probably saw that the entire concept was questionable. My point here is that this is all very complicated, and while Starlink is the coolest tech in my lifetime, it still relies on terrestrial fiber in the end.
Please, help me work through this. I am likely very confused.
Internet routing around nuclear war not because it's cable but it's because it's an inter connected network (ie "internet"). Meaning there's multiple routes to the same destination.
Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant.
Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and, given the government, staying out for quite a while.
It's a fair point that those in poorer places will have less money, but for instance, Mexico's Starlink pricing is pretty standard, it's like 50-100 EUR per month. They pay it anyways because they need it, and because it's the best option.
Starlink is a great decentralization for anyone living under corrupt dysfunctional governments, where they can't rely on that centralized system.
Having lived in Central America, imagine all the workers that are laying the internet cables going back at night and digging them up to sell. A government that, 50% of the time, won't actually build anything when given the funding, and usually can't get the funding anyways. Plus, in some parts, weather can result in internet going out and, given the government, staying out for quite a while.
It's a fair point that those in poorer places will have less money, but for instance, Mexico's Starlink pricing is pretty standard, it's like 50-100 EUR per month. They pay it anyways because they need it, and because it's the best option.
Starlink is a great decentralization for anyone living under corrupt dysfunctional governments, where they can't rely on that centralized system.
Who digs up fibres to sell? It's worthless material. Copper yes but nobody lays that anymore. If it even has to be metal it's usually mostly aluminium.
You'd be amazed at how unintelligent about things tweakers are. They don't know it is fibre when they are taking it. It doesn't keep all of the users on the other end of those lines from losing signal.
What are you basing this view on, sounds like you have personally seen this happen?
On multiple occasions I have had my fibre service go down because of this.
They dig up the fibre to check that it isn't copper.
Starlink is popular in rural England. Trenching fibre to farmland isn't economical and poor DSL is often the only other option.
>Europe is too well-run (even the poorer parts) for Starlink to be as relevant.
Except there's rich parts like Germany or Austria where internet infra is poorly run due to monopolistic telco capture and regulations keeping infra upgrades costs high, and so have slower and more expensive internet than Starlink in some areas. Poorer nations of EU often have faster internet than the richer ones so poverty is not a reason.
So Starlink is definitely still relevant. I've seen several small/medium businesses here in Austria that have a starlink terminal as a backup.
Except there's rich parts like Germany or Austria where internet infra is poorly run due to monopolistic telco capture and regulations keeping infra upgrades costs high, and so have slower and more expensive internet than Starlink in some areas. Poorer nations of EU often have faster internet than the richer ones so poverty is not a reason.
So Starlink is definitely still relevant. I've seen several small/medium businesses here in Austria that have a starlink terminal as a backup.
Yes and just to add, the infra itself is pretty cheap. The cost comes from the labor and regulatory complexity. Budapest for instance has dirt cheap fibre just about everywhere.
Elon turning off Russian access to Starlink by whitelisting only authorized terminals in the region was a turning point for Ukraine's success. The conflict has proven that modern warfare depends on Starlink and its mimics.
China has a huge microwave to destroy any kind of Starlink over its head.
Citation Needed.
The specifics of an implementation of this are objectively absurd. Power requirements alone make this a non-starter. If that weren’t enough, it would be a declaration of war.
The specifics of an implementation of this are objectively absurd. Power requirements alone make this a non-starter. If that weren’t enough, it would be a declaration of war.
There's a lot of places without fiber, e.g. all the ships/jets etc. there's a lot of low-density areas, there's islands with no internet or VERY expensive internet
Ships and jets are different segments from residential. Planes are definitely a textbook use case for satellite internet, but just like airlines are in a race-to-the-bottom for everything from in-flight snacks to legroom, they're not going to spring for premier high-quality internet service, they're just going to scrape by with the bare minimum. The market potential is not spectacularly impressive. Meanwhile, for residential services, rural areas continue to shrink, the people remaining in rural areas tend to be poorer, and the rural areas where rich people live have fiber, because the rich people can pay for it. Satellite internet will remain a crucial service for certain rural populations, but it's not going to take over the world, and it's not going to justify an order of magnitude more launches. Let's stop beating around the bush: the bull case for both Starlink and SpaceX is that the US military sees them as indispensible military assets, the former for global logistics, and the latter for the rapid weaponization of space.
Airlines are already springing for Starlink and can’t charge their customers for it.
one difference is that fiber isn't mobile.
Though all these satellites might give fixed-location folks higher bandwidth, they could also service many more concurrent mobile customers. Connectivity would probably be better too because more satellites would be in view.
Also, don't underestimate the benefit of robust competition, even if you don't use starlink.
Though all these satellites might give fixed-location folks higher bandwidth, they could also service many more concurrent mobile customers. Connectivity would probably be better too because more satellites would be in view.
Also, don't underestimate the benefit of robust competition, even if you don't use starlink.
The price difference for mobile satellite service is rather substantial though.
i live a few miles west of core Palo Alto (technically, still in Palo Alto); Starlink is my only real choice for broadband, and it's great.
India can lay some fiber. The secret is that every time a road gets repaved it gets dug up a week later so easy conduit pathway.
(Citation: lived in Gurugram for a few years where I witnessed the same 100ft of sidewalk get rebricked and torn up monthly at least 20 times)
(Citation: lived in Gurugram for a few years where I witnessed the same 100ft of sidewalk get rebricked and torn up monthly at least 20 times)
I live in the suburbs in the bay area in California, and starlink offers a significantly better quality of service than charter spectrum cable service, which is my only other option. Considering the current state of our government, I don't see things improving anytime soon.
Crazy, I didn't realize starlink is in the gigabit range for bandwidth? And how are they getting past the speed of light wall on their latency?
They aren't, at least not yet. It's more a reflection of how bad internet service is in places you wouldn't think it would be, at least here in the states. My as-advertised gigabit cable service slows to an utter crawl around Netflix O'Clock, And multi-hour+ outages are a regular occurrence.
Regarding latency, starlink satellites are low enough that it just isn't an issue.
Regarding latency, starlink satellites are low enough that it just isn't an issue.
This is a military tech.
Not all of us live in places with EU funding. I worked at a rural farm in California and the EU refused to fund our network infrastructure. We had few reliable options, and Starlink turned out to be the best.
India has one of the fastest and cheapest internet in the world. In fact you can get an extremely fast download atop Himalayan mountains in comparison to remote USA
This was always the sour economics of satellite internet.
Satellite internet works for a low density of customers spread evenly across the globe. But customers are not spread evenly they mostly live in megalopolist regions that can be served more efficiently with land infrastructure.
Worse most of the people not in the megalopolists have less money to spend on internet services.
So your customer base are limited to people who aren't already served by better/cheaper terrestrial internet, but who can pay for better internet.
Those people exist but the history of satellite internet service hasn't been a massive money printer. Most providers have struggled to stay solvent let alone produce great returns for shareholders.
Paul Allen wanted to build a megaconstellation back in the 1990s but then Iridium went bankrupt twice.
Iridium ended up being rescued by the US military. I wonder if this is ultimately SpaceX's plan.
Satellite internet works for a low density of customers spread evenly across the globe. But customers are not spread evenly they mostly live in megalopolist regions that can be served more efficiently with land infrastructure.
Worse most of the people not in the megalopolists have less money to spend on internet services.
So your customer base are limited to people who aren't already served by better/cheaper terrestrial internet, but who can pay for better internet.
Those people exist but the history of satellite internet service hasn't been a massive money printer. Most providers have struggled to stay solvent let alone produce great returns for shareholders.
Paul Allen wanted to build a megaconstellation back in the 1990s but then Iridium went bankrupt twice.
Iridium ended up being rescued by the US military. I wonder if this is ultimately SpaceX's plan.
My parents live in New York State, 8 miles from the main east-west transportation and data corridor. They still have no high speed wired internet options. No fiber, no cable, no DSL, and dialup ISP has been retired long ago. Their only option is satellite. This is in 4th most populous state in the US, and #1 highest GDP/capita. Internet across the United States does not have the penetration many think, the US is vast.
I live not to far from NYC and I think it’s fantastic. Comcast was charging me 75 a month and Starlink charges me 40 for the same service which is generally excellent
You are in a dense population. A large chunk of the world (and many people even in the US) are in low density environments where fiber rollouts are too expensive.
> where fiber rollouts are too expensive
Or in cities where fiber gets blocked by cable providers bribing corrupt local officials.
Or in cities where fiber gets blocked by cable providers bribing corrupt local officials.
You’d be surprised how poor broadband Internet coverage is outside of major metropolitan areas in the United States. Some places are simply off-grid, or have to rely on dial up. All you have to do is drive an hour out and there’s no more Internet.
Elon is probably setting sup the infra for space data centers.
But would that have happened that way if Starlink hadn't come about?
24/7 high fidelity radar of the entire earth’s surface. Probably used by NRO’s sentient system and similar classified skynet projects
It's good to have option in case your own government turns rogue.
Option being Starlink run by the rouge fascist billionaire who tries to use it to manipulate global wars?
Even if your outburst was true, yes.. If your government turns rogue it's better to have 2 options than 1. Period.
People in rural parts of America where ISPs don't want to expand into.
They seem to be expanding even across rural America. These days it's fairly common for small and medium size towns to have access to 500mbps-1gbps for $50-$90 per month, and essentially all small cities and above.
Reddit is overflowing with threads where people are getting AT&T to give them 1gbps for $30-$35 per month. Comcast has repeatedly offered me 1gbps for ~$50/m for five years locked-in. I have no practical use for it.
The US has more broadband than it knows what to do with at this point. Somebody needs to figure out a mass public use for home 1gbps+.
Reddit is overflowing with threads where people are getting AT&T to give them 1gbps for $30-$35 per month. Comcast has repeatedly offered me 1gbps for ~$50/m for five years locked-in. I have no practical use for it.
The US has more broadband than it knows what to do with at this point. Somebody needs to figure out a mass public use for home 1gbps+.
The word "rural" by definition typically refers to areas outside of a town or city.
It is far from complete but yeah I got co-op 1 gig fiber in my rural 56k only area like 2-3 years ago. Some places nearby still don't have it but expansion is ongoing. Some select areas are starting to offer 2 gig but im unsure what most users would use it for.
Fastest option I can get where I am is 260 Mbps for $250 from a local wireless ISP...
This makes starlink tempting but for that I'd have to run cabling 50 plus. M to get the this where it has a clear view of the sky...
(Edit) A nearby small town is installing municipal fiber right now, which is great, but that's half an hour away.
This makes starlink tempting but for that I'd have to run cabling 50 plus. M to get the this where it has a clear view of the sky...
(Edit) A nearby small town is installing municipal fiber right now, which is great, but that's half an hour away.
Do you think those prices would be available if SpaceX wasn't providing strong competition?
You’re not dumb. It has come up in extremely sophisticated valuations of SpaceX pre-IPO, if I recall off the top of my head, the only business that actually had any value, StarLink, assumes an irrational TAM.
You’ve clearly never lived in the US! Big place, not a lot of fiber.
Surely funding cell towers in Africa / India is cheaper and easier to maintain than 100k satellites in space.
[deleted]
It's not but it's all so tiresome to explain why. Also, those (hypothetical) towers have no ROI because they only serve poor people. Starlink covers the entire world so parts of the world can subsidize service to other parts.
> It's not but it's all so tiresome to explain why
I'd really love to hear it. Obviously you aren't obligated to provide an explanation but if someone else does it, I'm all ears.
> Also, those towers have no ROI because they only serve poor people
So why are they being built at all?
I'd really love to hear it. Obviously you aren't obligated to provide an explanation but if someone else does it, I'm all ears.
> Also, those towers have no ROI because they only serve poor people
So why are they being built at all?
Towers aren't ever going to be built to cover the most rural areas. That's why Starlink is needed.
I understand why it's good and necessary for the rural areas to have Starlink. I don't understand the big profit opportunity for Starlink in serving them.
I just finished a long RV trip and I can tell you it's hard to underestimate the importance of internet access (which also means Wi-Fi calling and access to maps and weather) across our entire, enormous nation.
It's important not only for individuals but even more for businesses. Despite cell phone company ads with handsome celebrities in the desert, cell phones actually do not work in many places. But people do need to live and work in those places.
It's important not only for individuals but even more for businesses. Despite cell phone company ads with handsome celebrities in the desert, cell phones actually do not work in many places. But people do need to live and work in those places.
This is a very wasteful way of getting communications to somewhat compensate the lack of competition in US telco market.
If your trip to desert is worth polluting whole low orbit and high atmosphere is debatable. Same goes for hypothetical business there. Maybe building towers would be a better idea in long term.
If they pay an appropriate tax for light pollution affecting telescopes on earth, I'm all for it.
LVT works just as well in space.
Will this be the last generation to remember the night sky?
I may have blown the math, but the last time I calculated I figured there were about 35 Starlink satellites above the horizon at my latitude. Looking into the suburban early night sky I see zero, one, or two satellites with about equal probability.
I think the hypothesis this leads to is that the "don't shine" techniques Starlink is using are working. I'm guessing the ones I see are either not Starlink or are Starlinks transitioning to their working orbit (they don't do full "dark mode" until they are in place.) If in place units shown I'd see a lot more.
So at least, maybe it won't all be gloom and doom. But if it is all gloom, at least it will have little sparkles floating around it.
I think the hypothesis this leads to is that the "don't shine" techniques Starlink is using are working. I'm guessing the ones I see are either not Starlink or are Starlinks transitioning to their working orbit (they don't do full "dark mode" until they are in place.) If in place units shown I'd see a lot more.
So at least, maybe it won't all be gloom and doom. But if it is all gloom, at least it will have little sparkles floating around it.
30 yard wide solar array from 300 miles away. There's a brief period of the day where they're visible but hardly a risk of making a dent in your view of the sky especially compared to ordinary terrestrial light pollution.
If you don't take long exposures, the satellites won't cause you much trouble seeing the stars. Regular light pollution is the problem.
They don't stop you from seeing the stars, but I find them very distracting. Makes the experience of looking up at the stars on a quiet night less peaceful, I find.
Well, yeah, but my problem is with the long exposures that I'm trying to get.
Sucks for regular astronomy then, where long exposures are the norm.
Equally sucks for radio astronomy where the bloody things leak into spectrums they (Starlink) pinky promised to keep clean. And successive generations have worsened the problem, again despite promises to improve.
Equally sucks for radio astronomy where the bloody things leak into spectrums they (Starlink) pinky promised to keep clean. And successive generations have worsened the problem, again despite promises to improve.
Starlink actively works with radioastronomy sites to avoid causing interference. They've posted about this before.
Yes, they do post about it.
Yes they do talk about working to avoid causing interference.
That's been ongoing since before the first Starlink went up and has been ongoing as later generations haven't improved.
Second-Generation Starlink Satellites Leak 30 Times More Radio Interference, Threatening Astronomical Observations https://www.astron.nl/starlink-satellites/
Yes they do talk about working to avoid causing interference.
That's been ongoing since before the first Starlink went up and has been ongoing as later generations haven't improved.
Second-Generation Starlink Satellites Leak 30 Times More Radio Interference, Threatening Astronomical Observations https://www.astron.nl/starlink-satellites/
Observations with the LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) radio telescope last year showed that first generation Starlink satellites emit unintended radio waves that can hinder astronomical observations. New observations with the LOFAR radio telescope, the biggest radio telescope on Earth observing at low frequencies, have shown that the second generation ’V2-mini’ Starlink satellites emit up to 32 times brighter unintended radio waves than satellites from the previous generation, potentially blinding radio telescopes and crippling vital research of the Universe.
Sucks being out bush stargazing and then seeing a massive constellation to remind you of Musk's wealth and influence. It's no longer possible to totally escape visual reminders of civilisation
If you have evidence of them causing interference on a spectrum they shouldn’t be on, report it to the FCC. They take that very seriously
Scientists analyze 76 million radio telescope images, find Starlink satellite interference 'where no signals are supposed to be present' (2025)
~ https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...
and several other papers over the past half decade.
It's old news that they leak, and old news that F-all gets done about it.
Back to you.
~ https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...
and several other papers over the past half decade.
It's old news that they leak, and old news that F-all gets done about it.
Back to you.
I'm not confident after all government investigations and lawsuits against Elon and his companies were dropped when Elon illegally accessed government systems, illegally took government data, illegally terminated government employees, and illegally eliminated government departments and programs while creating billions in expenses while pretending his intention was to help anyone but himself.
But sure, the FCC might take it seriously.
But sure, the FCC might take it seriously.
Then just wait until the next administration. If they are building with technology that relies on the FCC being gutted, they will be in for a world of hurt when that changes.
Brendan Carr seems more interested in settling political scores
go outside right now and look up. it's still there.
light pollution already means the night sky is largely invisible outside of remote areas
“You can’t see it most places so who cares if it goes away” is my most charitable interpretation of this.
The majority of people live in cities - and a growing majority.
I've never seen a glacier before, have you?
Yeah. Hiked on and around them in PNW mountains.
And?
And?
Good for you getting that in before they disappear, probably got to see the night sky also, you can tell your grandchildren about that.
* https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
* https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
If you all are so sad about it do something about it.
Like travel less, spend less on technology
You're part of the problem. It's not just you but it is you too.
So what I will tell my grandchildren is "The old Geezer Americans are fucking losers who fucked you over before you were born. You don't owe them any respect."
Like travel less, spend less on technology
You're part of the problem. It's not just you but it is you too.
So what I will tell my grandchildren is "The old Geezer Americans are fucking losers who fucked you over before you were born. You don't owe them any respect."
I have seen both stars and satellites from suburbs and some urban areas. They are not very remote. There is a lot to see if you look. I do not like the light pollution but as it stands it is not the end of star gazing.
“Remote areas” make up most of the world.
Weighting by population seems reasonable here!
At Farpoint Observatory, this is a major concern for those keeping an eye out for near Earth objects.
Satellites only reflect sunlight when in sunlight. This only happens near sunrise and sunset.
The night sky will be unaffected by satellites for the foreseeable future.
The night sky will be unaffected by satellites for the foreseeable future.
I've been watching satellites at all hours of the night for decades. You might want to double check with reality on that sunrise/sunset claim.
You forgot about the radio spectrum pollution which affects the night and day sky right now .. and for the foreseeable future given the lack of progress in addressing that leakage.
The topic is seeing the night sky.
Parent might be talking about amateur radio astronomy which I agree might be straying from the main argument
Professional radio astronomy - SKA et al.
eg: Scientists analyze 76 million radio telescope images, find Starlink satellite interference 'where no signals are supposed to be present' (2025)
~ https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...
and the topic is Starlink (and other sat constellations) and their impact on the sky (visible and non visible).
eg: Scientists analyze 76 million radio telescope images, find Starlink satellite interference 'where no signals are supposed to be present' (2025)
~ https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-analyze-76-millio...
and the topic is Starlink (and other sat constellations) and their impact on the sky (visible and non visible).
I think most of this thread is missing the part where this will also work for cellphones and give you truly global coverage.
* only when you’re outdoors with good line of sight and only in geographic areas they allow.
Wifi indoors, starlink outdoors
Do we really need that? Most of us are fine with relays. The coverage in remote parts could be handled by way fewer sattelites. 100k is a lot of sattelites. Seems that with 100k leo we’d have 24/7 live coverage of every inch on earth but do we really want that?
> we’d have 24/7 live coverage of every inch on earth but do we really want that?
I think you misunderstand the maths a bit. If the goal is high bandwidth, which requires high density, for specific, randomly distributed, parts of the earth, then, by the fundamental laws of gravity and orbits, you'll also have coverage over the rest of it, whether you like it or not.
I think you misunderstand the maths a bit. If the goal is high bandwidth, which requires high density, for specific, randomly distributed, parts of the earth, then, by the fundamental laws of gravity and orbits, you'll also have coverage over the rest of it, whether you like it or not.
Just coverage is already provided by the 600-something direct to cell satellites already in orbit yes, but you need more if you want it to be useful beyond loading text-only posts or sending SMS
Internet works on phones?
The more you know.
The more you know.
It also creates a private internet on which “private enterprise” does not have to abide by the Constitution or any subordinate laws.
Sure, it’s just “fear mongering” now, just like digital ID, digital currency, mass surveillance, and speech police were 30 or so years ago, but what happens when terrestrial cable internet gets too expensive and everyone’s subject to Elon’s space internet?
It’s basically the similar playbook as the cable/copper phone network giving way to the internet and wireless and … whoopsie … you also have a tracking and permanent surveillance device on you with no ability to keep thousands of corporations harvesting your body for data and information.
Sure, it’s just “fear mongering” now, just like digital ID, digital currency, mass surveillance, and speech police were 30 or so years ago, but what happens when terrestrial cable internet gets too expensive and everyone’s subject to Elon’s space internet?
It’s basically the similar playbook as the cable/copper phone network giving way to the internet and wireless and … whoopsie … you also have a tracking and permanent surveillance device on you with no ability to keep thousands of corporations harvesting your body for data and information.
This would allow you to throw a flock camera up literally anywhere on earth. If we are being honest, we are probably only a couple years out from real Orwellian mass surveillance states, totally censored and mined communications, and general purpose compute restricted or made illegal I wouldn't even be surprised. All the incentives lead right to that and we are halfway there in many ways already.
There are already zero private companies that have to follow the constitution, since it never applied to them, ever.
As another person mentioned, radio crosses international boundaries, but it is regulated by regulating ground equipment and people and organizations on the ground. You'll see some countries on https://starlink.com/map that are greyed out because of regulatory issues... for example, some countries such as India heavily control the use of satellite comms
As another person mentioned, radio crosses international boundaries, but it is regulated by regulating ground equipment and people and organizations on the ground. You'll see some countries on https://starlink.com/map that are greyed out because of regulatory issues... for example, some countries such as India heavily control the use of satellite comms
Do ISPs have to comply with the 1st ammendment? My understanding was that they have some sort of common carrier law but net neutrality did not hold up.
It doesn’t. The network is governed by the FCC and any other regulatory agency where they place RF on the ground.
He really does want to speed run everything sci fi, Kessler syndrome here we come!
I think the end game is convenience. Nobody really needs anything more than 200mb/s. If the average person can have their entire family stream their favorite Netflix show at the same time then that’s good enough. “Now lil Jimmy can watch it in the minivan too!”
Eh, I've got 200mb/s fiber for cheap. It's pretty good and definitely bottlenecked by crowded wifi and upstream sources moreso than the ISP. Ethernet helps somewhat.
At the same time, I do kind of want more bandwidth just so I can download massive files like model weights quickly, host a web service out of my own house, seed torrents, etc. What might cryptocurrency look like if typical residential internet speeds were measured in gb/s? Perhaps bitcoin might be capable of more than 7 tps!
But to be fair, I am a nobody.
At the same time, I do kind of want more bandwidth just so I can download massive files like model weights quickly, host a web service out of my own house, seed torrents, etc. What might cryptocurrency look like if typical residential internet speeds were measured in gb/s? Perhaps bitcoin might be capable of more than 7 tps!
But to be fair, I am a nobody.
I understand no one here likes Elon. But does it mean we find justifications for our collective bias in everything his companies do?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
I wonder what spacex will be worth when launching satellites is impossible for a couple hundred years.
I wonder what spacex will be worth when launching satellites is impossible for a couple hundred years.
It won't be centuries.
starlink satellites are in low orbits and will deorbit in a few years at most if bricked; to stay in orbit, they use ion thrusters to counter drag from the very uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.
https://ai-solutions.com/newsroom/why-starlink-is-lowering-s...
starlink satellites are in low orbits and will deorbit in a few years at most if bricked; to stay in orbit, they use ion thrusters to counter drag from the very uppermost reaches of the atmosphere.
https://ai-solutions.com/newsroom/why-starlink-is-lowering-s...
When satellites smash into each other at high velocity, they explode. Some of that debris will end up in higher orbits and linger.
Some of the debris from a collision may end up in an orbit with a higher apogee, perigee will necessarily still be at or below the altitude of the last collision and will be subject to some of the same low-orbit aerodynamic drag that starlink satellites experience; passes through lower altitudes will apply drag that will first drop the apogee and will then eventually cause the debris to reenter.
How can it linger in a higher orbit. Maybe some of the debris gets a kick which increases its velocity, but you need two velocity boosts to circularise the orbit, no? So I figure at worst you get an elliptical orbit which will still decay
Nope, if it goes up it will go down even faster.
Orbits are about speed. Two things colliding cannot have debris coming out at a faster velocity than either of them.
Orbits are about speed. Two things colliding cannot have debris coming out at a faster velocity than either of them.
Kessler is much less of a problem at their altitude (480km). Debris has too much drag and would get pulled down too quick to have a sustained Kessler situation. It's possible, but very very unlikely at that altitude.
Stop trying to make Kessler syndrome a thing - it was never a thing, it isn’t a thing, it will never be a thing.
It is just pearl clutching by those too afraid of modern life. Gravity wasn’t a documentary.
It is just pearl clutching by those too afraid of modern life. Gravity wasn’t a documentary.
a new hot take spotted : newtonian physics isn't a thing.
let's see how well the freeways work once we stop cleaning up after the accidents.
let's see how well the freeways work once we stop cleaning up after the accidents.
I see you haven’t read the paper. How long do you think Kessler syndrome is projected to take? How long do you think natural clearing of debris at Starlink’s altitudes is?
Freeways are not 3 dimensional and they don't have an automatic cleanup that cleans up things within a pretty short time. Also area we are talking about is fucking gigantic. Also accidents are going to be very rare as sats deorbit themselves end of live and even if they break and can't move anymore, other sats that can still move can evade them.
I mean it might be a thing in 100 years but we're not even close now
Which means that we need to act responsibly and plan ahead now so that it is not a thing 100 years hence.
Surely it’ll be an issue some day for other space activities with all the SpaceX kit up there? I know space is very large :) but surely it’d be hard to scan, calculate and control trajectories of millions of orbiting tiny things when you’re launching rockets and things? A spacex satellite almost crashed into the Chinese space station some years ago and the Chinese had to perform an evasive manoeuvre I believe
With modern automation and AI, tracking and adjusting paths is better every year. Also, anything with malfunctioning movement will quickly descend and burn up in the atmosphere at that very low orbit.
Satellites flying at 360km (the target altitude for starlink V3) deorbit very quickly without regular burns. Dead starlink satellites are guaranteed to come down within 5 years.
Space could become so full of junk that it may actually harm operations.
space is very large but low earth orbit is not.
Fiber is just getting cheaper and cheaper, more resilient, and is faster too. Plus it has no value like copper so thieves dont steal it.
I don’t think it’s wise to pollute all of low earth orbit with Musk’s satellites, that area belongs to all of us collectively.
I don’t think it’s wise to pollute all of low earth orbit with Musk’s satellites, that area belongs to all of us collectively.
I think the main goal is direct to phones rather than being an alternative to fiber. But it's also a very good option for people living in rural areas with poor service (shoddy DSL).
I spent last weekend under some of the darkest sky you'll find in the eastern US. Miles from cell service. I had a starlink portable with me and it was nice to get some service and stay in touch, but to watch the sky is to see satellites everywhere.
I've spent a dozen or so weeklong stretches in the last few years completely off grid, only connection being bringing up the inReach once a day. At this point I actually get anxiety at the end of such a trip, knowing that I'm going to be wading through a morass of notifications and slack/email/texts. Doing a once or twice a day sync via starlink didn't really bother me so much when I'm out in the backcountry this last trip.
I'd love to be rid of all of it, but that's not how the world works today.
I've spent a dozen or so weeklong stretches in the last few years completely off grid, only connection being bringing up the inReach once a day. At this point I actually get anxiety at the end of such a trip, knowing that I'm going to be wading through a morass of notifications and slack/email/texts. Doing a once or twice a day sync via starlink didn't really bother me so much when I'm out in the backcountry this last trip.
I'd love to be rid of all of it, but that's not how the world works today.
Your comment was interesting.
i just read somewhere about spacex slowly destroying our dark night skies due to their satellite constellations. Thoughts?
i just read somewhere about spacex slowly destroying our dark night skies due to their satellite constellations. Thoughts?
It’s just that, while so much of the sky is static, it’s impossible to gaze at without your attention being grabbed by the moving flick of light, it takes active effort to ignore it. So it’s a totally different experience stargazing now vs 20 years ago.
Starlink satellites are intentionally designed to be very dark, but they become more visible when the sun is about to come up or if there are super bright light sources on the ground nearby to reflect off of them.
If there are super bright light sources on the ground nearby that are bright enough to produce a visible reflection off a satellite, you are about to be dead.
Thats a nice intent i guess but doesn’t seem to work well in practice
Yeah, I meant to point out there that there is a tension between the technology that I don't mind, but the infrastructure for it that I do mind. I don't really know what the answer is. I do know that we're probably not going to put this toothpaste back in the tube.
I love being off-grid with just my slow inReach Mini 1. I can communicate in case of an emergency, but otherwise it's a great forcing function to not be hyper connected. I worry if I brought the portable Starlink with I'd connect much more than necessary.
> I'd love to be rid of all of it, but that's not how the world works today.
Why do we think the human made world is out of our control? Learned helplessness? We could stop this. We do not need Satrlink.
Starlink will fail. And this will be more likely the more satellites they put up[1][2]. Or the more wars we get in. It will not be hard to cause a major destruction of all Starlink satellites [3].
[1] https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/ [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/kessler-syndrome-crash-clock [3] https://gizmodo.com/russia-is-developing-orbiting-clouds-of-...
Why do we think the human made world is out of our control? Learned helplessness? We could stop this. We do not need Satrlink.
Starlink will fail. And this will be more likely the more satellites they put up[1][2]. Or the more wars we get in. It will not be hard to cause a major destruction of all Starlink satellites [3].
[1] https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/crashclock/ [2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/kessler-syndrome-crash-clock [3] https://gizmodo.com/russia-is-developing-orbiting-clouds-of-...
If you wish to stop it, then stop it.
One cool thing about Starlink is that it can potentially improve latency across the world. In optical fibers the light travels only two thirds as fast due to the index of refraction. But in space you can use a laser to send the data in a straight line in a vacuum.
Starlink is going to become a phone carrier that doesn’t have to pay for pole or tower access. This is the real story, so long att, verizon, and T-Mobile. Starlink is going to beat them on price and availability. Just think, no international calling fees or hassle and cheaper mobile rates.
Starlink is going to be a cellular company, except instead of maintaining cheap metal frames, they have to physically launch the antennas to space every 5 years.
How would it work indoors?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
He's a dangerous fella with too much power vested in him. We risk not being able to launch any more rockets if we keep doing this.
He's a dangerous fella with too much power vested in him. We risk not being able to launch any more rockets if we keep doing this.
Many comments focus on the network aspect of Starlink.
But what if that's just the first primitive?
I think it takes Starship working to get that step change, but I can now entertain the possibility of "Datacenters in Space" given this and past progression.
But what if that's just the first primitive?
I think it takes Starship working to get that step change, but I can now entertain the possibility of "Datacenters in Space" given this and past progression.
Last time I checked, you couldn't get a public IPv4 through Starlink, let alone a fixed one. This makes it a non-starter as a backup link for self-hosters, a use case it is well suited for.
I'm using it for this purpose. You can just run a tunnel/tailscale net/dyndns.
You do get a public IPv6 IP, which is fine for most people (and with a simple script on a cron can keep a AAAA up to date, not that it changes often). And like someone else said, if you insist, you can use something like tailscale to punch a hole in Starlink's global NAT.
i have one
> "SpaceX has told the FCC that the Gen3 network is intended to serve not only consumers and enterprises but also government customers and "billions of AI-powered devices worldwide,"
The Starlink satellites last 5 years and then drop and disintegrate. Don't think a billion AI devices will exist in 5 years! Unless by Ai devices they mean phones.
> "While SpaceX hasn't announced rates for its new Gen3 service, I expect it to be at least $200 a month, and I won't be surprised if it ends up being $300 a month."
Not sure that is affordable for most of the world population.
The Starlink satellites last 5 years and then drop and disintegrate. Don't think a billion AI devices will exist in 5 years! Unless by Ai devices they mean phones.
> "While SpaceX hasn't announced rates for its new Gen3 service, I expect it to be at least $200 a month, and I won't be surprised if it ends up being $300 a month."
Not sure that is affordable for most of the world population.
Is that because China applied to launch 200000 satellites?
They’ll need this for their orbital data centers (aka Starmind) https://www.spacex.com/spacexai/starmind
Elon really needs to drop some cash on Iain Bank’s family, if he’s going to keep stealing ideas/names for his empire.
Elon really needs to drop some cash on Iain Bank’s family, if he’s going to keep stealing ideas/names for his empire.
I've read the entire series of Culture novels and don't recall seeing "starmind" as a term anywhere. Mind, yes, but used in a somewhat different context, as the minds are both sentient conversational AI entities with equal or greater intellect to a meat-based human or alien, and also semi-godlike AI powers (a single Mind has the capacity to have a 1:1 conversation with all of the residents of an Orbital if it wants to).
Ok, Walrus.
Soon enough these will start showing ads - I pray for our night sky.
On twitter yesterday, someone posted a question about SpaceX/xAI making a poor financial decision and Musk answered saying SpaceX will be worth more than the rest of the Earth. His megalomania is really running wild so I would not put much stock in this. They are asking the FCC for permission to launch 100k satellites which puts this very much in the "aspirational" category. They neither have plans nor approval to do it. This is a combination of ego and signalling to SPCX investors because it's down nearly 10% from IPO.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:57vlzz2...
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:57vlzz2...
I’m shocked by the number of people here thinking you won’t be able to see the night sky because of 100k satellites. Is this site getting dumber?
So, at some point, will our devices connect to their corporate offices in any environment, even without providing access to your network, short of putting it inside a Faraday Cage?
Boy it's going to be exciting when we can get Internet access literally everywhere. Excited for humanity's return to space infrastructure!
I feel like I already have internet access pretty much everywhere with cell towers, and even then if I went to the middle of alaska or montana I could already get sattelite internet before starlink with hugesnet which is fine as long as you're not gaming or something.
But at the same time I think the low-earth-orbit is pretty nice in terms of latentcy, it's a pretty innovative approach.
I just don't get the idea behind AI datacenter sattelites and moving all this non-comms equipment up in space.
But at the same time I think the low-earth-orbit is pretty nice in terms of latentcy, it's a pretty innovative approach.
I just don't get the idea behind AI datacenter sattelites and moving all this non-comms equipment up in space.
The sky gets visually and physically polluted. Some parts of the world that haven’t mastered cables get faster internet. Elon gets richer.
Win-win-win?
Win-win-win?
Will it make our sky "cloudy" most of the time?
i want to see a dark sky at night
If you truly gave a shit, it wouldn’t be this you’re complaining about
no, just no
make them pre-pay a multi-trillion cleanup and cancer fund for all the toxic waste, not just the launches but pollution burning up in the atmosphere
* https://satellitemap.space/
* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787042
make them pre-pay a multi-trillion cleanup and cancer fund for all the toxic waste, not just the launches but pollution burning up in the atmosphere
* https://satellitemap.space/
* https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48787042
You want them to pay a multi-trillion dollar clean-up and cancer fund for car-sized multi-year-service-life satellites burning up in the atmosphere? How much do you want incumbent multi-decade culprits to pay?
EDT: I should have clarified I'm not only talking about incumbent satellite companies because people are replying about the launch volume. Think about pollution from oil companies and coal plants and consider how that compares to an aerospace company. How much have polluting companies been fined relative to multiple trillions of dollars?
EDT: I should have clarified I'm not only talking about incumbent satellite companies because people are replying about the launch volume. Think about pollution from oil companies and coal plants and consider how that compares to an aerospace company. How much have polluting companies been fined relative to multiple trillions of dollars?
We want incumbent multi-decade culprits to also pay appropriately.
Yet you only talk about it when it’s big scary Elon. Cry me a river.
> How much do you want incumbent multi-decade culprits to pay?
You are clearly not grasping the magnitude change in how many satellites we used to launch vs how many we are launching nowadays.
In 2026, we are putting 10x as many objects in space as we did just 8 years ago, with Starlink being the bulk of it: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-....
Starlink has 12.5k satellites in space and looking to ramp up massively, the biggest "multi-decade incumbent", oneweb, has 5% as many, about 600.
You are clearly not grasping the magnitude change in how many satellites we used to launch vs how many we are launching nowadays.
In 2026, we are putting 10x as many objects in space as we did just 8 years ago, with Starlink being the bulk of it: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/yearly-number-of-objects-....
Starlink has 12.5k satellites in space and looking to ramp up massively, the biggest "multi-decade incumbent", oneweb, has 5% as many, about 600.
> How much do you want incumbent multi-decade culprits to pay?
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...
"Elon Musk's company has now lofted more spacecraft than the rest of humanity combined — and its lead is likely to grow over the coming months and years."
(And most of the other providers don't plan for theirs to burn up within a few years. Giant disposable LEO constellations are new.)
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/...
"Elon Musk's company has now lofted more spacecraft than the rest of humanity combined — and its lead is likely to grow over the coming months and years."
(And most of the other providers don't plan for theirs to burn up within a few years. Giant disposable LEO constellations are new.)
we cannot have private trillionaires milking "privatize the profits and social the costs"
no more, it has to end immediately
they aren't just silo-ing their wealth, they are leveraging against societies, funding far-right violent politics against society
even the evil Koch-brothers have cancer wings in hospitals around the country, Musk doesn't give a dime to charity, just his own foundation which he controls to only do what he wants to manipulate
pre-pay costs to society before damaging society
no more, it has to end immediately
they aren't just silo-ing their wealth, they are leveraging against societies, funding far-right violent politics against society
even the evil Koch-brothers have cancer wings in hospitals around the country, Musk doesn't give a dime to charity, just his own foundation which he controls to only do what he wants to manipulate
pre-pay costs to society before damaging society
also, criminal murder charges for those who enable actions like, "poisoning a water supply," "creating an opiode epidemic," "giving millions of people cancer, knowingly"
I just don't understand why, killing one person is murder, but killing hundreds over many years is, "just the cost of doing business."
I just don't understand why, killing one person is murder, but killing hundreds over many years is, "just the cost of doing business."
Do you have any proof that starlink satellites are worse than the tons of space debris that enter the atmosphere every day?
The satellites aren't worse. It is the rockets that are worse. On the way up they emit various things into the stratosphere, which is about the worst place you can emit stuff when it comes to affecting the atmosphere.
It has not been a major problem so far because in its entire history humanity has only launched around 35000 rockets that have reached the stratosphere. Ramp that rate up significantly and it comes something we serious need to worry about.
(That's not to say that space debris reentering the atmosphere isn't bad. It also unfortunately deposits various things in the upper atmosphere that we really do not want to put there).
It has not been a major problem so far because in its entire history humanity has only launched around 35000 rockets that have reached the stratosphere. Ramp that rate up significantly and it comes something we serious need to worry about.
(That's not to say that space debris reentering the atmosphere isn't bad. It also unfortunately deposits various things in the upper atmosphere that we really do not want to put there).
You may want to compare the emissions of all rockets annually to the emissions of jet planes daily and reconsider your position.
You may want to compare the flight profiles of jets and rockets, what layers of the atmosphere they emit in, and how the effects of the things they omit vary by where in the atmosphere they are emitted.
Yeah we should do something about both issues, good on you for bringing that up
Hmm, I noticed you didn't mention car exhaust in your comment. Perhaps you would like to reconsider your position. I am very smart.
> stratosphere
Also jet planes emit water vapor
Also jet planes emit water vapor
Can't have nice things because someone else is worse
So let's add more???
The amount of matter which enters Earth's atmosphere from non-manmade sources is far higher than any conceivable amount of space junk today.
But a significantly different makeup than plain old rock dust.
Citation needed.
I’m not sure that “we don’t make satellites out of rock and ice” needs a cite, but here you go.
https://research.noaa.gov/noaa-scientists-link-exotic-metal-...
> Niobium and hafnium do not occur as free elements in nature, but are refined from mineral ores. They are used in semiconductors and superalloys.
> In addition to these two unusual elements, a significant number of particles contained copper, lithium and aluminum at concentrations far exceeding the abundance found in meteorics, or ‘space dust.’ “The combination of aluminum and copper, plus niobium and hafnium, which are used in heat-resistant, high-performance alloys, pointed us to the aerospace industry,’’ Murphy said.
https://research.noaa.gov/noaa-scientists-link-exotic-metal-...
> Niobium and hafnium do not occur as free elements in nature, but are refined from mineral ores. They are used in semiconductors and superalloys.
> In addition to these two unusual elements, a significant number of particles contained copper, lithium and aluminum at concentrations far exceeding the abundance found in meteorics, or ‘space dust.’ “The combination of aluminum and copper, plus niobium and hafnium, which are used in heat-resistant, high-performance alloys, pointed us to the aerospace industry,’’ Murphy said.
No citation required, just some light thinking
soooo good that they'll burn up one day and this nonsense can finally end.
investors provide infinite capital to nonsense projects so that the showman can create an endless show that will attract new nonsense capital.
sorry but already in rural morocco they have 200 mbit internet for 20 bucks a month. Yes there are some 6 wheeled vehicles roaming the planet that might really benefit from these 100k satellites. but for 99.9% of everyone else? we're good!
investors provide infinite capital to nonsense projects so that the showman can create an endless show that will attract new nonsense capital.
sorry but already in rural morocco they have 200 mbit internet for 20 bucks a month. Yes there are some 6 wheeled vehicles roaming the planet that might really benefit from these 100k satellites. but for 99.9% of everyone else? we're good!
"...we're good." ?
It seems that you are excluding all of the actual users onboard with Starlink tech. I'm one. I had choices and Starlink was a welcome addition to the short list.
In a short time, Starlink proved to be that disruptive "invention" that changed everything. There are already millions of users. Nobody is forced to use Starlink. Yet here we are.
Whether there are investors or not, a positive cashflow and the millions of users prove that Starlink is not just valid to our society at large, but wildly so. My opinion is that it is almost as disruptive as cell phones when they became affordable.
Current number of paid subscriptions: 12 million +. So, actual users is many times that, if subscribers generally represent multiple users per account. Think "Household". And then, if one extrapolates users under institutional, municipal, state or military, the numbers are astronomically increased. Just, individuals walking around inside a Dollar General store...
In a short time, Starlink proved to be that disruptive "invention" that changed everything. There are already millions of users. Nobody is forced to use Starlink. Yet here we are.
Whether there are investors or not, a positive cashflow and the millions of users prove that Starlink is not just valid to our society at large, but wildly so. My opinion is that it is almost as disruptive as cell phones when they became affordable.
Current number of paid subscriptions: 12 million +. So, actual users is many times that, if subscribers generally represent multiple users per account. Think "Household". And then, if one extrapolates users under institutional, municipal, state or military, the numbers are astronomically increased. Just, individuals walking around inside a Dollar General store...
curious where you live that starlink is the best option.
> for 99.9% of everyone else? we're good!
Well Starlink has 12 million subscribers, which is already more than 0.1% of the population, so clearly you are incorrect that 99.9% of people don't want it...
Well Starlink has 12 million subscribers, which is already more than 0.1% of the population, so clearly you are incorrect that 99.9% of people don't want it...
12 million / 8.3 billion => 0.0014 something. so.. 0.1% turns out to be correct. honestly i made the number up and accidentally nailed it
imagine thinking you speak for the 99.9% lol
Starlink was funded internally by SpaceX. What investors are you talking about?
SpaceX's money came from outside investors.
… and customers. It’s cashflow positive.
those who buy & sell stocks & options & provide exit liquidity.
Musk is nothing if not ambitious
Eh, his promises are ambitious.
And the gullibility of his investors is bottomless.
I too plan on increasing my revenue 100-fold by 2030.
And the gullibility of his investors is bottomless.
I too plan on increasing my revenue 100-fold by 2030.
> his promises are ambitious
First scalable launch system and scaled LEO constellation are more than promises.
First scalable launch system and scaled LEO constellation are more than promises.
> And the gullibility of his investors is bottomless
You can certainly have a problem with Elon Musk, but the people who have invested money with him over the years have done quite well for themselves.
You can certainly have a problem with Elon Musk, but the people who have invested money with him over the years have done quite well for themselves.
EM is an ignorant.
Astronomers are going to hate this even more than they already do!
How could this not end poorly? I cant think of one realistic scenario where there world benefits.
You can’t imagine the number of lives saved with cellular access everywhere and Internet broadband where it has never been?
Probably not that many lives, maybe like a handful of hikers every year I would guess? I think what attracts hikers in the first place is the danger, and the idea that they're exploring an area that is "outside of civilization"
satcoms have been accessible for decades. I have a satellite phone. It's an iPhone 14 Pro. None of this is actually necessary.
Commercially speaking, does Starlink really need 100x bandwidth?
Starlink's target market is limited. It is very good for ships, remote area, but not necessary in cities where most people live.
I am not sure whether the launch and maintenance cost of another 100k satellites is necessary for such a limited market, unless the cost of launch (Starship) and the satellites themselves drops greatly.
Starlink's target market is limited. It is very good for ships, remote area, but not necessary in cities where most people live.
I am not sure whether the launch and maintenance cost of another 100k satellites is necessary for such a limited market, unless the cost of launch (Starship) and the satellites themselves drops greatly.
Europe alone has millions of potential customers:
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Connectivity_and_Secure_Com...
https://www.esa.int/Applications/Connectivity_and_Secure_Com...
While my story is just n=1, I don't understand the huge upside for Starlink outside of Africa or India, where they have <.1% the money to spend on such things.
However, I am dumb, and very open to be convinced.