Products > Dodgy Technology
Starlink - serious or money relocation?
Rick Law:
While I was aware of the project, I was not aware of the details. I decided to look into it when Starlink was referenced in the Spinlauch thread. The numbers are so far off I think Starlink is basically a scam to relocate money from investors (and governments).
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on December 01, 2021, 10:20:29 pm ---This is one of those things where there is a thin line between amazing progress and amazing failure. Musk has previously described the cash chasm that Starlink must past through before reaching profitability. For success he must get large revenue streams from Starlink, which requires large constellations of satellites. Nothing technically impossible about this, but getting it done before the cash runs out is a real problem. Apparently he was counting on Starship to get this constellation into place quickly and relatively economically. Again, doesn't appear to be technically impossible, but requires solving a great many problems in a hurry. Faster than anyone has solved them before. He has already done many of the things, but there are a lot to do. Some of which (regulatory issues for example) are not really anything he has a lot of control over.
--- End quote ---
Besides what I quoted above, I came to conclude that the numbers just doesn't add up. The COO of Starlink "Ms. Gwynne Shotwell, has outlined that the total addressable market (TAM) for her company's Starlink satellite-based internet service is $1 trillion."
https://wccftech.com/starlink-is-playing-in-a-1-trillion-market-crucial-for-spacexs-core-aim-outlines-executive/
I suspect the server farms will likely not move away from the reliability of land-based connection they currently use. The current board band market is more suitable to estimate the Starlink's market potential.
According to BusinessWire.com, 2021 global boardband market is merely $271 billion.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210823005338/en/Broadband-Internet-Services-Global-Markets-Report-2021-C-Band-Ku-Band-Ka-Band---Long-term-Forecast-to-2025-2030---ResearchAndMarkets.com
According to Wikipedia (2019 latest year shown), 86.6% of the developed world is already internet connected. In the developing world, 47% is internet connected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage
Observably, there is more internet connected by now, but let's use the smaller 2019 but more generous (for Starlink) assumption that $271billion at 86.6% (developed) and 47% (developing), the growth capacity is merely 14% in the developed world and 53% in the developing world. Even if you pretend the entire world at 53% growth capacity, you get $415 billion USD. That would be the entire board band market: fiber, cable, satellite included; merely 415 b$USD.
Looking at these numbers, I think $1 trillion market is a pipe dream, even $415 billion (entire board band market with fiber+cable+satellite) is a pipe dream. In a city, satellite is not very suitable. They are left with mainly suburbs or edges of cities. In my opinion, if they get as far as 1/3 of all board band, at $138billion that would still be a very generous dream but still a dream.
They are estimating up to 50% back haul traffic and 10% local.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#2014%E2%80%932017
This left me thinking they are betting a lot of B2B traffic. I have no hard-data on how executive in those individual businesses will decide, but I suspect much of those will actually go to or stay on existing land-based ISP back bone instead of via satellite with less reliability and slower speed. I think this is the uncertainty that they are exaggerating, and exaggerating the growth of internet in the poorer developing world. Exaggerated to a point I think it smells scam.
Does it look like a money relocation scam to you?
AVGresponding:
I linked this vid in the TEA thread earlier but it can't hurt to link it again here:
To answer you basic question; yes.
Cue the Muskie fanboys rushing to call us names...
David Hess:
--- Quote from: Rick Law on December 04, 2021, 10:49:51 pm ---According to Wikipedia (2019 latest year shown), 86.6% of the developed world is already internet connected. In the developing world, 47% is internet connected.
--- End quote ---
Internet connected how? Starlink's potential customers are rural customers who currently lack service, and rural customers who are currently underserved, which in the US at least is almost all of them. The only reason urban customers are not realistic is because of capacity limitations.
Starlink will also provide for the global mobile market including planes, boats, ships, and RVs.
AVGresponding:
--- Quote from: David Hess on December 05, 2021, 12:58:24 am ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on December 04, 2021, 10:49:51 pm ---According to Wikipedia (2019 latest year shown), 86.6% of the developed world is already internet connected. In the developing world, 47% is internet connected.
--- End quote ---
Internet connected how? Starlink's potential customers are rural customers who currently lack service, and rural customers who are currently underserved, which in the US at least is almost all of them. The only reason urban customers are not realistic is because of capacity limitations.
Starlink will also provide for the global mobile market including planes, boats, ships, and RVs.
--- End quote ---
You think there's enough of them to make a trillion dollar market? You might want to do the maths on that.
Algoma:
I've installed Starlink at a few remote sites, works fine so far. Vastly better than the 5mbps/128k they had before for a much better price. The hardware seems to have fair enough design and quality, and setup that was basically plug it in..
it's been vast improvement for the remote First Nation communities in Northern Ontario Canada that I work with. Far better than the $1200 a month 10mbps fibre they were paying for.
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