SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
SpaceX does not plan to add 'tiered pricing' for Starlink satellite internet service, president says
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell does not think the company will add "tiered pricing" for its direct-to-consumer Starlink satellite internet service, which is currently offered at $99 a month in limited early access.
"I don't think we're going to do tiered pricing to consumers. We're going to try to keep it as simple as possible and transparent as possible, so right now there are no plans to tier for consumers," Shotwell said, speaking at the Satellite 2021 "LEO Digital Forum" on a virtual panel on Tuesday.
[...] In October, SpaceX began rolling out early Starlink service in a public beta that now extends to customers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and New Zealand – with service priced at $99 a month in the U.S., in addition to an upfront cost for the equipment needed to connect to the satellites.
[...] Musk's company plans to expand Starlink beyond homes, asking the Federal Communications Commission to widen its connectivity authorization to "moving vehicles," so the service could be used with everything from aircraft to ships to large trucks.
[...] Shotwell said SpaceX has "made great progress on reducing the cost" of the Starlink user terminal, which originally were about $3,000 each. She said the terminals now cost less than $1,500, and SpaceX "just rolled out a new version that saved about $200 off the cost."
See also: SpaceX's Starlink terminal production costs have dropped over 50%, reveals president
Satellite operators weigh strategies to compete against growing Starlink network
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:57AM (4 children)
Finance and military could trivially pay the terminal cost but there isn't enough demand from them to pay for the satellites. That cost needs to be spread out across many users to be worthwhile.
To recover that $2,500 loss, assuming 25% of the $100 monthly rate is cost recovery and interest is not considered, would take 100 months to break even. That is over eight years. Reducing that cost is the make-or-break item for the entire project.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday April 08 2021, @05:30AM (3 children)
I don't mean to suggest that military or finance would use the consumer user terminal equipment. They could pay it trivially, but they will probably use something more customized.
Military (starting with both U.S. Air Force [reuters.com] and Army [spacenews.com]) could pump in billions if they find it useful. Hundreds of millions might be more realistic in the short term.
You can find absurd estimates out there for how much the finance customers might pay:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/12/spacex-starlink-satellites-network-will-make-over-50-billion-per-year.html [nextbigfuture.com]
I don't know how much they will get from finance, but it could potentially dwarf the ISP revenue. Should be more than zero, at least.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 08 2021, @07:54AM (2 children)
I doubt they'll get much from finance, as the satellite link, even for low-orbit satellites, adds latency simply from the fact that the satellites are more than 100 km above earth. It cannot beat a direct microwave link, for purely geometric reasons. Add to this that the stock exchanges are in well-known fixed locations, so the everywhere-connectivity aspect of the satellites doesn't matter either.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday April 08 2021, @08:19AM
NY to Chicago is 800 miles. Even with 1000 foot antennas you'd need a dozen repeaters to bounce you between the two locations.
Direct fibre is 6.5ms at best, the link you quote says microwave drops this by 5%, or 0.3ms, so 6ms at best.
Going via starlink might not even need a laser, it would be a 1500km single hop bounce off a 500km high satelite between the two, so about 5ms.
For NY to Tokyo though, oh boy are you saving time if you stay in optically switched satelite hops vs fibre.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 08 2021, @08:21AM
I think they were touting the international routes. London - Tokyo - New York etc. Over those distances microwave links are difficult and Starlink will be much faster than fibre.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.