[HN Gopher] SpaceX projected 20M Starlink users by 2022-it ended...
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SpaceX projected 20M Starlink users by 2022-it ended up with 1M
Author : lxm
Score : 24 points
Date : 2023-09-19 20:49 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| wilg wrote:
| It does seem like there is an upper bound on Starlink's success
| given that terrestrial gigabit fiber exists in major markets.
| Maybe they have a plan for this?
| grecy wrote:
| Yes, their plan is to serve the hundreds and hundreds of
| millions of people around the globe who don't have access to
| terrestrial gigabit fiber.
| wilg wrote:
| I think they will be successful, but it seems like
| terrestrial internet will always have a significant bandwidth
| (though not latency) advantage over Starlink.
| pharmakom wrote:
| I thought starlink has poor and inconsistent latency?
| grecy wrote:
| > _but it seems like terrestrial internet will always have
| a significant bandwidth (though not latency) advantage over
| Starlink._
|
| Starlink was never designed to compete with terrestrial
| internet in any way.
|
| If you have access to good high speed internet already then
| Starlink is not for you.
| wilg wrote:
| ok
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| Most of that population can't afford Starlink prices.
| wmf wrote:
| Long term I wonder if they'll encourage sharing terminals.
| Like a Starlink terminal that's a cellular base station.
| realusername wrote:
| That's also why I'm suspicious of the long term
| profitability of the whole thing. Most developed countries
| where the customers are richer also have some pretty good
| infrastructure and the rest likely couldn't afford the
| expensive service.
|
| You are then left with all the exceptions to those general
| rules and I'm not sure that's enough to cover the very
| expensive cost of the platform.
| borissk wrote:
| Starlink will no doubt turn into a money printing machine very
| soon. The war in Ukraine has proven it has a ton of value as a
| military communication system.
|
| Too bad it ruined the sky for the 15K professional astronomers
| out there and a big part of the millions of amateurs as well.
| codeTired wrote:
| The war in Ukraine has proven that starlink or a private
| company shouldn't be trusted when it comes to military
| operations.
| camhart wrote:
| Did the dark paint have no effect?
| zizee wrote:
| They recently started launching highly reflective satellites,
| which counterintuitively reduces the amount of light
| scattered in earth's direction.
| borissk wrote:
| The dark paint was a stupid idea, that never realized.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| >The company developed a highly reflective dielectric
| mirror film and a low-reflectivity black paint, which are
| applied to several parts of the spacecraft body. The
| mirror-like surface reflects sunlight into space instead of
| scattering it toward observers on the ground. In addition,
| the solar panels can be oriented so that observers do not
| see their sunlit sides.
|
| https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/the-newest-and-
| la...
| grecy wrote:
| > _Too bad it ruined the sky for the 15K professional
| astronomers out there and a big part of the millions of
| amateurs as well._
|
| Checkout the latest updates on the new sats, the problem has
| been fixed.
|
| https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-more-astronomy-photobombs-spac...
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| The article doesn't say that it's been fixed, merely there's
| a new attempt to lessen the issue that is being tested with
| the latest batch (which were still easily visible by eye via
| earth bound observers).
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Kessler syndrome is inevitable once low-cost access to space is
| unlocked. At least we'll get to browse cat memes from an
| airplane out of it.
| cwillu wrote:
| This has nothing to do with kessler syndrome; these
| satellites will all necessarily deorbit a relatively short
| period after their fuel supplies are exhausted and they're no
| longer able to correct for the orbital degradation caused by
| the atmosphere.
| falcolas wrote:
| Somewhat tangential: Can you imaging having to come up with
| a price point involving the planned destruction of
| millions, if not billions of dollars of assets every few
| years?
| coolbreezetft22 wrote:
| Not sure about this - seems like Elon's personal meddling has
| shown that Starlink is not reliable for military purposes.
| Military would have to have complete ownership/control
| wilg wrote:
| They are building a US-military controlled one called
| Starshield.
| ianburrell wrote:
| The US doesn't have any current plans for military version
| of Starlink. They have a pretty extensive satellite system.
| Starshield is SpaceX project to use Starlink technology for
| military.
|
| The US Space Development Agency, focused on missile
| defense, is working with SpaceX on tracking and
| communications constellations. But the communications is
| using laser links for in-space communications. Military
| Starlink is possible but not proposed yet.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| What you think Elon did with regards to Ukraine is almost
| certainly incorrect.
| zizee wrote:
| What "meddling" are you talking about?
| pengaru wrote:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/elon-musk-
| bi...
|
| Walter Isaacson, the book's author, gave a long-form
| interview recently on The Lex Fridman podcast. In case
| you'd like to form your own opinion about the book's
| legitimacy, its writing/Musk-supported research is
| substantially discussed:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGOV5R7M1Js
| crawsome wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/08/elon-
| musk...
|
| >A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of
| "committing evil" after a new biography revealed details
| about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink
| satellite communications network to be turned off near the
| Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack
| on Russian warships.
| zizee wrote:
| So, in a presentation from 2015, SpaceX predicted 20M users by
| 2022, and they missed the mark. This was a presentation to
| investors, to drum up support for their plans. Subscriber numbers
| are still increasing. This seems like a case of being a bit late
| on a optimistic prediction about a massive 7 year undertaking.
| biomcgary wrote:
| I've never heard of a serious investor that takes these numbers
| without a teaspoon of salt. I think the total addressable
| market is generally a bigger concern. At this point, it looks
| like Starlink is likely to own the whole market (of high-ish
| bandwidth, low-ish latency internet in remote-ish places). No
| one else is even close for the necessary launch cadence to
| maintain a very LEO satellite fleet.
|
| Posted to HN using a Starlink connection.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| They missed by 95%, can't say that's a great call, can you?
|
| > _This was a presentation to investors, to drum up support for
| their plans_
|
| Isn't that the issue, though?
| throwaway-blaze wrote:
| This is why startups are only allowed to raise from
| "accredited investors" and not the general public. The fact
| that whatever technology they claimed to have at the time
| worked and wasn't a true fraud when pitched is really all
| that matters. Anything forward looking is a projection the
| investors can choose to believe or not.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _missed by 95%, can 't say that's a great call, can you?_
|
| Yes. They're within an order of magnitude. On the north side
| of zero. That's a good prediction, particularly given the
| 20mm user figure seems realistic.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You cannot say with a straight face that predicting 20
| million users, getting only 1 million, is "a good
| prediction".
| kibibu wrote:
| Within an order of magnitude would be 2M users. This is not
| within an order of magnitude.
| yardie wrote:
| I'm sure it will get to 20M paying customers, eventually. But
| most of the inhabited planet is well served by terrestrial
| 4G/LTE. And the places that don't have terrestrial mobile service
| are also largely unpopulated. It's great for ships, but that's
| still in the 100k range. The Russia/Ukraine war has proved its
| effectiveness. But that is still just 1000s of terminals.
|
| In every instance where Starlink could be more usable than
| terrestrial we're talking a few million at most.
| lukev wrote:
| Also, Musk yanking the plug on an active operation does not
| bode well for that sort of use case.
| wmf wrote:
| Previous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37505168
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