Yeah our geography does present some unique challenges compared to other places, I agree. That said, it's still a super small amount of people we're talking about. Even less elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I've been in your shoes and something like Starlink would have been amazing. I just don't think that portion of the population is as large as some think it is, even with boomers retiring.

I think rural residents in the US are a segment that is growing fast.  But even if I'm wrong, the Starlink constellation is meant to provide for under-served internet customers all over the globe.  That number is enormous.  Absolutely Yuge.  

Starlinks stated goal is to generate income to pay for Starship development.

The potential customers are less than the urban population... but not by much.  Each satellite will serve millions of people as it makes an orbit, way more than a trench to a few households would.  Launch costs are a fraction of what they used to be.  Satellite manufacture costs are a fraction of what they used to be.

Anyone using the old costs as a baseline to evaluate the feasibility of this is making a mistake.

Hmmm...
But can he sell internet access to those people at a profit OR even at cost? At $100/mo... that's more than even *I* want to spend. I mean, if I lived in the boondocks, and couldn't get good internet otherwise... I'd HAPPILY pay that.
But Someone in say... the Philippines? $100/mo is pretty steep considering a typical pay is like $100 a week. The Philippines is not even as poor as many many other parts of the world.

Perhaps if he had cheaper plans based on speed? Like maybe only $30 at 30mbps ?

I'm in the opposite camp, I can't fathom how anyone could picture digging essentially infinite trenches to infinite locations could ever be cheaper than a satellite-based solution. And those trenches don't move with you.

Those are good questions and I don't know the answers.  Time will tell, I suppose.

The users who will pony up anything Elon wants are those who depend on high speed and low latency. That means international finance/trading/arbitrage.

Financial firms spend billions on faster, lower-latency connections to give their trading bots a leg up on the competition. Starlink will get messages anywhere on earth faster than fiber, because the speed of light in a vacuum is 50% faster than the speed of light in a glass fiber. Even adding in the uplink and downlink hops, it'll move data between North America or Europe and Asia a whole lot faster than existing terrestrial links.

New services always cost a bit more.
Different markets can bear different prices and have settled at different price points.

Sell the service to those who will pay the most first and expand it to others at the price they can bear.

Also the cost of adding additional customers is nonexistent... unlike physical links.  Once the initial investment is payed off every additional subscriber costs nothing and is pure profit regardless of how much they pay.

Aren't you contradicting yourself? You say that middle of nowhere 3rd world countries can get 4G unlike the US, but then go on and say that the only places we will see large populations of people with no or slower access are those same places?

Here is why starlink will work, and is extremely feasible. 95% of the landmass of the US is rural. Even just the US as rural areas, it would still be the 4th largest country. Yet, 60,000,000 people live in that rural area. That means there is ~20,000,000 households in what would be considered the 4th largest country in the world. And, would be one of the least dense countries in the world. That means starlink could have a possible userbase of twice that of Australia, without even servicing anyone in an urban or suburban area. At a cadence of once a month launch, you're looking at probably $300mm yearly. Which would mean a customer base of 250,000 to break even. Which means they only need to service 1.25% of just the rural households in the US to breakeven. That's <5% of the customer base of all 5 major ISPs in the US, of which only a fraction of those customers can get the speeds starlink can provide. There are at least two dozen smaller ISPs, and a dozen large ISPs that serve more than 250,000 customers. For example, Cincinnati Bell serves 500,000 customers in a small area of 2mm people.

Starlink absolutely will be able to pay the bills. For one, they received a potential list of over 700,000 months before they would even send the first units out. Then, within a month of a handselected Beta program basically only targeting <3% of the US population, had filled 10,000 spots. And, received $900,000,000 in subsidies. With considering they are now petitioning the FCC for 5,000,000 user terminals in the US, compared to the 500,000 they planned on before even taking emails, I'd say there is considerable interest in just the US that would be enough to pay the bills and more. 5,000,000 customers wouldn't even put it in the top 5 largest ISPs in the US, and they would generate $6,000,000,000 a year. It also means they would need a quarter of the customers that Hughesnet services with <25mbps capped service to break even.

I live in a very rural area with extremely shitty service. Between being in a beta area, and the post beta signups, pretty much anyone who has heard of starlink around here either has it, or signed up and paid a deposit for it. I would say the demand for starlink is pretty telling when you have some of the executives of the local coop phone/dsl provider considering providing access to their fiber lines that run in the area to now keep customers. I'd say they should probably move a little faster than just complaining about losing customers, and sending out postcards with a survey to gauge interest in getting faster than 5mbps service.

Those people probably already live in major cities and have no problem obtaining decent broadband.

TBH, I almost wish I lived in a rural area,... just so I can have starlink. It sounds kinda cool. But tbh, it would be a waste for me seeing as I live in the suburbs.

I'm glad to hear it seems to be working out

In regards to 4G you've misunderstood me. The other part of what I said about those places having 4G is important, "And it's generally the only internet they have." I'm comparing their best option to our best option, or at least their most common option to our most common option. The places with 4G are the places with slower internet then what is available to the majority of Americans or other 1st world countries. Starlink should be an improvement even for them. I'm not comparing bumblefuck Africa that has a 4G connection to Smallsville, MT that doesn't even have 4G.

Although, that does illustrate the ridiculousness of the situation that a developed country where everybody in Smallsville, MT has a computer and some sort of need to be connected to the internet is struggling with something less than 4G while people living in mud/straw huts and using nothing but hand tools can post meme's on their iPhone. Even with our land mass it's surprising we lack the towers for 99.9% coverage of a 4G network. If your numbers are correct on the amount of rural households that would like better service, you'd still think it would be cheaper to have put up those 4G/5G towers instead of building rockets and sending ~60 (or whatever) satellites into space every month.

FWIW, I'm glad your area is getting good internet, I'm just skeptical of it's feasibility financially. $900 million in subsidies seems to explain things though.

Musk already said (more than once, most recently on his Joe Rogan interview a couple weeks back) that Starlink doesn't really make sense for the urban/suburban market where there's reliable high-speed Internet available.  It's for all those folks out in the sticks who've had to suck on HughesNet for years, along with gubmint services and such.

No parts survive reentry. They are cubesats and they are programmed to automatically deorbit burn if they malfunction.

Yup.  They are just going to boost themselves from 550km up to 36,000km.

They use hall thrusters.(ion)

When the full constellation is up it will have gig speed and latency around 20ms. Few people living in rural areas have those numbers available to them. Also it will provide internet to the 50% of the Earths population who have access to no internet at all.

60 every month? They've already had 2 launches in the past week with another scheduled thus Sunday.
ETA: There's gave been 8 Starlink launches this year to date, including a rideshare of 10 units that went up on a Falcon 9 that launched a bunch of other smaller satellites.

Yes they can. The satellites are cheap to make (spacex makes them inhouse) and cheap to launch ( they launch them themselves on many times flown rockets in many cases with rideshares aboard so they make a profit while launching their own equipment as well)

The only negative I can think of is that eventually Starlink will become the Amazon of the internet and push everyone else out, with all the problems attendant with monopolies.

All you fuckers that shit talk birdshot as a home defense weapon will change your minds, lickety split.

They are planning 2 or more starlink missions every month on Falcon 9's. Once Starship comes online they plan on switching over to that launcher which is even cheaper to fly than a F9 and can launch hundreds at once.

Can't wait. Fuck the cable monopolies, I hope they all go broke. And die. In a fire. While drowning in a vat of acid. The only form of life lower than a communist.

Actually I think Starlink will be viable in the urban markets for some specific customers.  There is a pretty sizeable demographic in any given area that are just fed up with their local provider for a host of reasons.  Give them a chance to swap to better service for less money and the opportunity to tell Comcast, AT&T, Frontier, whoever to get lost, I think they'll jump on it.

Essentially Starlink will unshackle the customer from the monopoly of their local provider.

I also see Starlink causing a population shift of people who can work remotely moving out of liberal hell hole cities as they are no longer dependent on high speed broadband found only in the urban areas.  A friend who is a realtor confirmed my idea, she's already seeing that trend starting to the point she's selling rural properties as fast as she can list them.

For us out here in the sticks, it will be a huge improvement over what we have now.

Semper Fi

I mean, I am sure they would sell to ppl even in those markets if they really wanted it. I know some ppl do plan on ordering it just to help SpaceX as this money will directly fund the Mars missions he has planned.

Also they recently announced it will be available for things like RV's, boats, trucks etc.

I just think it is awesome that there is a person with both the brains and the ball to make this happen. What amazing times we live in!

yea they are launching every 8 days right now. And throwing starlinks up as a rideshare with paying customers when they can.

Its amazing to me that people post stuff like this and don't stop to think hmm a company that is smart enough to figure out how to land fucking rockets on a barge at sea hasn't thought starlink out fully.

Spacex is launching a huge amount of the world's payload right now. Luckily they have starlink because the world isn't keeping up with their launch cadence. Its such a win for them. They get to test reusability on their own payload which will start returning on the investment soon.  They can also push themselves to drive costs way down and when there is payload to launch in the future they are going to be a hugely attractive option on cost and reliability. No one is really going to be able to compete they can't now.

Exactly. People who live close to major urban areas have no idea how badly cable companies buttfuck us for high speed internet. I don't care how badly Cox or Comcast treat you. Move somewhere covered by a monopoly of one of Altice's cable brands, for instance. You'll be having fantasies of burning their company HQ to the ground inside a year, I guarantee it. They literally will find ways to charge you $230/month for a $79.95 package, and write into their service agreement that you can't sue them or seek any recourse whatsoever and agree to allow them to do anything they want to you if you want service from them. Fuck them.

Excellent summation.  I'm interested to see what Starlink does to the cost of internet service.  Will the big cable providers be forced to lower their cost to compete?  Or will Elon turn into a profit-monger, and push his prices higher and higher.

STARLINK is not currently designed nor approved for mobile use like that. It is for use at a stationary location where your billing is. Something about FCC licenses, also you would not be able to use it on the move but would need to set up the system from scratch at each stop.

Win. So many good memories

They are receiving subsides from to serve areas that currently don't get reliable internet service.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network wins $885M in federal aid for rural broadband

And, yes, Musk has put a lot of money into Starlink without getting money back immediately.  That's referred to as "investment".

Musk doesn't need the money at this point, and I think is enjoying his role as populist internet hero so much it's creating a positive feedback loop. Wouldn't surprise me if he actually lowered prices once they have the main rollout complete and have a stable maintenance budget nailed down.

I mean, this is the guy who walked into the Boeing-Lockheed duopoly's market and shot it in the head, several times, just to prove that he could and that they really were that wasteful and lazy with the public funds they leech.

He's obligated to some price capping for the areas he won in RDOF for the next 10years, but only at his promised speeds.

So he maybe capped at $100 bucks for 100/20, but could sell 200/30 for $300

speeds and pricing above are all theoretical

I don't live in a rural area, but in a smallish town about 35-40mins outside of Cleveland. Our only real option for internet is Spectrum, and it sucks. It's supposed to be 100mbs connection, but at times it's super slow and unreliable for speed. I already signed up for Starlink, fuck Spectrum. Also, Spectrum is $80 a month FWIW.

Same here. My area is serviced by spectrum, but they want thousands of dollars to run a line up my 800' driveway. I ended up with Tmobile Home Internet and am getting 100-140Mbps speeds all day long for $50/month.

Starlink is curently comparable to a fiber backbone. Fiber bandwidth really hasn't changed in decades. Availability and price has come down considerably.

When lol. Investment in internet is expensive and low profit margin and done incrementally. The best internet options I have at my residence is 6 megabyte dsl, *up to 15 for cable (was 1 when I moved to my house 7 years ago), a giant radio attena on the roof for 50 megabytes at 170 a month and multi year contracts.

Starlink has its place for many people like me who are in captive markets. Over 20 percent of the population do not have access to broadband, never mind a affordable access.

Speed isn't the only factor. It is not uncommon to see Hughesnet dishes being used as a backup Internet service for businesses that have a faster terrestrial Internet options. Cell networks go to shit any time there is a major weather event and I have seen them collapse in more populated areas when everyone starts using their mobile device when the cable company goes down. If Starlink is reliable, they will have the option to go after various business markets if they choose to and could be a very attractive option as a primary service in rural areas and a backup service in more populated areas.

I would love to see business plans happen because the 4G options for backup service kind of suck and getting a second terrestrial fiber is not always a viable option even in large commercial business parks. I have seen fiber cuts take down multiple carriers due to carriers leasing capacity off each other or just multiple fiber cables being laid in the same path which all get hit at once.

Also you don't have to be far outside the city to not have decent Internet service. Cable typically doesn't go too far outside the city - a few miles at the most. We're lucky to have Spectrum where we live. You know what CenturyLink offers here? 3 Mbps. We're outside of town but I can drive to Chick-fil-A and be back before the food even gets cold. Telcos don't want to run fiber unless it is a big apartment / condo building or a new huge cookie cutter HOA neighborhood with houses are so close you can touch your neighbors.

If Starlink is reliable enough and upload speeds are faster than Spectrum, I may switch. We're already up to $75 a month with Spectrum. Or maybe this will finally kick cable companies into re-engineering the cable plant to offer higher upload speeds.

With the change to more ‘work from home’ jobs, people are realizing they don’t have to be tied to a location within commuting distance.  All they need is a reliable internet connection.  We may be looking at a move away from the cities/suburbs and into more rural settings.  Starlink will provide internet service long before the ‘cable diggers’ get the impetus to do so.  I’m already seeing that in my local area.

We can test all of the Arfcommers .50 cal skills with them. Oh crap, another hunk of space junk CBDR, this one is yours Aimless!

Imagine your pride driving through town with one of those strapped to your tailgate.

It seems half the people on reddit posting about starlink want it to put on their rv or lake cabin.

The market demand is hard to say for certain but in the US alone I bet it is pretty high....then when you throw in the rest of the world...

Plus when they get the laser system working (should be testing later this month) it may lower latency even further than fiber over longer distances.

I'll definitely be purchasing some starlink stoke at ipo.

I'm not familiar with the laws about internet service. Why would one not be able to access Starlink from a boat or RV? How is it any different than accessing the internet with your smartphone?

Well, we’ve littered the Earth. And the oceans. Only thing left is space!

How much junk do we have up there now?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome