Elon's Starlink Internet Service

[Bill_Satellite]

The most recent info from the beta testers for the Starlink service.
Hardware costs to be a beta tester $499.
Monthly service $99/month.
No information thus far on end user experience or expectations for the service. Lots of speculation and hopes but few actual experiences. It's also still unknown how many users are using the few satellites currently in orbit (yes, I call less than 100 few) and how additional users or satellites will effect the experience and the cost.
I have great hopes for Starlink. I just don't have any hopes that this will be anything usable by us common folks in the next few years.
Point of interest, however, is that if the service was $99/month and you still had to pay for a streaming service to watch TV you would still be better off with DISH or DirecTV plus a stand alone internet service.

[FWC]

Bill.Satellite wrote:
If only rural customers in the US sign up, the company will go broke without MAJOR government subsidies. Maybe, in the future, when every remote area of the World is covered by his service he will be able to use that money (you know, they have LOTS of money in the remote reaches of the Outback and the desert) to subsidize the lack of US customers.
One of the biggest questions is why would anyone with good cable/fiber for nearly nothing want to sign up for this service? They answer is no one. So that only leaves the under served as potential customers and that's a much smaller base than the current internet providers have to draw from.
Don't get me wrong, I am hopeful it will be successful, will be mobile usable and will be reasonably priced. But, for now, my AT&T Mobley @ $23/month (truly unlimited) has served me very well throughout the US.

There are ~ 30 million people in the US without access to reliable broadband, and about two times that number that have very limited broadband options (like 1 - 10Mb DSL). However that is not the masin market - there are 3.8 Billion people in the world without access to broadband. If Starlink, or one of its competitors can reach a small fraction of that market, they will do very well, and it will have a hugely positive impact on developing countries.

[FWC]

NamMedevac 70 wrote:
Like everything else the rest of the world will receive this service for free or very cheap reduced rates. Just saying.

I am not sure what you are getting at here?

Starlink/SpaceX is a private company, they can and will charge what they want. They very well may end up charging less in the developing world, as that is what the market will bear. Why would they charge less here than the market here will bear?

[Bill_Satellite]

If only rural customers in the US sign up, the company will go broke without MAJOR government subsidies. Maybe, in the future, when every remote area of the World is covered by his service he will be able to use that money (you know, they have LOTS of money in the remote reaches of the Outback and the desert) to subsidize the lack of US customers.
One of the biggest questions is why would anyone with good cable/fiber for nearly nothing want to sign up for this service? They answer is no one. So that only leaves the under served as potential customers and that's a much smaller base than the current internet providers have to draw from.
Don't get me wrong, I am hopeful it will be successful, will be mobile usable and will be reasonably priced. But, for now, my AT&T Mobley @ $23/month (truly unlimited) has served me very well throughout the US.

[time2roll]

NamMedevac 70 wrote:
Like everything else the rest of the world will receive this service for free or very cheap reduced rates. Just saying.

Will be interesting when places like China, N Korea, Middle East get unfiltered communication with the world.

[NamMedevac_70]

Like everything else the rest of the world will receive this service for free or very cheap reduced rates. Just saying.

[way2roll]

thomasmnile wrote:

obgraham wrote:

thomasmnile wrote:


And like anything satellite, cloud cover and precipitation will affect reception. But in areas without access alternatives, it's better than nothing, albeit expensive.

The only folks who believe this are the cable company ad-writers.
I've had Dish for 22 years now. Never once had an outage for weather, clouds, snow, or rain. There used to be a 20 minute outage twice a year for solar interference, but that has gone away now.

Was a Dish subscriber until we sold our house in 2016. Every Spring solar flare, every moderate to heavy summer thunderstorm, every tropical system with heavy squalls, we lost the signal. Even had a tech from Dish come out and check antenna orientation and signal strength. No issues until it rained.

That was our experience with DirectTv. Storms, snow etc we would lose signal. Was especially frustrating when you need to watch the weather for bad storms and the irony was that the storm made you lose the signal.

[Gulfcoast]

I think Starlink is fantastic and will open up high speed internet to lots of rural folks that struggle with poor service now. It's fast already, but the word is that it will improve greatly in just a few more months.

[time2roll]

I don't think the Starlink pricing is positioned to compete with other high speed providers in the city. More to serve the rural areas that have no option for high speed internet. Many many are still on dial up speeds. And of course there is a large federal grant available to the company that can solve this issue.

[thomasmnile]

obgraham wrote:

thomasmnile wrote:


And like anything satellite, cloud cover and precipitation will affect reception. But in areas without access alternatives, it's better than nothing, albeit expensive.

The only folks who believe this are the cable company ad-writers.
I've had Dish for 22 years now. Never once had an outage for weather, clouds, snow, or rain. There used to be a 20 minute outage twice a year for solar interference, but that has gone away now.

Was a Dish subscriber until we sold our house in 2016. Every Spring solar flare, every moderate to heavy summer thunderstorm, every tropical system with heavy squalls, we lost the signal. Even had a tech from Dish come out and check antenna orientation and signal strength. No issues until it rained.

[edatlanta]

I watched a YouTube video yesterday of a user that was in the middle of a snow storm. He said the dish was heated as he installed it initially, but not enough heat to keep the snow off and the d/l and u/l's dropped accordingly. He wiped the snow off and all was good again. He said he was in an area with virtually zero internet service and what he did have previous provided 1-2 Mbps on a good day. He was extremely happy with the new service which obviously will get better as the system matures.

[wa8yxm]

rexlion wrote:
I wonder if these satellites will eventually be used to track all 5G users?

Different system entirely so no they won't .

That said. there are other already existing ways to do that. no matter if your phone is 3-4 or 5 G.

[obgraham]

thomasmnile wrote:


And like anything satellite, cloud cover and precipitation will affect reception. But in areas without access alternatives, it's better than nothing, albeit expensive.

The only folks who believe this are the cable company ad-writers.
I've had Dish for 22 years now. Never once had an outage for weather, clouds, snow, or rain. There used to be a 20 minute outage twice a year for solar interference, but that has gone away now.

[Gdetrailer]

Bill.Satellite wrote:

Point of interest, however, is that if the service was $99/month and you still had to pay for a streaming service to watch TV you would still be better off with DISH or DirecTV plus a stand alone internet service.

YES.

That $99 is only the BEGINNING of the charges that it WILL cost you to stream your favorite channels.

As it is right now, to get some shows you have to pay Amazon for "Prime" at $100 per yr..

You want Disney? Yep, you WILL pay for their streaming services $10 per month?

Then you have Hulu, HBO, Netflix and so on.. Many of these services have specific programming not available to other services so you are forced to subscribe to them all.. Then you have bunches of bills to pay..

At least with Direct and Dish, you have one bill and then for Internet you have only one bill for that.. and by the way, Dish and Direct GIVE you additional channels/choices when you connect the receiver to the Internet at no extra charge depending on what your package includes..

$5 here, $10 there it all adds up, add up all of those pay streaming services and it will be more than paying Dish or Direct..

[FWC]

rexlion wrote:
I wonder if these satellites will eventually be used to track all 5G users?

Not if you have your tin foil hat on.

[FWC]

The early reviews I have read about the Starlink Beta tests are extremely promising, and consistent with the speed tests listed above. 100 - 120Mb down and ~30Mb up. Latency is also good, ~20ms.

As of now they don't have the satellite to satellite backhaul operational, so you have to be able to see a satellite, and the satellite must also be able to see a ground station. Once the sat-sat link is running, then it can be a truly global network service.

For now they are fixed operations only because of the reason above, and because that is all they are licensed for. However they already have some marine terminals deployed, so mobile operations are definitely coming soon.