[survirtual]

They are not comparable.

Starlink offers highspeed (actually, not marketing gibberish), low latency internet around the world at a price people can actually afford and without unreasonable datacaps. This is possible because they are mass producing phased array antennas, something that was out of reach of common affordability before Starlink.

Starlink is comparable to Iridium like dial-up internet is comparable to fiber. Just go to Iridium's website and try to figure out what they actually sell to anyone who doesn't have elite pockets.

[gamblor956]

something that was out of reach of common affordability before Starlink.

True, but Starlink isn't what made phased array antennas affordable. The affordability of phased array antennas is what made Starlink financially feasible.

When the Iridium constellations were launched in the 1990s, the commercial phased array antennas in use today had not yet been invented. When the second-generation satellites were designed in the 2010s, phase array antennas were not yet commercially available, and did not become commercially available until around the same time that the 2nd-gen satellites were launched.

[inemesitaffia]

There's no phased array antennas anywhere near even today.

SpaceX was willing to sink over 3 billion into phased array r&d to make it happen.

Also tech from Broadcom and ST Micro

[xondono]

> There's no phased array antennas anywhere near even today.

Wait what? Where's your source for that? Because phased array antennas were used on lots of 4G networks and are one of the cornerstones of 5G.

There where some PAA in deployment when I was in college almost two decades ago.

[FireBeyond]

> Just go to Iridium's website and try to figure out what they actually sell to anyone who doesn't have elite pockets.

You should check out the proposed pricing for Starlink's maritime and aviation offerings...

Marine is a $10K one-time fee plus $5K/month.

Aviation, $150K plus $25K/month.

[inemesitaffia]

They are the low cost provider in both markets.

I'm sure you can get starlink at sea for around $1k per month

[Ancalagon]

nit: technically the comparison should have been 'Iridium is comparable to Starlink like dial-up is comparable to fiber'

You align the element order to what is actually being compared. Just pointing that out for any other non-native English speakers.