When will Starlink become operational?
When will Stralink become operational? My inlaws have crappy internet access. Best ist over shaky 3G :(
Hello, Starlink. SpaceX launched and landed another Falcon 9, Russia sent its next freighter to the ISS and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk celebrated failing to explode the latest Starship in the latest space-tastic news roundup. First off, the fourth Starship full-scale prototype stayed standing following a cryogenic proof test on …
Here's a visualization of the coverage with 396 satellites.
https://youtu.be/k73AFybi7zk?t=150
Here's the coverage with 792 satellites.
https://youtu.be/k73AFybi7zk?t=302
I'm at 45 north, we're right on southern edge of early coverage. My guess is Alaska is too far north, with Anchorage on the northern edge.
>subsidized by the subscribers in wealthy countries.
Subsidized by the satellites being useless to American subscribers when they are over Africa, and with the cost being in the construction and launch the marginal cost of allowing a link in Africa is small
No, your average American who doesn't like within a major metro area (and quite a few who do). Not to mention those Brits who live inside the M25 yet can't get sensible speeds due to weird EO lines - or those in rural areas who BT confidently claim can access "superfast fibre broadband", but can't get better than 2Mb down on account of being >2miles from the cabinet.
My brother lives in rural Herefordshire. ADSL is <1MB, no chance of fibre or cable, so he's got a 4G connection instead, and it's actually quite good. about 6MB down, and 1 up, which means it's quite usable.
Having line of sight to the nearest tower helps, although I am surprised that his girlfriend hasn't objected to "the radiation". She's got a tendency to believe everything she sees on facebook, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's another '5G == cornavirus' brigade. Most likely she hasn't realised where their internet comes from ;)
I presume the pizza box receiver will distribute the connection by wifi, Hence $90 per unconnected village in the developing world could look attractive compared to building 3/4/5G infrastructure. Especially if the government/NGO buys in bulk and/or subsidises.
Bundled with a free solar panel powered Tesla battery bank?
It's aimed at people in rural areas who don't already have cable or equivalent. It can't serve many people within a given area, so won't be for people in cities. Price is expected to be around $80/month. Even if it is higher, it's not expected to be ludicrously expensive.
The obvious answer is existing satellite internet customers (aircraft, ships, and people unable to get fixed line or 3/4/5G mobile internet).
Apparently the military are also interested. Also (once inter-satellite links, whether laser or radio or microwave are available) financial institutions may use it - the latency could be better than cables, allowing superior arbitrage to competitors, etc. (at least until we have through-planet neutrino communication).
Your average Australian living in rural areas and stuck on NBN's slow 300ms+ service will be very excited about a Starlink connection with 30ms latency. This should enable usable video conferencing including tele-health. It would probably be cheaper for NBNCo to subsidise Starlink connections than continue to pay operatining costs of the SkyMuster satellites.
I suspect grey-nomads and families taking a break to travel around Australia will be pretty excited as it should be trivial to attach an antenna to the caravan. Today caravans are configured with Foxtel satellite TV receivers, so I consider this very likely.
Governments will be concerned by small size of Starlink receivers making it easy to conceal.
Those governments that tax telecommunications heavily will be worried about loss of revenue.
I expect that China will request that Starlink don't broadcast over China and mention something about the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai.
They could play a real-life version of Space Invaders.
There's a good argument that Starlink satellites cost Musk less than the cost of the missiles to shoot them down. Plus he could put up even cheaper decoy ones.
Does anyone know the cost of the charges for that chemical laser the US had flying around on a 747? Which would seem the better bet - and much more in the spirit of Space Invaders anyway.
Then Musk would have to built satellites capable of firing back...
Anyway, I guess jamming the radio frequencies would be a lot easier and cheaper. Just more boring.
Musk's goal is making money.
If there's more profit in delivering uncensored internet to China than he'd lose due to pissing off the Chinese government then he'll do it. However, I suspect the big Tesla factory he's building in China will mean that he's not going to risk pissing off the government there.