[kortilla]

> The datacenter thing is mostly just a meme that billionaires say because it makes them feel smart and gets them media attention, it doesn't seem to move stock significantly.

A significant portion of their valuation is based on this. The spacex private stock price moved significantly based on this data center narrative.

> And for what it concerns shareholders, a strictly worse one than a conventional ISP.

This is ignorance. There is absolutely zero meaningful competition to Starlink in the maritime, aviation, and remote internet markets. 150mbps down with <80ms latency isn’t impressive in a city but it’s mind blowing on an airplane 1000 miles from land.

> The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.

No they aren’t. The only somewhat credible competitor so far is Amazon Kuiper(Leo) and they are still nascent.

You also forgot starshield.

[SlinkyOnStairs]

> There is absolutely zero meaningful competition to Starlink in the maritime, aviation, and remote internet markets.

There are roughly 100,000 ships at sea. There are roughly 15,000 planes in the sky.

The remote internet markets are remote because either A) exceedingly few people live there, or B) exceedingly poor people live there. (And usually, both at the same time)

This just isn't a big market. That's why the telecom giants haven't bothered. To justify a trillion dollar valuation you're gonna need a billion users. SpaceX would be better off putting fiber into the ground in Africa.

[kortilla]

> There are roughly 100,000 ships at sea. There are roughly 15,000 planes in the sky.

That’s pretty great for price range of $500-$2000/mo.

> The remote internet markets are remote because either A) exceedingly few people live there, or B) exceedingly poor people live there. (And usually, both at the same time)

This is incorrect. Its usually just places people live that are difficult to reach with good telecom infrastructure because of lower income and/or lack of a good business infrastructure for internet. This includes the US that was frequently over capacity on Starlink in essentially the entire southeastern US for over a year when I was trying to get it there early on.

I suspect you don’t realize that “cell phone coverage” != “good internet”. You usually only need to go about 10-20 miles out of town before all fiber/DSL/cable evaporates. The cell coverage in an area like that isn’t the good kind you get in the city. You’ll get 5-10mbps down and brutal data caps.

Starlink is popular in the Philippines, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, and even Europe for a reason.

> That's why the telecom giants haven't bothered.

Telecom giants can’t bother because their costs don’t scale the right way due to tech limitations. A LEO sat can provide coverage in remote/sparse places AND coverage in denser money making places all in one orbit. A fiber on the other hand can’t serve the Aleutian chain and then the Congo 15 minutes later.

> To justify a trillion dollar valuation you're gonna need a billion users.

No you don’t. I think you ignored the part of my message about a significant portion of the valuation being from datacenters in space (a yet unproven market).

> SpaceX would be better off putting fiber into the ground in Africa.

No they wouldn’t. This doesn’t work. I recommend you look up why this has failed every time so far and why Africa is served by undersea cables to coastal cities.

Fiber is terrible for places with poor infrastructure. If there aren’t people adequately maintaining a power grid, there sure as hell aren’t people to maintain even more delicate fiber and required last mile infrastructure.

[Topfi]

>> The EU is even building their own Starlink equivalent.

> No they aren’t.

That’s exactly what IRIS [0] is though…

[0] https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-space/iris2-s...

[kortilla]

IRIS is a 290 sat constellation that doesn’t have any proven sats in orbit or a user terminal. The capacity even if they deliver what they claim on paper is not a Starlink equivalent.

The tyranny of being in MEO/LEO is that your sats are not overhead at least half of the time.

Lower capacity, higher latency, and worse coverage makes it more of a viasat improvement than anything like a starlink equivalent.

They fumbled by not trying to provide global coverage.