[davidlumley]

Private corporations owning more and more utility infrastructure really concerns me.

Is there a world where nations band together and launch this as public infrastructure rather than private corporations lobbying a USA government agency for permission?

[maheart]

Sorry, but I don't agree with your premise in this case. How is adding another competitor a bad thing? If Amazon offers Internet via LEO satellites, and SpaceX does the same, and you have your regular telecoms using copper lines, and some wireless carriers offering 4G, and perhaps some community operators offering wireless -- how is all of this competition worse than a utility being provided by the government, which has absolutely no incentive to compete -- and can by law stop new entrants into the market?

[kodz4]

Get specific about the concern, otherwise it's easy to get afraid about everything.

Govt's hardly own telecom infra, it's all in private hands. And when orgs get too big for their boots, things like this happen- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

[davidlumley]

> Get specific about the concern, otherwise it's easy to get afraid about everything.

There are many reasons to be afraid about a private corporation from a country with little regulation providing a utility to areas with no other choice.

If Amazon was sponsoring this, that's one thing, but them owning the network raises red flags for me surrounding: 1) Privacy 2) The potential for anti competitive practices 3) Quality of service / expected lifetime of service

I simply don't trust Amazon (or any other large private company) to do anything else than look out for their bottom line when push comes to shove.

> Govt's hardly own telecom infra, it's all in private hands

I'm old enough to remember when Australia did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstra#Privatisation

Since Telstra was privatised, any impetus to upgrade Australia's struggling networks has gone out the window and when they do end up upgrading capacity, it is usually as part of a Government project. All in all, tax payers still foot the bill to improve utilities while a private company furthers their monopoly.

[jimmaswell]

Privacy: NSA already exists

Competitive practices: there are laws for that, and it's going to be competing with Elon's

Quality of service: if it stinks then people won't subscribe to it, and it's going to be competing with Elon's

[noir_lord]

Same thing happened in the UK with BT.

Usual privatise the profits, socialise the costs.

[rayiner]

This is false. When BT was privatized, the UK government sold the shares and collected the proceeds. That’s not “socializing the costs” any more than in any other divestiture transaction.

Additionally, these companies went from requiring huge operating subsidies to becoming net contributors to the exchequer through paying taxes: https://www.cps.org.uk/research/the-performance-of-privatisa....

> When the Conservatives came to power in 1979, the major nationalised companies were receiving large sums of taxpayers’ money. NERA’s report reveals that in the year to March 1980, the 33 companies it examined were contributing nothing to the exchequer: in fact they absorbed a total of £483 million between them, including £1,199 million in loan finance. British Steel was one of the worst companies requiring £1,020 million in the financial year 1980/81 on a turnover of just under £3 billion (thereby earning itself a place in the Guinness Book of Records).

> This dismal state of affairs has been reversed. In 1987, the 33 companies examined by NERA contributed £8,374 million to the exchequer. Net contributions have continued at a high level in each of the last eight years.

[jessriedel]

The traditional justification for the government to own utilities is because they are a natural monopoly (e.g., the sewers), not because they are utilities. We should celebrate when technological advances changing things that previously were natural monopolies into competitive markets, like satellite internet.

At the very least, this has to be be better than the terribly regulated private monopolies we see in the stagnant, captive-audience-holding cable internet industry.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

It could be argued satellite internet is also a natural monopoly / duopoly.

How many n-thousand satellite networks can there be?

How many companies / countries can afford to launch n-thousand satellites?

[jessriedel]

There can be a lot. Given the immense volume above Earth, satellite collisions are only a worry because of the speeds that satellites travel and the current difficulty with coordinating them. As the technology for satellite coordination improves (tracking, low-propellent maneuvering, etc), the number of satellites that can fit will keep rising for a long time.

[londons_explore]

Geostationary orbit is a good example.

There, every satellite is following the exact same orbit, but different positions around it. There are 500+ satellites on it.

Now imagine how many possible orbits there are. If we could locate satellites accurately enough, we could give every 1 meter shell of altitude to another 500 satellites, giving us 2500000000 between earth and geostationary orbit.

[jessriedel]

The fact that there are only O(10^3) satellites in geostationary orbit is (I believe) mostly a limitation of ground antenna pointing accuracy than collision risk. There are many, many miles between each satellite along the arc.

[dmurray]

Two this year, of which one is a very young and not particularly huge company. That suggests there's room for a couple more.