Apparently a lot of people have signed up to Elon Musk's internet service provider:
SpaceX has announced that its internet service provider Starlink now has over 1 million active subscribers. It seems CEO Elon Musk's ongoing Twitter trash fire didn't stop enough people from signing up to his ISP to hold it back from this milestone.
[...] Though no doubt intended to sound impressive, Starlink's significant subscriber count may not be great news for its existing customers. According to a September report by Ookla, Starlink's median download speeds have dropped year-on-year since 2021's second quarter in every country the internet speed measurement company tracks. (Note: Ookla and Mashable are both owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)
[...] SpaceX also announced in August that it was partnering with T-Mobile to allow customers' mobile phones to connect directly with Starlink satellites, with beta testing to run in late 2023. This will potentially add even more people to Starlink's user base.
The company is likely aware of Starlink's flagging speeds, and appears to have taken steps to mitigate both use and expectation. In the ISP's new fair use policy introduced in November, SpaceX states that customers who exceed certain data limits during their monthly billing cycle will now have their internet speed throttled — that is, deliberately slowed down. Users will then have to pay extra to get their speeds back up.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday December 23, @11:00AM (3 children)
Starlink needs billions, not millions, of customers to meet the cost of the rocket launches. Let's not even talk about the cost in terms of carbon emissions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, @01:20PM (2 children)
Bullshit. They need low millions of customers, probably less with Starshield.
(Score: 2) by tizan on Friday December 23, @06:50PM (1 child)
Give the numbers please ?
At steady rate every year they will have to replace a thousand or so satellites of the 15K that it will have up.
Tell us the price for that....that then is the amount to keep satellites up + all other running costs (after sales service etc etc) and profits needed ....how many million customers s at $1200 a year do you need ?
10 million customers will bring $12b in revenue...is that enough ?
Where do you think you'll get 10 million rural customers to pay $100/month....because right now in the US and definitely Europe, Asia and even Africa any smallish town are served with fibre, 5G, WISP etc at competitive pricing.
How many rural Montana farm style user are there in the world ?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 23, @08:46PM
I think I came up with an estimate of 5 million customers once, but I can't find the comment. Many things have changed since then, such as the introduction of V2 and "V2 Mini" [teslarati.com] satellites (larger but can still launch on Falcon 9 instead of Starship).
SpaceX Now Plans for 5 Million Starlink Customers in US, Up From 1 Million [soylentnews.org]
5 million customers paying $1,200 a year gets them to $6 billion annually. But one of their targets was $30 billion a year [nasdaq.com].
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-750000-new-subscribers-9-months/ [teslarati.com]
They need 24 million globally paying $1,200 a year to hit $30 billion per year in revenue from individuals.
But there are also other revenue streams coming in: Starshield to suck the gov/military teat (although I think it will use separate sats), partnership with T-Mobile to provide limited service to smartphones anywhere on the planet, partnerships with airlines to replace their existing junk internet options, Starlink for cruise ships, Microsoft Azure partnership [cnbc.com], significantly more expensive plans [cnbc.com] for small businesses and yachts, etc.
https://www.teslarati.com/starlink-maritime-instagrammed-superyacht/ [teslarati.com]
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(Score: 2, Informative) by Rodxit on Friday December 23, @11:03AM (18 children)
There is not throttling announced vom SpaceX.
SpaceX announced that they had to deprioritize User who have more than 1 TERRA BYTE traffic in 30 day to the benefit of all.
And the deprioritization is also only at prime times not at low-use times (night).
You have no clue what the difference is between throttling and deprioritization is, do you ?
Having no clue is obviously your motto.
The is no "dumpster fire" at twitter, only stupid sheep who listen to the mainstream media.
Twitter has record user numbers and more new features in 3 month than old Twitter had in 3 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, @12:44PM (3 children)
> You have no clue what the difference is between throttling and deprioritization
https://www.reviews.org/mobile/whats-the-difference-between-throttling-and-deprioritization/ [reviews.org]
As a user, there hardly seems to be any difference. Either way, if you pay more you get more.
(Score: 1) by Rodxit on Friday December 23, @01:04PM (2 children)
> As a user, there hardly seems to be any difference.
The difference is if you get throttled you get throttled no matter how the real traffic situations is for your cell.
If you get deprioritized after 1 TB and your cell is not near saturated, NOTHING happens.
You can still go for your 2nd TB with full speed.
But if your cell IS saturated and you get deprioritized you will experience a speed slow down because the users with less than 1 TB get the bandwidth that is available in your cell first
I stream A LOT in HD, MP3 and use 200-400 GB a month.
You have to be a Datahorder or one of the handicapped people who need TV background noise all day long to use regularly more than 1 TB.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, @01:23PM (1 child)
OK, thanks.
Another definition of a "Datahoarder" could be as simple as a large family (or an apartment building) sharing one sat link.
Next question, is the saturation local to a cell (a roughly-fixed geographic region--traditionally near a tower?) Or is the saturation somewhere else in the system, say in the ground links to the satellites, or between satellites? How does Starlink even define "your cell" when the sat coverage is constantly changing?
(Score: 1) by Rodxit on Friday December 23, @09:53PM
A cell is a 24 km diameter area. The area an starlink satellite v. 1.5 antenna beam can cover down and up at the same time.
Cells get time multiplexed to maximize to number of cells that can served concurrently.
SpaceX has not given any official information about the exact data flows.
It is pretty complicated because now are the space laser activated on the sats which means the satellite can give user data concurrently to other satellites and ground stations.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Friday December 23, @01:25PM (13 children)
Dumpster fires always attract spectators. I've now joined it myself to fan the flames.
So what are the manstream media saying about this? I don't generally follow them, but the non-mainstream media are certainly reporting a Twitter dumpster fire, even channels that used to admire him.
I'm glad the media, mainsteam or not, are starting to see Musk for what he is, a megalomaniac lying salesman, instead of painting him as a some kind of god/saint/genius who is supposed to have invented tunnels and rockets. The mainsteam media kissing Musk's arse for the last 10 years is what has created his fan base. Some of them are still clinging to his coat tails like they would have clung to the rails of the Titanic as it sank, assuring each other what a fine ship it was.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by oumuamua on Friday December 23, @03:37PM (1 child)
I'll admit the Twitter spectacle was painful to watch. However, let's not forget he did try to get out of the deal but was forced to proceed. Also he was humble enough to admit he is not right for the job and is stepping down as CEO. Hopefully he follows through with that decision.
Any media fandom for Musk has entirely turned the other direction; we now have Musk bashing, bordering on canceling. It has changed from the man can do no wrong to the man can do no right. The reality is there would be no competitive US space capability without SpaceX. Musk may be sometimes be juvenile and unhinged but also consider only a crazy person would try to start a colony on Mars, that is the type of crazy I like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24, @01:53PM
His plan to step down as CEO has absolutely nothing to do with humility. He had to give a court assurances [theverge.com] that Tesla is his number one priority and that from the beginning he has said that includes not being the CEO:
He positions himself as not being the CEO of anything and thus not held to the same roles and responsibilities, which is basically what the Tesla shareholder court case against him is about.
(Score: 2) by bloodnok on Friday December 23, @06:32PM (10 children)
Really? I couldn't work for the man myself 'cos I think the expectations he has of his staff are abusive. But if you think he is just a salesman, you are missing the spectacular success of some of his ventures.
Tesla has changed the entire motor industry. Yes, it was probably going to change anyway, but not as quickly. Tesla's success is all down to Musk.
SpaceX is the most successful rocket company in history: it's launch cadence is astonishingly high and it's cost to orbit is pretty low. If Starship and SuperHeavy become a success, the cost to orbit will drop even further. SpaceX's success is all down to Musk.
Starlink: well we'll have to see.
Yes, he can be a jerk. And yes, some people revere the man as some sort of messianic saviour which is ridiculous. But his success is real and well-earned.
As for Twitter: if it fails he may well have done the world a service. No single company, or individual, should be responsible for something that has the potential to be critical infrastructure.
__
The Major
(Score: 2) by tizan on Friday December 23, @07:03PM (9 children)
Let's be fair SpaceX is due to massive subsidies from the Govt.
Other startups are going for the same tech...SpaceX does not have super human...just lucky to get picked by NASA at the right time.
Similarly startlink will be succesful if they manage to get enough govt entities, military, schools etc t get into it and subsidies it because they depend on it (remember iridium satellite cellular (make the military depend on it then they pay taxpayers money to keep it running)......otherwise just as a full private market ...i don't see it compete with 5G, fibre, fiber+WISP etc....
Your opinion is as good as mine....that is my interpretation of success in space "private" industry
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 23, @08:55PM
If you want to throw the subsidy card at SpaceX... they developed Falcon 9 and Heavy for low billions. Falcon Heavy is a relatively minor modification of Falcon 9, and cost over $500 million to develop [wikipedia.org], with no direct government funding. If you want to argue that their NASA and Air Force contracts were the funding, apply the rules to everyone. Boeing/ULA and friends have raked in many tens of billions of dollars in the space domain specifically, turned out overpriced crap like the Senate Launch System, and are struggling to compete with Falcon 9 [teslarati.com]. By the time they do, they will be crushed by Starship.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23, @11:42PM (7 children)
Payment for services is now a subsidy? Or maybe you're of the school that anytime the government pays for something it's a subsidy? You want to see real subsidies just look at what the traditional providers are getting paid for far less than what SpaceX delivers. This megalomaniac, lying salesman delivers a lot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 24, @02:10PM (6 children)
What about Tesla? He bought that company and some argue essentially applied an Apple rounded corners style and upsold it as luxury to his SpaceX fanbase, while thriving on selling environmental credits to other car companies. It will be interesting to see how they are going to do now that those credits are going away, and whether they will ever make much money on selling vehicles themselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24, @05:04PM (5 children)
Sorry that's moving the goalposts. Tesla is a different company. I grant Tesla received a lot in subsidies, but that's irrelevant to SpaceX's situation. I think what's particularly obnoxious about the claim of SpaceX subsidies is that the SLS people have received almost 20 billion USD for a three ring circus while SpaceX has been launching a bunch of NASA missions for years for substantially less. And NASA is a very particular customer. Their missions are naturally higher cost.
NASA needs to pay someone in order to get NASA stuff in space and do their job. They won't be getting that from SLS.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 24, @09:07PM (4 children)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/01/nasa-auditor-warns-congress-artemis-missions-sls-rocket-billions-over-budget.html [cnbc.com]
https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-sls-and-orion [planetary.org]
$40-50 billion, going on $93 billion by 2025.
It's plausible that the SLS becomes known as the $20 billion per launch rocket after it's all over. And that's being generous.
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(Score: 2) by tizan on Wednesday December 28, @12:21AM (3 children)
Whatever your point...you are comparing absorbing development costs of a few launches to the moo/beyond to 1000's of launches to Low earth orbit. Its like comparing the price of mining dump trucks to F-150's ...both are trucks but the comparison stops there !
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 28, @03:51AM (2 children)
Actually the comparison goes really, really far here. All that money spent on SLS could be buying a lot of Falcon 9 launches and getting that Moon/beyond stuff done now rather than a few decades from now, maybe.
The dump truck analogy is that you can buy and run those F-150s and get the job done now. Or you could make your own mining dump truck, and if you get it running, do a very few things with the dump truck because you can't afford to run it very often. Vastly less output with a huge delay, and that's if you can pull it off - which NASA hasn't done since 1980!
(Score: 2) by tizan on Thursday December 29, @05:57PM (1 child)
Indeed why wait 9 month for a baby for 1 mother when 9 mothers can do it in 1 month. To hell with physics.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 30, @12:43AM
Indeed. We could wait instead for NASA's baby to do it in a decade or two maybe rather than a few dozen or few hundred Falcons doing it now in 9 months. This is a great way to turn a few mythical man-months into a few mythical man-decades.