[HN Gopher] Two giants in the satellite telecom industry join fo...
___________________________________________________________________
Two giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to counter
Starlink
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 104 points
Date : 2024-05-01 12:35 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I know this is a downvote-worthy comment, but I have to say I
| feel like people who don't like Elon Musk think the alternative
| is someone just like him but with all his flaws removed.
|
| The overwhelming alternative is people who never make anything
| advance and talk like this:
|
| > In a fast-moving and competitive satellite communication
| industry, this transaction expands our multi-orbit space network,
| spectrum portfolio, ground infrastructure around the world, go-
| to-market capabilities, managed service solutions, and financial
| profile
| amarant wrote:
| I think a large part of the problem is that a lot of people
| seem to have trouble consolidating that someone can have both
| positive and negative qualities at the same time.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| People are disconcerted by the fact that Musk is just a human
| like them who happens to wield huge resources. They prefer to
| think of the elite class as their betters, a separate
| category, hence the convention for the "ruling class" to have
| decorum, present curated image, and so on.
| hobs wrote:
| He doesn't meet the standards of behavior of any class that
| I would associate with.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| It is unfortunate that the left doesn't want to talk to
| anyone any more. However, IRL I bet you would be bowing
| and shaking his hand if you had the op.
| martijnarts wrote:
| While I think that's at play, I also think it's entirely fair
| to hold those with more power to higher standards.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Standards are set by those with power. A bit of a
| tautology.
| amarant wrote:
| It is entirely fair to do so. And I'm not a huge fan of a
| lot of things Elon has written on Twitter. I don't really
| care about him buying it too much, but that's at least
| partially because I don't use it and never did.
|
| Anyway, what really gets me is people denying that Elon has
| some real chops when it comes to engineering and business
| management.
|
| A lot of people even take it one step further and pretend
| like Tesla isn't a capable EV producer, because Elon once
| wrote something on twitter that upset them.
|
| The problem there isn't that they're upset with Elon,
| that's totally fine, he frequently earns that. But being
| unable to recognize that he had also done some good work
| that is completely unrelated to those silly remarks on
| twitter, that is the problem.
|
| This phenomenon should not be confused with criticizing
| actual flaws in any work Elon has done, which is of course
| great, but that's very often not what's happening in
| "discussions" about his companies.
| anonymousab wrote:
| > think the alternative is someone just like him but with all
| his flaws removed
|
| Or just some other person, successful or not.
|
| It's far from a dichotomy. There are plenty of successful
| companies and CEOs out there.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "In a fast-moving and competitive satellite communication
| industry, we, who cannot move nearly as fast and are therefore
| no longer competitive, hope that this will somehow make us look
| like we're still relevant."
|
| OK, that's a very cynical take. But Starlink is revolutionizing
| the business, and historically, merging is what the dinosaur
| companies often do after the revolution hits. Think of the
| mergers between Unix workstation vendors as the PC was
| revolutionizing computing.
|
| Merging lets you get bigger. But in a revolutionary
| environment, faster wins, bigger doesn't. Merging is therefore
| a useless response. (In fact, it's worse than useless, because
| it slows you down.)
| jandrese wrote:
| I view these mergers as the executives cashing out of their
| failing company.
| abakker wrote:
| Yes, now they both get to begin an 18 month "Synergy Period"
| where both companies focus on navel-gazing to instead of the
| clients who are cancelling contracts and buying starlink.
| vladms wrote:
| Revolutions are much easier to spot afterwards. Maybe
| Starlink will be a revolution, but maybe more and more people
| will get better wired access (so new subscriptions will
| slow). I don't think it's that evident now how it will go
| overall.
|
| What alternative would you propose to merging? If the market
| re-stabilizes in a different position merging could be
| successful. If a revolution happens, it will probably not,
| but still better than doing nothing.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > What alternative would you propose to merging?
|
| I don't know.
|
| > but still better than doing nothing.
|
| Maybe not. Maybe it takes away management attention from
| figuring out how to actually be competitive in the new
| environment.
|
| "We have to do something; this is something; therefore we
| have to do this" is rarely the right thing to do. It's
| often just a mask for "we don't know what to do".
|
| On the other hand, "we can't figure out what to do, but
| we're dead if we don't do something, so we're going to do
| something and hope that it randomly turns out to be useful"
| may have a higher expectation value than doing nothing.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink are all revolutions currently
| underway. Neuralink is a potential revolution that's
| currently hard to spot.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > What alternative would you propose to merging? If the
| market re-stabilizes in a different position merging could
| be successful. If a revolution happens, it will probably
| not, but still better than doing nothing.
|
| Copying. Copying the revolutionary competitor(s). Just
| don't have qualms. Start small to see that you can do it,
| then raise all the capital you need to go big.
|
| I'm dead serious. When an innovator/disruptor comes along,
| if you the reigning champ does not out-innovate them quick,
| then the reigning champ will have to hand their crown to
| the newcomer. It's _really_ hard for established players to
| out-innovate up-and-coming competitors because often the
| established player wants to _milk_ their current customers,
| but to out-innovate the newbies requires lowering prices,
| which requires lowering costs, which requires lowering
| revenue (and earnings) in the short term in order to enable
| a brighter future. Reducing revenue and earnings on purpose
| is culturally really hard for established companies to do.
|
| There are companies that have done this well at times. I'm
| thinking of Microsoft. It _can_ be done.
| Retric wrote:
| With Tesla the comparison wasn't nobody it was the original
| founders continuing to operate the company. Which may have been
| less successful, but the first Roadster was delivered in
| February 2008 while he became CEO in 2008. So the EV revolution
| would have almost certainly started with or without him.
|
| SpaceX was a high risk venture that paid off, props.
| runako wrote:
| > with all his flaws removed
|
| Most CEOs do not spend $44 billion USD to broadcast their most
| abhorrent thoughts to the world. Everyone is flawed, but nobody
| likes a loud boor.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| its his money.
| runako wrote:
| _Some_ of it is his money. Some was borrowed.
| cryptonector wrote:
| The lenders knew what he meant to do.
| runako wrote:
| Literally just responding to this:
|
| > its his money.
| cryptonector wrote:
| But that some of the money is borrowed can't mean that he
| can't say the things he does, especially when the lenders
| knew who he was to begin with.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Most CEOs do not spend $44 billion USD to broadcast their
| most abhorrent thoughts to the world
|
| Zero CEOs do that.
| cityofdelusion wrote:
| True, but they _do_ broadcast their abhorrent thoughts to the
| world -- its just more subtle, filtered, and through
| different channels. Its the whole reason people are warned to
| never meet their heroes -- because they are usually assholes
| outside of whatever persona they have crafted for themselves
| publicly. Musk just doesn't care about crafting that persona
| in the first place.
|
| Look at sports, where even at the "mere" multi-million dollar
| level, people get changed. The music industry and Hollywood
| are also famous for people being revealed to be mere human.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I assumed that Musk wanted Twitter so he could have a built-
| out userbase for his everything-app idea, not because he
| wanted to have a particularly large bullhorn.
| deweller wrote:
| SES and Intelsat both strike me as stodgy, old telecommunications
| companies. I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival
| Starlink as a consumer product. But I think competition in this
| space is good.
| TheRoque wrote:
| Nice pun
| imglorp wrote:
| For some use cases they're not even competitors. You can't do
| anything real time like a conference call, remote desktop, or
| gaming with GEO: 600ms latency is out of the question. MEO is
| marginal at 150ms.
| indigobunting wrote:
| At least on an airplane, they don't want you doing conference
| calls ..
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| People in economy seats aren't the only demand for low-
| latency airplane internet. Probably not even the biggest.
| indigobunting wrote:
| In the U.S., it's banned for all classes (business,
| first, etc..)
|
| https://www.afacwa.org/nocalls
| lxgr wrote:
| That's not the only way to fly, though.
|
| Business aviation (i.e. "private jets") has exactly the
| type of customer for whom being able to make phone calls
| in-air is a thing where cost is secondary.
|
| Gogo even pivoted to that market entirely [1], with the
| commercial segment now part of Intelsat.
|
| [1] https://www.gogoair.com/
| willhackett wrote:
| This feels like a lot of industries lately. Competition is
| great, but the ongoing development of so many sub par products
| just feels so wasteful.
| lxgr wrote:
| There is such a thing as an overcrowded market, but LEO data
| connectivity is definitely not it yet.
|
| - Nobody other than Starlink is offering anything at all to
| end customers; all alternatives are in GEO, which means much
| higher latencies.
|
| - There's no alternative to Iridium when it comes to
| reliable, 100% global coverage in the L-band (except if
| you're the military, presumably). Planes and ships are still
| carrying HF radios for redundancy in high latitudes.
|
| - Nobody, neither GEO nor LEO, other than Starlink, currently
| offers high-throughput connectivity for in-flight
| connectivity. (Inmarsat is planning to launch HEO satellites
| for the northern hemisphere, which will possibly extend their
| existing aviation coverage there.)
|
| - OneWeb does compete for high-throughput services in LEO in
| the Ku-band (requiring steered antennas just like Starlink),
| but doesn't seem to be offering inter-satellite links yet,
| i.e. no global coverage alternative for airlines either.
| shawabawa3 wrote:
| Isn't LEO _literally_ crowded? I thought space junk was a
| real concern at this point, and a bunch of other crappy LEO
| satellite launches will exacerbate this
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/headquarters/library/find/bibliographi
| e...
| lxgr wrote:
| In terms of satellites, yes, very.
|
| In terms of independent operators, not so much. If
| Starlink goes down or ceases operations in a given region
| or to a given customer, there are few alternatives right
| now.
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Crowded? No. Littered? Perhaps, depending on the
| altitude. The article you linked says the bulk of the
| existing debris is from a few isolated incidents.
|
| These satellites are generally low enough tha their
| orbits decay after a couple years if they don't boost
| themselves, and then they burn up in the atmosphere.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Space junk is actually much _less_ of a concern in LEO
| because it's low enough that stuff de-orbits on it's own
| relatively quickly, so you don't get the long term
| accumulation that you can get in higher orbits
| cryptonector wrote:
| u/lxgr was referring to the _business_ being crowded
| /not-crowded, not LEO itself.
| ianburrell wrote:
| There is also Starlink direct-to-cell where regular phone
| can use LTE with satellites from anywhere. It looks like
| there are two other companies working on same technology.
|
| I wonder if there is a market for worldwide coverage with
| fast data without the capacity for broadband users. That
| would lower the number and capacity of satellites.
|
| Alternatively, it might be possible to do broadband with
| larger but fewer satellites instead of Starlink strategy of
| increasing capacity with more satellites. Other companies
| could save money by not having laser links and only do bent
| pipe.
| grecy wrote:
| > _I would be surprised if they can find a way to rival
| Starlink as a consumer product_
|
| They already know they can't compete on merit alone, so they'll
| go for lobbying and regulatory intervention so they can
| "compete".
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The physics of geostationary orbit make these services
| obsolete.
|
| Geostationary is a 44,000 mile round trip. So a
| request/response for a packet is 90,000 miles. Already at 1/2
| of a second latency without any actual networking because of
| the speed of light. And that is if you are on the equator.
| Another tenth or two is probably lost at middle latitudes,
| and worse for higher latitudes. So in practical situations,
| your latency is a second or more.
|
| And they can only put one satellite in one position, higher
| power to send the signal, no cheap way to replace/upgrade the
| satellite, single point of failure.
|
| They cannot compete with a flotilla of low orbit satellites
| providing multiple powers of 10 better total bandwidth.
| Especially since Starlink has demonstrated it can communicate
| with current mobile phones.
| lxgr wrote:
| On the other hand, you can put very, very beefy satellites
| into GEO and cover roughly a third of the planet using
| them.
|
| If you don't care as much about latency (and many
| applications don't, e.g. asset tracking, news broadcasting
| or forwarding etc.), GEO is still very viable.
| matt-p wrote:
| I agree, still some applications for it, but LEO is
| cheaper per terminal and per bit, so GEO will just not be
| a product (for commodity services like internet
| access/Calls) in future.
| lxgr wrote:
| > LEO is cheaper per terminal
|
| Are you sure about that? High-throughput LEO inevitably
| requires steering (whether electronic or mechanical),
| while high-throughput GEO is possible using a one-time
| adjusted dish, at least to station-kept satellites (which
| all HTS these days are, as far as I know).
|
| For mobile applications, steering is obviously required
| for both, so there GEO has less of an advantage.
|
| The Starlink dish is quite expensive, and I'm not sure if
| it's really sold at cost or whether there's some subsidy
| baked in (since it's only usable with their service
| anyway).
| matt-p wrote:
| Yes, I am.
|
| More complicated, yes, but produced at much, much higher
| volume. That is critical. A (year by year even more)
| niche market for applications that are ok with high
| latency, low-ish bandwidth and are stationary will not
| support proper volume production. Meanwhile the biggest
| LEO operators will building potentially millions of
| units.
|
| If you only care about low bandwidth, with LEO you
| potentially don't even need a satellite terminal e.g look
| at starlink Direct to Cell, the physics about steering
| matter less in the case of low bandwidth since you can
| run a separate service on different frequencies with
| better radio characteristics.
| lofenfew wrote:
| You need to get a technician out to adjust the dish with
| GEO. With starlink, you just plop it on the ground
| somewhere.
| lxgr wrote:
| They don't necessarily need to.
|
| There's big money in commercial aviation and shipping
| connectivity (Intelsat is effectively the successor of Gogo
| inflight wireless for many US airlines), to say nothing of
| government/military contracts.
|
| Offering a Starlink competitor not subject to the whims of a
| somewhat notorious CEO might just be a compelling value
| proposition to some parties.
|
| Don't forget that without the US DOD as a customer, Iridium
| would have been deorbited less than a year after its original
| satellite launches!
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I'm not particularly a fan of Musk, but I would perceive
| switching contracts from Starlink to this consortium as
| likely political influence in what should be an apolitical
| process.
|
| Similar to what has been happening recently with the FCC's
| rural broadband program - where Starlink, in my view, is
| likely being punished by the government for Musk's
| outspokenness.
| spankalee wrote:
| > Musk's outspokenness
|
| It's far more than just "outspokenness"
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What is it then? And at what point does it justify
| governmental retaliation in awarding contracts?
| kbenson wrote:
| Market manipulation? Stupidity? In any case, it doesn't
| have to be political to want to avoid possible problems
| from a CEO that keeps running afoul of regulatory
| requirements, whether accidentally or purposefully.
|
| https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-219
| whimsicalism wrote:
| That Musk tweets stupid things that triggered SEC
| intervention in his running of Tesla seems irrelevant to
| whether Starlink is the best fit for rural connectivity.
| kbenson wrote:
| Am I to take your stance as "whether CEO shows poor
| decision making with regard to regulatory authorities in
| his role as CEO is irrelevant to whether his role as a
| CEO at a company should affect how people assess long-
| term suitability of products they offer which happen to
| be highly regulated.", or is it something else?
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I thought the point where he said his conversations with
| the Russians informed his decision to not allow the
| Ukrainians to attack Crimea probably got the Pentagon's
| attention.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Musk does not have control over "allowing the Ukrainians
| to attack Crimea" but is also under no obligation to
| provide services from his civilian company to foreign
| militaries.
|
| I would be personally pissed as a rural broadband user if
| machinations about a conflict in Eastern Europe was the
| reason I was getting subpar telecom service in Tennessee.
| edgyquant wrote:
| No matter your thoughts on the matter Musk is an American
| citizen and is allowed to be pro-Russia, pro-China or any
| other opinion he perceives is correct. The government
| also can't punish him for having these opinions nor can
| it force a private company to work with a foreign power.
| lxgr wrote:
| I don't think it's a political statement to want to have
| redundancy from Starlink. Quite the opposite, it seems only
| pragmatic.
|
| To many parties concerned about very high availability,
| (geo)politics are ultimately just another source of risk,
| and I think it's fair to say that Elon isn't known for
| being a de-risking factor, political or otherwise.
|
| For example, what happens to Starlink when SpaceX, for
| whatever reason, decides to rededicate its launch capacity
| to other projects? Cheap launch capacity is the lifeblood
| of the Starlink constellation (the satellites are designed
| to be replaced much more frequently than other LEO
| competitors' such as Iridium or Globalstar).
|
| As a government other than the US, are you sure your
| contracts that might compel SpaceX to deliver that launch
| capacity (assuming you managed to get them in the first
| place) are ironclad? Do you have the deep pockets and
| political will for an inter-jurisdictional lawsuit?
|
| Just betting a few chips on a competitor, even if they're
| less viable than Starlink, just seems like prudent risk
| mitigation (and I say that as a fan of what Starlink is
| doing!)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > I don't think it's a political statement to want to
| have redundancy from Starlink. Quite the opposite, it
| seems only pragmatic.
|
| Yes, competition is good.
|
| > Elon isn't known for being a de-risking factor,
| political or otherwise.
|
| The government should not be awarding contracts because
| it 'de-risks' them politically. They should be writing
| better contracts for the specific thing they want.
|
| Speech-conditioned funding is clearly afoul of the 1st
| amendment and related precedent, even if you dress it up
| in 'de-risking' language. And, as a society, we have to
| be very wary of how we run contract processes because
| this is one of the easiest ways for corruption to get its
| foot in the door.
|
| > As a government other than the US
|
| I've clearly been speaking from the perspective of the US
| this whole time (and the US clearly does have the
| pockets). Most other countries don't even really have
| free speech protections like the US does, so their
| problems are deeper.
|
| > SpaceX, for whatever reason, decides to rededicate its
| launch capacity to other projects?
|
| Violation of contract? Most of these competitors are
| using SpaceX launch capacity as well - given that it is
| 90% of all launch capacity globally.
| lxgr wrote:
| > Violation of contract?
|
| Lawsuits take time and money, and I think having a
| slightly higher-orbit LEO constellation under independent
| operational control could provide a fallback that many
| governments and commercial customers would be willing to
| pay good money for.
|
| > Most of these competitors are likely using SpaceX
| launch capacity as well
|
| That's a fair point, but there are ultimately
| alternatives, even if they might be non-competitive in
| terms of cost right now. It'd ultimately only be a
| backup, after all.
|
| > Speech-conditioned funding is clearly afoul of the 1st
| amendment and related precedent
|
| I was thinking primarily non-US government customers, so
| the first amendment has no bearing there. I'm pretty sure
| that the DOD has better ways to compel Elon to not shut
| off Starlink than e.g. the EU or an Asian government, so
| to them, that redundancy is probably less valuable.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yeah I edited my comment to reflect the US-focus (given
| that is what GP was discussing as well).
|
| This matters for the US because of the strong free speech
| protections here. Most EU countries & most Asian
| countries do not have similar strength of protections.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| The issue is Starlink is run by a political actor. Elon was
| using his Starlink leverage to try to affect US foreign
| policy.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-
| sha...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Which is why they denied FCC rural broadband funding to
| Starlink?
|
| The US government never had a contract with Starlink for
| Ukraine war usage. It does not seem to me like a
| reasonable expectation that a civilian company provide
| services for conducting a foreign war - nor that they be
| punished in unrelated contracts for refusing to do so.
|
| Companies are permissibly _allowed to be run by actors
| with political interests_. By contrast, the government
| should not be making contracting decisions for political
| /speech reasons.
| maliker wrote:
| My read of the rural broadband decision is that
| terrestrial broadband providers lobbied hard to get
| Starlink thrown out on a technically (not enough
| bandwidth).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It is only a party-line decision because of Musk's
| politics. Democrats aren't more susceptible to lobbying.
|
| To me it is clear that we are returning to the politics
| of the 20th century (ie. flexing regulatory arms to
| punish speech/actions we don't like). It makes sense - we
| really only had a brief respite from that from the 90s
| until ~2016 or so.
| cozzyd wrote:
| There are also things starlink refuses to do (e.g. static
| ips) that make it a nonstarter for certain things (yes, you
| can reverse ssh tunnel, which is what will do on our balloon
| payload, but they may randomly disable it at any point based
| on traffic pattern analysis).
| lxgr wrote:
| They support static(-ish) IPv4s now on some plans: https://
| support.starlink.com/?topic=1192f3ef-2a17-31d9-261a-...
|
| Public IPv6 seems to be available on all plans now,
| according to the same article.
|
| Together with DDNS, that should probably be good enough for
| many applications.
| sqeaky wrote:
| Somewhat?!
|
| Dude is a walking scandal machine. They make bumper stickers
| for tesla owners apologizing for Musk's behavior. His
| behavior is listed in the risk category for at least one of
| his company's financial filings.
|
| Only the most extremely tech oriented people see him as
| something other that extremely toxic.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| He has a billion kids and many divorces and out of wedlock
| kids... is that the controversy? Or is it that he questions
| the narrative? If someone stops virtue signalling, are they
| no longer worthy of praise? So no one can be themselves?
|
| Other than that he
|
| * kept twitter running on a staff 1/5 the size
|
| * created the only high speed internet that is available
| globally
|
| * has completely taken over the EV market. I don't agree
| with the FSD stuff, that is killing people.
| nxobject wrote:
| I mean, there isn't much ambiguity here. The tech press
| is perfectly happy to dish out clear criticism of his
| work: the controversy is how he constantly undermines his
| companies' achievements and their ability to function.
| (For example, the fact that Tesla's layoffs seem to be
| touching the Supercharger teams is incomprehensible to
| me, since they seem to be a source of revenue and value
| completely unconnected to the fate of Musk-driven product
| ideas.)
| panick21_ wrote:
| I'm sure airlines are totally scared of Musk and what if
| somehow the whole constellation falls out of the sky because
| of a tweet, then people couldn't watch netflix. Lets pay 3x
| as much because of Musk.
|
| For government this is more of a reason.
|
| But they aren't the first to think of the 'be the best Nr.2
| strategy'. There are already multiple companies trying to do
| exactly that. Including Amazon, OneWeb and many others.
|
| And arguable, many of those are better position then SES too.
| Dig1t wrote:
| >Founded in 1964 as an intergovernmental organization
|
| >It became a private company in 2001, then went public in 2013
| before filing for bankruptcy in 2020.
|
| Definitely agree about it sounding stodgy.
| billfruit wrote:
| Yes, it will be more interesting when Viasat or Thales will be
| doing something in this space. Viasat seems to be on the path
| to building larger and larger satellites in geosynchronous
| orbit.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I've used Viasat before and geosynchronous is never going to
| be satisfactory. The satellites are too far away and
| consequently the latency is terrible (on the order of
| 500-1000 ms). It cannot be a viable competitor on that basis
| alone.
|
| I've also had starlink but it was relatively early days and
| even though the speed and latency were great, every time
| there wasn't a satellite cluster in view the internet would
| drop out for up to 15 seconds at a time. Also Viasat seemed
| to work even if it was cloudy if I remember correctly but
| starlink did not.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I was stuck with Viasat for two years. Not only is the
| latency horribly like you describe, but they were
| _consistently_ at least one OOM away from the speeds I was
| paying for. I'm pretty sure that, in those 2 years, I
| _never_ saw the advertised speed.
| wrigby wrote:
| In a lot of ways, I think this is an accurate take. I worked at
| SES for years, starting at NewSkies Networks (I was there
| through the SES acquisition when they merged us with Americom),
| then a second stint at O3b (just before SES fully bought the
| controlling stake). My take may be a little short-sighted, as I
| was really young at the time.
|
| The thing that struck me is that they operated more like real-
| estate investors than tech companies. Geostationary satellite
| technology had remained largely unchanged for a couple decades,
| so these companies were engaged in the business of:
|
| - Obtaining real estate (an orbital slot) - Putting a big,
| expensive, largely commoditized[1] asset on that real estate -
| Operating that asset as efficiently as possible to achieve a
| good ROI
|
| This meant that the executives were often stronger at things
| like financing hundred-million dollar purchasing projects (a
| huge skill on its own) and running a skeleton technical
| operations staff (to keep OpEx down), but lacked the foresight
| to see what the Internet meant for their product relevance.
|
| 1: Of course something as technically complex as a spacecraft
| isn't a commodity, but there was largely no differentiator in
| what it _did_: receiving, shifting, and re-transmitting analog
| RF signals, almost always in 36 MHz and 72 MHz wide chunks. You
| could buy one from Thales, Lockheed, Boeing, etc., but to the
| operator's customers, they all basically looked the same.
| kiba wrote:
| An orbit is basically real estate and probably should be
| treated as such.
| breckenedge wrote:
| These are service providers, not rent seekers. By focusing
| on OpEx above all else, they missed an opportunity to build
| starlink first. They were doing the right thing as long as
| nothing ever changed. Now they're forced to consolidate
| further and are probably going to disappear.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This would only apply if they decided to expand into LEO
| or MEO.
|
| But if the board decided to stick to Geostationary orbit,
| they were doing the smart thing by treating it like a
| real estate business. Because it is literally real
| estate.
| breckenedge wrote:
| If space-based telecom moves from GEO to LEO, then
| there's no reason for GEO telecoms to exist anymore.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| The real estate would still be worth quite a bit, so even
| in the worst case they will just move on to be literal
| real estate holding companies.
| Gare wrote:
| Satellite TV is probably not going away anytime soon.
| wrigby wrote:
| Yes and no. They also dragged their feet on high-
| throughput Ka-band spacecraft with smaller spot beams.
| ViaSat built and launched ViaSat-1 while SES was still
| ordering satellites designed around analog video
| broadcast.
|
| In the terrestrial real-estate analogy, this seems to me
| like missing out on potential returns because you built
| the wrong type of building on the land you own.
| panick21_ wrote:
| That just saying that 'in this massive growth market, we
| are totally ok with losing the waste majority of market
| share until we are mostly irrelevant'.
| dylan604 wrote:
| My real estate doesn't move though. So while maybe
| applicable to a GEO stationary orbit, it doesn't really fit
| LEO oribts.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Orbits themselves don't move, they're time-invariant
| (short term, but so is the ground). Six numbers are all
| it takes to define an orbit; if you put something on it,
| it stays there and blocks it off - like building on a
| plot of land.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Yes. But Tesla turned it into a competition between a
| company that invests in real estate and a company that
| operates highly profitable stores on the real estate.
|
| The product they sell is a highly complex product that took
| half a decade of development and substantial upfront
| investment in technology and organization.
|
| The difference here is that SES has to get up front
| investment to buy productive asset that could then make
| money. The never had to do a huge up front investment in
| technology, including a whole butt-load of very complex
| very unique hardware and software.
|
| And that's not enough, because the terminals are just as
| big a part of having a functional LEO platform as the sats
| are. And that again requires a very complex development and
| a very large upfront investment in production.
|
| Literally non of this stuff, neither the rocket, nor the
| sats, nor the operations, nor the terminals are a commodity
| in any sense.
|
| You can go to a space company and ask to buy some
| propulsion for such a sat, no problem. But if you tell them
| 'we would like to buy 5000' your gone get back blank
| stares. Nobody just has something like that just laying
| around. And then you go down the line of every single part
| on the sat, no provider actually has the capabilities you
| need, and your gone have to get involved with financing all
| of that at least partially.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| Actually Space Law is pretty wild, it's a whole thing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law
| talldayo wrote:
| Agreed - I used to be a Hughesnet customer before switching
| to Starlink. It's genuinely incomprehensible how slow
| satellite internet is for the price; stuff like Starlink is a
| long-overdue kick in the pants to these satellite providers.
|
| Say what you will about Elon et. al, it's probably true. But
| Starlink is a killer tool for people that live where Comcast
| and AT&T refuse to build lines. It's a much better deal
| (infinite bandwidth versus metered) and a no-brainer for
| anyone that's still paying for expensive, stodgy satnet.
| carabiner wrote:
| Seriously. It's like two taxi companies joining to fight Uber.
| Or JC Penney and Sears tackling Amazon. 1 + 1 = 0 in this case.
| hehdhdjehehegwv wrote:
| Hey, maybe Elon will get too high and lay off the entire
| Starlink division at 2am tomorrow. Who knows!
| apercu wrote:
| Surprised me that that an article about LEO satellites offering
| commercial services doesn't include Iridium (which may still even
| have two networks, the original Motorola satellites and the
| (Thales) NEXT satellites (that were launched by Spacex, starting
| in something like 2017, if they haven't run out of fuel by now).
|
| Maybe 60-70 satellites is too small to qualify?
| jpm_sd wrote:
| Starlink is offering 100x-1000x higher bit rates, depending on
| which Iridium service we're talking about. It's not really a
| direct competition.
| lxgr wrote:
| The original Iridium fleet was deorbited once the NEXT one
| became operational.
|
| And Iridium is in a very different market segment than OneWeb,
| Starlink (currently anyway), O3B etc. - they're in the L-band,
| which allows handheld terminals or very small (i.e. low drag),
| non-steered/beamformed (i.e. cheap) vehicle antennas, but also
| severely limits bandwidth.
|
| Starlink might shake up that space a bit with their direct-to-
| cell plans, but they don't have the global spectrum, nor the
| international landing rights or safety-of-life certifications
| required to be a viable competitor to somebody like Iridium or
| even Inmarsat in that space.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| > giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to counter
| Starlink
|
| Sounds promising..
|
| > The acquisition will create a combined company boasting a fleet
| of some 100 multi-ton satellites in geostationary orbit, a ring
| of spacecraft located more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000
| kilometers) over the equator. This will be more than twice the
| size of the fleet of the next-largest commercial geostationary
| satellite operator.
|
| Huh?
|
| > SES, based in Luxembourg
|
| Right, the European technological thought
|
| From Investopedia:
|
| > A mature industry may be at its peak or just past it but not
| yet in the decline phase. While earnings may be stable, growth
| prospects are few and far between as the remaining companies
| consolidate market share and create barriers for new competitors
| to enter the sphere
|
| All good but it has nothing to do with Starlink.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| > giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to
| counter Starlink >> Sounds promising..
|
| This is hilarious to me - because the incumbent players in the
| satellite networking business were slow, anti-competitive
| dinosaurs.
|
| They were the ones who needed to be "countered" with something
| that was/is; - cost-effective - low-latency - high-bandwidth
|
| They had decades of essentially monopolistic ownership of this
| "space" and failed to innovate.
|
| For as much as I dislike a certain billionaire - SpaceX is
| doing what all the other incumbent players did not - and
| honestly that sounds far more promising than dinosaurs merging
| with each other.
| lxgr wrote:
| Apples and oranges comparison.
|
| Intelsat and SES are mostly GEO players, and that market is
| extremely competitive. It's just not great for many
| interactive use cases due to its latency. (SES does own O3B,
| which is MEO, but it seems to be somewhat of a niche player.)
|
| LEO constellations used to be prohibitively expensive until
| SpaceX brought the cost per launch down massively.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Pesky free market working as intended! How dare it!
|
| But on topic, I remain cautiously optimistic even though I don't
| seriously think they will pull it off. I mean they technically
| likely can but are very likely to ask nasty prices.
| drlemonpepper wrote:
| Is Starlink going to suffer the same fate as Tesla and X? Willy-
| nilly org thrashing and "removing 10% of features"?
|
| Is there a better alternative to "the one to beat" spending
| unsustainably, only to fail once all competitors are too far
| behind to stay viable?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > same fate as Tesla
|
| You mean it's obliterating traditional western competitors but
| facing stiff competition from China?
| neogodless wrote:
| Define "obliterating"?
|
| While the Model Y is doing great (global top seller, #5 in
| U.S. for 2023) it's just one model. If you look at the U.S.
| total auto sales in 2023, Tesla accounted for 7% of the Top
| 25 best selling models, while the five brands that did better
| accounted for a combined 67% (and those brands include Ford,
| Chevrolet and Ram.)
|
| Tesla's bet is that just a few models with minimal changes
| over time (outside of software) will be enough to
| "obliterate" the existing car sales model of making a wide
| enough variety of vehicle models for everyone's tastes, and
| keeping those models fresh and new to keep sales going. Time
| will tell, but it would be surprising for the Western
| companies to be obliterated, when their top sellers are still
| pickup trucks (750K F-series sold in 2023), and there's no
| competition from Tesla (unless you count the 4000
| Cybertrucks.)
| rifty wrote:
| You could say it's the living results of that fate already.
|
| Here's an HN discussion about firing the leads of Starlink[1]
| early in development (2018). And another in the following year
| laying off 10% of the workforce[2] (2019).
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18349991
|
| 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18888641
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I think we've seen this before. There was a time when we saw
| headlines like this but speaking of Netflix. Now Netflix is shit,
| there are dozens of overpriced streaming alternatives and the
| promise of something different and better has been forgotten
| entirely.
| lxgr wrote:
| I don't think that's a valid comparison: VOD streaming services
| have exclusive content deals, making subscriptions extremely
| non-fungible. (You can't watch "Stranger Things" on Max or
| "Succession" on Netflix, not even on the gold-plated-platinum
| plan.)
|
| On the other hand, Internet connectivity (net neutrality
| violations nonwithstanding) is extremely fungible, and
| satellites have the advantage of not requiring complex
| terrestrial infrastructure, unlike e.g. cable or cell
| operators.
|
| The only thing tying you to a given constellation or satellite
| ISP is possibly your antenna and/or terminal, and looking at
| the aviation space, we're already seeing some interoperable
| solutions giving airlines interoperability between vendors.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| > I don't think that's a valid comparison:
|
| Netflix not only had technology no one else had (at that
| time), but an innovative business model that hinted that it
| might provide something to its customers that no one else had
| ever offered to anyone outside of science fiction: the
| world's entire video library, on demand.
|
| Instead though, we get the equivalent of a thousand channels
| of cable tv, all paid for individually, all overpriced, all
| artificially restricted. You get that right, Netflix takes
| shows off its catalog because the contracts ran out, but when
| CBS+ or whatever it's called now takes shows off its roster,
| they're just doing it to be assholes.
|
| Compare this to Starlink's promise. Tens of thousands of low
| orbit satellites, providing cheap, low latency, high speed
| data anywhere on Earth. Tom Hanks wakes up on the uninhabited
| sandbar in the middle of the Pacific, takes his cellphone out
| of the ziplock plastic bag, calls his girlfriend and tells
| her "get me the fuck out of here". The End.
|
| They might yet hold onto it, you can hardly do even a half-
| assed Starliink without SpaceX's launch capability. But what
| we might have in 10 years scares me. Incomplete
| constellations because they're squabbling over orbital slots,
| monopolies and carve-outs through politics, Verizon refusing
| to let the iPhones it sells to customers access Starlink,
| instead locking it to Bezos' own Blue Dildo satellite
| network.
|
| It's just not the sort of competition people envision, I
| think, when they're imagining how competition lowers prices
| and raises quality. It's just big corporations sabotaging
| their rivals (and the rivals' customers) through meddling and
| politics.
| wbl wrote:
| 1999 called you over Iridium.
| sib wrote:
| >> Netflix not only had technology no one else had (at that
| time), but an innovative business model that hinted that it
| might provide something to its customers that no one else
| had ever offered to anyone outside of science fiction: the
| world's entire video library, on demand.
|
| What tech was that? Netflix was not the first to stream
| professionally-produced video content (or even that content
| in high-quality / HD video) over the internet. Are you
| referring to recommendation algorithms?
|
| And, as far as the library goes, Netflix streaming video
| never had, and never intended on having, all content. In
| fact, their library was quite small, precisely because of
| their subscription business model. The cost structure and
| licensing regimes would never support it.
|
| Agree that Starlink is something else. Hopefully the
| meddling doesn't mess it up.
| dataengineer56 wrote:
| It's worth saying that Ars Technica has an extremely anti-Musk
| viewpoint and often publishes articles targeted against him and
| his companies. As others have pointed out, these two companies
| merging is unlikely to rival Starlink and the article may be
| mostly wishful thinking.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Not really in Space. Eric Berger is very pro Space, so much so
| that he is very often accused of being a SpaceX fanboy and
| other things.
|
| He has written a book about SpaceX and has good relationship
| with SpaceX and Musk.
|
| He is the Senior Editor for Space.
| lxgr wrote:
| They're absolutely competing with Starlink.
|
| SES operates, among many other satellites, the O3B fleet, a MEO
| constellation providing high-throughput, low (compared to GEO)
| latency data connections for marine, aviation, and defense
| users.
|
| Intelsat has a partnership with OneWeb (itself owned by
| Eutelsat), a direct Starlink competitor in LEO. Intelsat also
| runs most of what used to be Gogo inflight (the satellite part
| of it anyway) for several US and international airlines.
|
| Just looking at the commercial aviation market (i.e. in-flight
| Wi-Fi), between their deployed GEO, MEO, and LEO solutions,
| they serve a significant fraction of the market today.
| adolph wrote:
| OneWeb is at 634 satellites as of 2023 and hasn't had a
| launch since. Starlink has 10x that number. They may be
| competing but that isn't competitive. Before I looked just
| now I thought they had more in flight.
|
| https://oneweb.net/resources/launch-programme
|
| https://spaceflightnow.com/?s=oneweb
| wil421 wrote:
| They have a balance between "look at what Elon did now" and
| positive takes on Elon's next big thing type stuff. The problem
| is post-Twitter Elon is grabbing headlines for the wrong
| reasons.
| nba456_ wrote:
| Ars constantly gushes over SpaceX.
| reddog wrote:
| Two giants of the buggy whip industry join forces to counter the
| railroads.
| blackhaz wrote:
| That's exactly what is happening.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, just like in your example, both alternatives aren't
| exactly equivalent and have different benefits.
| sealthedeal wrote:
| Not to be to conspiracy theory, but I just don't trust these
| types of companies with supplying satellite internet to the
| world. Something about Musks Free Speech, anti big gov, while at
| the same time effectively being one of the largest government
| contractors makes me trust him. And as im writing this im
| realizing how much I now don't trust him or anyone anymore
| lolol...
| ogtms wrote:
| The merger is to get rid of the lawsuit from Intelsat regarding
| the 5G frequency clearing in which SES got scammed by Intelsat
| last minute.
|
| next gen o3b m-power satellites are already broken and delayed:
| https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ses-o3b-mpower-sa...
|
| 99% of SES Profits come from their legacy Video (satellite tv)
| business
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| join forces to counter Starlink = more like: M&A leftover the
| space industry players
|
| Doesn't look like they could counter starlink in anyway anytime
| soon
| rapsey wrote:
| These companies just circling the drain.
| Dig1t wrote:
| These companies are not offering a competitor to Starlink and it
| doesn't sound like they plan to.. MEO has latency that is 3X
| higher than LEO, these are not going to be useful for the same
| things.
|
| I read this article the opposite way, it seems this is just a big
| merger in the industry which will mean less competition.
|
| Also mentioned in the article:
|
| >Viasat [...] last year purchased Inmarsat
|
| I didn't know this happened, but that's another example of a big
| merger reducing competition.
|
| This article seems like some positive spin on an event that would
| otherwise be construed as bad for customers and the industry as a
| whole.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| This is just two companies going for a monopoly that would
| otherwise have been investigated. Now they can point at Starlink
| and say "look, competition!" While they fuck their customers.
| mjlee wrote:
| They're not the only ones, Amazon is working on Project Kuiper.
|
| "Project Kuiper is an initiative to increase global broadband
| access through a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth
| orbit (LEO). Its mission is to bring fast, affordable broadband
| to unserved and underserved communities around the world."
|
| https://www.aboutamazon.com/what-we-do/devices-services/proj...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-05-01 23:02 UTC)