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by matthewdgreen 1011 days ago
If Starlink subscribers are (eventually) paying for the non-government for-profit side of launch services (and there is at least one competing network being built to compete with it), what are the economics of that project? How many customers can be served by satellites like these, and how much do you have to charge each customer to make those systems profitable?

ETA: I know a simple answer is something like “all residential broadband use” but I assume in practice there are some technical limits that cap the number of customers/bandwidth that can be delivered.
2 comments
daedalus_j 1011 days ago
There's a lot of customers still to be served, especially once you have laser-comm interlink between the satellites. Currently a user has to have a view of a satellite that has a view of a ground-downlink station. Once that limitation is gone it opens up lots of things, like middle of the ocean airplane links, etc.

Plus with laser interconnects they can actually beat fiber optic speed for cross-continent or cross-ocean back haul. (speed of light in vaccum, with fewer switches)

There's a lot of use-cases. I bet on them being able to make money long term.

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solarkraft 1010 days ago
> Plus with laser interconnects they can actually beat fiber optic speed for cross-continent or cross-ocean back haul. (speed of light in vaccum, with fewer switches)

This sounds boring at first - I don't think any consumer really needs that. But high frequency traders will probably pay quite a lot for it.

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Kirby64 1010 days ago
High frequency traders don't need this, they colocate at the actual exchange. Going up to space and back is already way more latency than they current have.

What it does do, however, is cut latency across the globe... which can be meaningful for any real time communication. Stuff like voice chat or video calls has meaningful latency if you're going across continents. If that's shaved down even marginally it has a meaningful impact on the user experience.

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matthewdgreen 1010 days ago
I have no doubt they'll find users. I'm just wondering at what point usage runs into spectrum limits.
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jaywee 1011 days ago
In May SpaceX reported they have 1.5M subscribers. At $100/month, that's $1.8B/year revenue. Not bad.
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