a musk company over promising and under delivering. Surprise surprise
At least he’s consistently underwhelming across the board though.
I was waitlisted a while back but because of all the Elon bullshit when I got my email saying it was available I opted to just stick with Viasat.
Thats the thing.
Outside of the Ukrainian war, I’m not seeing much good use of this Starlink constellation.
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Urban areas are already built to 5G, meaning high-speed wireless internet at far cheaper prices than satellite could ever hope to deliver.
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Suburban areas have high 5G coverage, though it isn’t perfect yet. As well as aging 4G (okay), but also a plentitude of fiber options from Verizon and Comcast. No, it isn’t perfect, but the crappiest Comcast connection is still better than the best Starlink could ever offer in terms of price and reliability.
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Rural areas are already covered by Viasat. Which is going to be more efficient due to the simple nature of only needing like 5 to 10 satellites in the 100-year orbit height… rather than 60,000+ Starlink satellites in the 5-year orbit height.
Ukraine gets a benefit because Russians are actively trying to jam the communications, so ~5 to 10 satellites could get disrupted, but its a lot harder to jam 60,000 satellites floating around. So yes, Starlink did manage to find a niche… only to have the lord of the communications openly claim that Crimea belongs to Russia and shutdown a Ukrainian operation.
So suddenly, Ukraine can’t trust Starlink anymore. So who the hell wants to use this constellation?
I find your comment to be a bit North America focused. Surely there are many places in the world where that stuff is handy.
You realize that the Ukrainians are spending $2500 / month per terminal, right?
This isn’t a cheap system. Yeah, focusing on America where we have subsidies for rural internet (Government to pay part of those costs) is for a damn good reason. I’m not sure who can afford this in practice.
It is said that the terminal costs $1,300. And I’d expect that the communications will be hundreds+ / month. There’s not actually a lot of people around the world who can afford that, but shoot. You can tell me which countries you think this is a good business idea for.
As I said earlier: Ukraine has crazy requirements where the Russians are conducting electronic warfare (and other… warfare…) where the costs are worth it. Anyone else? Because Viasat is right there at like $100/month. Unless you NEED a way to escape the Russian jamming of traditional satellites, why would you pay Starlink’s crazy high costs?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/10/1051973/russia-hack-viasat-satellite-ukraine-invasion/
“Rural” includes oceans. So airplanes who are flying across oceans use Viasat right now, and its likely cheaper and more available than Starlink in practice thanks to the far fewer satellites that Viasat needs to launch and maintain. Yeah, 10 satellites are way, way cheaper than 40,000+ satellites. Who’d a thunk it?
I work on a ship and am in the Galapagos right now. Thr island is covered in Starlink terminals and they’ve changed the internet existence here. Posting this via public starlink WiFi. I have a friend in the Philippines, and same there, huge impact.
His point about your US centric point is valid.
Starlink has many issues network wise, but the price point is per country so it is still being well used around the world in rural existence.
What?! The Ukrainians pay for starlink service? I though Musk said he donated them and eat the service cost?
Iirc he did at first until the US military worked out a deal with Starlink.
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Given how stable Elon is with his other companies, why would anyone be skeptical of letting him supply them with a utility service?
No way in hell I’d entrust my internet service to someone who unblocks Nazis and blocks the people who complain about Nazis.
As long as you post a Nazi tweet a day, your connection should be fine, though. It’s called Tweet Heil.
XHeil.
No surprise there. It’s overpriced, the quality is poor, the connection is frequently unstable, and the owner of a company is a bigot, who’s also intervening in a war. To absolutely no one’s surprise, this never would have reached the numbers he promised
I see tons of ads when I drive around rural Indiana for Hughesnet. I’ve never seen an ad for Starlink. Why aren’t they even marketing it to rural midwesterners?
They honestly don’t even seem interested in anyone in the midwest getting it. They’re only really interested in the coasts.
To get Starlink near me you need to be put onto a waiting list for them to roll it out to your area. But closer to the coasts (you don’t even have to be all that close, Idaho gets it) and you can sign up and get started right away.
That’s not the way to get to 20 million users. Not that I’m shocked.
Elon companies have never really done traditional marketing. Maybe they’re just allergic to it?
I can sort of see that with Tesla. The word of mouth thing working for a pricey car brand. But the only way you’re going to get farmers to know about Starlink is to advertise it to them.
They almost had me on the hook right up to when they decided tiered and throttled plans were the way to go. its essentially a hyped up cellphone plan. so glad I bailed. Also, fuck muskrat.
Their pricing is ridiculous.
I thought about it and I believe the pricing was 199 a month. I had other options they were much cheaper.
Yep, find a cheapo 5g modem with an ethernet port that’s capable of being given an identity crisis from the usual sources and you’ll be golden…ask me how I know. We ain’t got shit out where I am other than garbage DSL, but decent 5g coverage from the big 3 surprisingly.
Starlink only serves a purpose in truly rural or remote areas where, unsurprisingly, they’ll make no money. The number of people I see using it as a backup connection or aggregate it with terrestrial cable or fiber connections is obscene… and a waste of money imo.
I’m not “rural” but oddly in a new subdivision that doesn’t have a lot of access yet.
I went with the mobile 5g. 50 bucks a month. I’d say it’s great 95% of the time. I video conference just fine.
Only thing that doesn’t work great is my Plex.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
SpaceX’s Starlink division hasn’t come close to meeting customer and revenue projections that the company shared with investors before building the satellite network, according to a Wall Street Journal report published today.
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in February that Starlink is expected to turn a profit this year.
"The majority of the world’s population that the business could serve and that can afford high-speed broadband lives in cities.
In those regions, Internet service is readily available, usually offers cheaper monthly costs than Starlink and doesn’t require specialized equipment."
But in public he has stated more modest ambitions for Starlink, pointing out that low-Earth orbit satellite ventures have a history of going bankrupt.
One step forward on profitability is that SpaceX says it is no longer selling Starlink user terminals at a loss.
The original article contains 654 words, the summary contains 135 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Most of them in Ukraine?
It works as long you ain’t got to carry out a special military operation in Crimea!
oh, Crimea river
From a presentation in 2015 for fuck sake, seven years later.
Think about yourself, is everything you said 7 year ago still perfect accurate?
Strong business acumen I see
/s
I am not running a business, but even I try to not be off by a factor of 20.
Not everything is accurate that I said or believed 7 years ago, no.
However, when a person builds a business on habitual over-promising, then it is an issue. Speculation is awesome! Telling people what they want to hear, because money, isn’t awesome.
