×

13.7k
13.7k

Networking/TelecomSpaceX projected 20 million Starlink users by 2022—it ended up with 1 million (arstechnica.com)

submitted by CrankyBear

top 200 commentsshow 500
sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a

[–]pudds 1002 points1003 points  (118 children)

I put my parents' cabin on the wait list. They've had horrendous DSL for years, 3-5Mbps on a good day, nearly nothing on long weekends when the area is busy.

He passed because the cost of the equipment and because monthly service was 3x the price.

Last winter a local fibre ISP came in and I'm sure everyone who did sign up for Starlink is now gone.

[–]pieman3141 532 points533 points  (59 children)

That's how things ought to go. Landline companies should be in competition with starlink wherever possible.

[–]pudds 135 points136 points  (43 children)

Yep for sure. It took a government grant (Canada) to make it happen though.

[–]pieman3141 56 points57 points  (27 children)

Yeah, I'm in Canada too. There's a bunch of rural folks living off the coast of BC, where I am, and getting a landline to those islands is basically impossible. Too much cost, too much resources needed, too much land, etc. etc. They basically rely on microwave towers, Shaw (that only offers goddamn 5/1 internet speeds), or Starlink. Originally, it was just Shaw, but then Starlink basically lit a fire under everybody's asses, so a bunch of grants got put through to get some microwave towers set up.

[–]Rudeboy67 12 points13 points  (18 children)

Ya I’ve been hearing about the government pouring millions into Rural High Speed internet for years. Then you look into it and they built one fibre system in Ajax, Ontario. And I’m, That’s not helping a brother out.

What about Telus 5G hub? That’s what I’m looking into. It’s a third of the price of Starlink. Probably about a third as fast, but still.

load more comments (8 replies)

    load more comments (15 replies)

      load more comments (15 replies)

        [–]Shiny_Gyrodos 43 points44 points  (5 children)

        The electric company started running a fiber optic line down our road, then stopped 2 miles from our house :/

        [–]TehWildMan_ 22 points23 points  (0 children)

        Similar story over here. Cellular carriers blanketed our area with NR towers, and suddenly we went from $65/month 5mbps DSL to $45/month 50-100mbps over NR. Starlink was a joke in comparison.

        [–]RetardedChimpanzee 44 points45 points  (2 children)

        My parents were the same way, so they were on the list. Recently the cable company ran a new fiber line and then got bought out. They now pay half what they used to for a symmetrical 500 Mbps. Instant cancel of Starlink.

        [–]mastomi 31 points32 points  (9 children)

        So, starlink mission is failed successfully.

        Their mission is to provide better internet to more rural area. And then cable provider realized that there's people willing to pay more for better and drag their fibre network.

        [–]WenMunSun 43 points44 points  (4 children)

        Wrong. The cable provider realized years ago they had a monopoly and could charge crazy high prices for shit service because there was no competition.

        Then Starlink showed up and the cable company started losing customers so they finally decided to upgrade their infrastructure to win back the customers they lost. If not for Starlink these people would still be paying $100/month for 5mbps dsl.

        [–]JamiesPond 11 points12 points  (1 child)

        And here it is, look long enough and someone posts the cold unpopular truth.

        Cable company's have been scamming and gouging for years now we have a choice.

        load more comments (2 replies)

          load more comments (4 replies)

            load more comments (38 replies)

              [–]wurtin 1458 points1459 points  (272 children)

              Kind of funny. At the same time you can understand why adoption is slow. In countries where it would do the most good, there is probably a large % that can't afford it. In countries where more people can afford it is simply more expensive and not as good as other alternatives.

              If I was in a situation where I was going to be living out in the country without broadband or fiber access, Starlink would be on the shortlist of providers that would fit my needs.

              [–]DarylMoore 584 points585 points  (181 children)

              I know quite a few Starlink users because I live in a rural part of Oregon where the only competition is Dish/Hughes or 4G. Starlink wins by a landslide.

              [–]muchcharles 383 points384 points  (125 children)

              It is definitely ideal for that situation, but to investors Musk said it was going to serve something like 10% of the global internet's core backbone traffic and he made latency claims they haven't come close to.

              [–]PensiveinNJ 428 points429 points  (98 children)

              Anything Musk says his product is going to do you have to divide by 10 just to get to a starting point.

              [–]casfacto 178 points179 points  (60 children)

              That only works if it's not made up like the hyperloop.

              [–]manhachuvosa 34 points35 points  (5 children)

              Or his robot that was announced with a dude in costume.

              [–]Elegant_Body_2153 28 points29 points  (1 child)

              That was and will always be insane. That his image didn't collapse after that is astounding.

              He is a huckster, at best. I'd argue con man. Like out of the other guys, but with tech companies instead of one ponzi scheme.

              load more comments (3 replies)

                [–]Huwbacca 118 points119 points  (47 children)

                Goddamn the hyperloop

                As stupid as the idea is on the behalf of the creator, I cannot contain my disdain for the stupidity you have to have to believe it's a good idea.

                "We made trams, but shitter, slower, affected by traffic and also causing traffic hotspots"

                It literally solves nothing lol

                [–]Modest_Idiot 51 points52 points  (31 children)

                (I just realized you may have mistaken the vegas loop (or dugout loop) with the hyperloop. What i wrote applies to the hyperloop)

                Also, the idea of transportation like the hyperloop has existed for nearly 100 years (if not for longer) and elon just said “hey look, i got this idea”. And he “open sourced” it under the hyperloop name, even though he could never have patented, or at least made proprietary, something like this anyway for many reasons, with one of them beeing what i stated above.

                Oh and every company that calls themselves hyperloop related has moved away from elons “air cushion” concept which, you guessed it, has also already existed for 100 years.

                Even if they got a system like this up and running, the cost alone would just make it unfeasable, not to mention security, wait time, technical difficulties, inflexibility etc etc

                [–]SchmoopyDoop69 49 points50 points  (2 children)

                Maybe, we should have invested more in rail, like city planners expected, as there's linear correlation between lanes on the highway with traffic.

                If you build it they will come.

                It really started way back when auto manufacturing wanted two cars in every driveway, screw that bus or tram or subway.

                Advertising/lobbying for corporate interests is the cancer in our society

                [–]sans3go 40 points41 points  (3 children)

                Dont forget he pushed for this to slow down high speed rail in california just so he can sell more teslas.

                [–]YesMan847 5 points6 points  (2 children)

                we could've had automated electric trams by now. running at double the trips as now. since it's unmanned and on electricity, the costs to run it is minimal. you can easily have it unmanned because it only needs a motion sensor in front.

                [–]I_Heart_QAnon_Tears 11 points12 points  (19 children)

                I just laugh because the moment that his ideas are shown to be impractical or nonsensical he just quietly ditches it and moves on to the next moronic idea

                [–]Mortenuit 22 points23 points  (1 child)

                That's not true. Sometimes he loudly doubles down on his moronic ideas.

                [–]OsiyoMotherFuckers 12 points13 points  (0 children)

                After accusing people of being pedophiles for calling his idea moronic.

                load more comments (17 replies)

                  load more comments (4 replies)

                    [–]Shackram_MKII 11 points12 points  (0 children)

                    It makes more sense if you understand it as a means to not have to share his commute space with the poor's.

                    load more comments (14 replies)

                      load more comments (6 replies)

                        [–]wind_up_birb 24 points25 points  (1 child)

                        Except for construction tolerances. For those you need to multiply.

                        [–]chanjitsu 14 points15 points  (0 children)

                        If you divide the 20 million projected users by 10 you'd still be short a million lol

                        [–]Malusch 35 points36 points  (26 children)

                        He's been promising self driving Teslas "Next year" since 2014, so I guess that means we might see them in 2025 if we're lucky.

                        [–]spiritbx 23 points24 points  (3 children)

                        They are scheduled to come out right after Jesus returns, which is 'any day now', just like it has been the past thousands of years.

                        load more comments (20 replies)

                          load more comments (7 replies)

                            [–]thelastpelican 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                            As someone whose only option in the middle of nowhere for 3 years was Starlink, I would never use it if there was ANY viable alternative including bad cell service.

                            load more comments (25 replies)

                              [–]SetsChaos 100 points101 points  (30 children)

                              Rural Nevada checking in. There are a lot of Starlink dishes in my neighborhood, including for me. It is more expensive than the one alternative, but also 10x faster and way more reliable. If you WFH, the latter is just as important as the former.

                              [–]rideincircles 43 points44 points  (2 children)

                              Yeah. I have a coworker travelling around the country living in a trailer and he has very few disruptions using starlink.

                              [–]danskal 22 points23 points  (10 children)

                              I'm guessing you mean "work from home" and not "workforce managment"

                              [–]NickUnrelatedToPost 26 points27 points  (1 child)

                              "Work from moms basement"

                              [–]Impeesa_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                              Work from m'home.

                              [–]Huwbacca 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                              Working from mansion.

                              [–]dohface 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                              Work from McDonald’s

                              load more comments (5 replies)

                                [–]DeyUrban 11 points12 points  (2 children)

                                Rural North Dakota. We have a local ISP co-op which is slightly more expensive than alternatives but provides high speed fiber optic connections to farms and tiny towns. I haven’t seen or heard anything about Starlink here because everyone uses that instead.

                                [–]SetsChaos 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                                There are a few counties nearby that do that. I'm quite jealous. There is some talk of doing that in my county. I'm all for it. More competition more better.

                                [–]DeyUrban 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                It really is the best option. I have never had a single problem with them. My stints in cities where I have to deal with big ISPs have almost always been so annoying.

                                [–]Lugbor 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                                Rural user here. The only other option for me was 1Mbps, which they were incapable of providing, with daily outages. Mobile works in a pinch, but the mountains mean the signal is spotty at times and the latency makes it unusable.

                                [–]SetsChaos 4 points5 points  (1 child)

                                The only mobile provider is AT&T for me, and they're expensive and only 4G (non-LTE).

                                load more comments (10 replies)

                                  [–]SlipsLips 30 points31 points  (3 children)

                                  Rural south here. I spent a year on the waiting list and now there’s better options.

                                  [–]beaucoup_dinky_dau 14 points15 points  (0 children)

                                  yeah I got on a wait list years ago when it first came out and it just came available like in July, the local electric coop had already run fiber to the location less than a year before

                                  [–]alpacaMyToothbrush 3 points4 points  (1 child)

                                  Rural south also, I'd like to hear these 'better options'. The best we've gotten is a tmobile hotspot that regularly goes down to 2mbit/s lol

                                  load more comments (20 replies)

                                    [–]OrdyNZ 33 points34 points  (6 children)

                                    It's the best option for Rural NZ. Know of a bunch of places / people who have moved to it and it's been a massive improvement over other options they have.

                                    Its around 50-70% more expensive than fibre internet, so not worth it in town.

                                    [–]NahItsFineBruh 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                                    We got it in central Christchurch.

                                    It was going to take up to six weeks for fiber install in a new to us house, it's been great bridging the gap for us.

                                    ISP screwed up the order and nearly 8 weeks later we still have no fiber, and won't for another two weeks.

                                    So it's done well for keeping us connected for what will be like 10 weeks.

                                    load more comments (5 replies)

                                      [–]Godless_Servant 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                      I live in Canada on some acreage and we have no city amenities other than electric. Starlink has been a godsend compared to the trash we were using before finally getting it.

                                      I wouldn't even bother with a comparison it's so much better

                                      load more comments (82 replies)

                                        [–]rubiksalgorithms 2317 points2318 points  (615 children)

                                        Yea he’s gonna have to cut that price in half if I’m ever going to consider starlink

                                        [–]TheSpatulaOfLove 825 points826 points  (411 children)

                                        That’s what turned me off. Way too expensive to be competitive if other options are available.

                                        [–]theilluminati1 572 points573 points  (342 children)

                                        But when it's the only option available, it's unfortunately, the only option...

                                        [–]EShy 428 points429 points  (274 children)

                                        That's limiting their market to people who only have that option instead of competing for the entire market with competitive pricing

                                        [–]southpark 398 points399 points  (192 children)

                                        They have to limit their market. They don’t have capacity to serve even 10% of the market. If they had 10 million customers they’d be service 10mb/s service instead of 100mb/s and their customer demand would collapse.

                                        [–]PhilosophyforOne 301 points302 points  (157 children)

                                        I mean, that kind of sucks for their own projections of 20 million customers.

                                        [–]Teamore 331 points332 points  (78 children)

                                        I think they made those projections up to attract investments and hype their product

                                        [–]KingKoopasErectPenis 335 points336 points  (39 children)

                                        Elon’s bread and butter. Manipulating investors and the stock market.

                                        [–]unskilledplay 75 points76 points  (29 children)

                                        Anecdotally, I suspect wireless carriers ate their lunch.

                                        Ten years ago, I would constantly lose cell connection as I traveled, even in urban areas around the world. Local ISPs in emerging economies were flaky and unreliable. Even prior to Starlink, I thought satellite internet was going to be successful in these areas.

                                        Today I'm shocked at how fast and reliable my cell phone internet is even in remote areas in poor countries. Formerly flaky local ISPs are now stable and fast.

                                        The world has changed, even since the launch of Starlink's first satellite 4 years ago.

                                        Edit:

                                        The speed and scale of the global LTE rollout was stunning. It's now at 90% globally, up from 18% just 10 years ago. It's incredible.

                                        [–]Alberiman 54 points55 points  (0 children)

                                        That's not ISPs worried about starlink, COVID forced their hand because suddenly a ton of corporations were doing business from home and it became a massive money loss to not invest in improvements

                                        [–]mrbanvard 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                        While the LTE rollout is amazing and will have a longer term impact, for Starlink the limits are currently production and launch rates.

                                        Of course Musk notoriously gives completely unrealistic timeframes. But instead of ignoring the fool, the media plays it up for clicks.

                                        Starlink sells connections as fast as they can build the user terminals. Which are very complex devices, that until very recently, they sold at a loss.

                                        The other issue is network capacity for in demand areas. Many areas have as many users as can currently be supported, so customers have to go on a waitlist.

                                        Capacity increases with more satellites. Currently they are launching them as fast as they can build them. But larger satellites also support more bandwidth, as well as options such as direct to phone communications.

                                        Launching very large satellites needs Starship. Which is way behind Musk's disconnected from reality timeline predictions. Really both the Starship and Starlink projects are progressing at amazing speed.

                                        Once Starship is up and running, the larger, more advanced satellites will get launched and capacity will much more rapidly increase.

                                        And no don't they'll ramp terminal mass production to match.

                                        Don't get me wrong, Starlink doesn't replace LTE. Really it's ideal as the backhaul for LTE towers and will enable even faster LTE rollout. LTE becomes much cheaper to roll out in new areas when you don't need local infurstricture. The towers can even be self contained, running from batteries and solar and using Starlink for connection to the internet.

                                        [–]UndendingGloom 11 points12 points  (9 children)

                                        It's almost always going to be cheaper and easier to install ground based infrastructure than to launch several satellites, unless you are somewhere ridiculously remote.

                                        Edit: by cheaper I mean from the perspective of a company building this stuff

                                        [–]froop 24 points25 points  (7 children)

                                        There are still really remote places, in wealthy countries, with zero cell/wisp service. I'm in one.

                                        [–]truthdoctor 16 points17 points  (5 children)

                                        Yes, but those customers who are satellite internet dependent are a very small minority especially as density increases and broadband/cell service coverage spreads out even further. I'm sure price also plays a role but the rollout of fiber, 4g and 5g is reaching more people every year.

                                        load more comments (1 reply)

                                          load more comments (9 replies)

                                            [–]-All-Hail-Megatron- 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                            But that would cause the opposite effect once they failed to reach it.

                                            load more comments (7 replies)

                                              [–]NeverDiddled 12 points13 points  (1 child)

                                              They also predicted they'd have Starship ready in 2020, and a significantly larger constellation launched by now. Starship is needed to launch a lot more satellites at once. They are currently sitting at 4k satellites launched, which is 1/10th the amount they are seeking approval for. Each new satellite increases capacity.

                                              This article is non-news to anyone paying attention. They are running super far behind their initial prediction. We've known that for 3-5 years.

                                              [–]myringotomy 20 points21 points  (0 children)

                                              Elon is a known liar so those promises were just lies. That's like Trump saying he is a stable genius.

                                              load more comments (75 replies)

                                                load more comments (34 replies)

                                                  [–]dern_the_hermit 28 points29 points  (67 children)

                                                  It sounds kinda crazy to target "the entire market" with a niche technology application tho. 30 million sounds like a reasonable target (poor timeline estimation notwithstanding), I can image some tens of millions of people who are not being adequately served by existing solutions. But everyone? Zero chance.

                                                  [–]PhilosophyforOne 51 points52 points  (64 children)

                                                  Also, a lot of people who could benefit from this are in rural or low income areas / communities that arent currently being serviced. But there’s no way they come even close to being able to afford $599 on a terminal, on top of $90-$120 a month on a subscription.

                                                  Right now, their market strategy just doesnt make sense. Like the target audience for what they’re selling right now is pretty small.

                                                  [–]ACCount82 14 points15 points  (5 children)

                                                  It makes a lot of sense for what they have now.

                                                  They only recently streamlined the terminal manufacturing enough that they aren't eating a loss on every unit sold. They no longer have to pay that loss off with the service costs. This was a prerequisite for lowering costs on both the terminal and the monthly subscription. They are yet to start sending up the large sats, because Starship is not mission ready yet. Without those larger sats, their network throughput is fairly limited, with certain "busy" areas already operating at their limits.

                                                  They don't need more "cheap" clients right now, and especially not in areas that are already at the load cap. They want to get the "expensive" clients first, and they want them spread out all across the world. Which is why they prioritized entering new countries and selling to B2B customers like cruise lines or airlines.

                                                  [–]HyperRadioactive 11 points12 points  (4 children)

                                                  Yup. A dedicated 4M/4M connection at sea ranges from $50-$110k per MONTH.

                                                  A Starlink that provides 50M/14M is like $7k per month. It's absolutely a game changer in the maritime industries.

                                                  [–]b0w3n 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                                                  Starlink's at least changed the satellite internet market market. Before they existed you'd get raked over the coals in bandwidth costs. So the $70 a month would come with a 1GB "standard data" rate per month and $1-5 per month per gb over that. Certain things wouldn't be covered under standard data either, so expect to always pay the $1-5/gb for them (streaming media wasn't considered standard data back in the day).

                                                  Glad to see it's changing for the better now. Much higher bandwidth caps, more things included under the standard data, no penalizing "upload" bandwidth charges, much lower per-gb costs for bandwidth (they're all under $1 near as I can tell).

                                                  If you think starlink's bad now, boy howdy it was even worse back then.

                                                  [–]theilluminati1 23 points24 points  (44 children)

                                                  This, right here. Yep.

                                                  It's ridiculously overpriced but it does perform really well, speed wise and essentially zero outages.

                                                  It's a luxury service, for sure, but hopefully the prices drop at some point.

                                                  And pretty much anything Elon Musk does doesn't make sense. Dude is a clown, but at least I'm able to Reddit with you all via my Starlink?

                                                  [–]sirius_not_white 20 points21 points  (14 children)

                                                  Idk if it's ridiculously overpriced at all.

                                                  It's 70/month in my neighborhood for internet 500/20. They don't charge a device fee but that's because they have me captive basically anyway and already dug the line 20 years ago.

                                                  A mobile hotspot that does speeds like that is $100s of dollars a month for 200gb and they charge you for a device too with a 2 year contract.

                                                  If you need good Internet outside of cell reception zones it's impossible without starlink. Not traditional visat internet which I'm sure you're familiar with.

                                                  So it's $30/more than what I have but it basically works everywhere not just at my house? (I know you can't take it everywhere etc just an example)

                                                  Seems reasonable especially when I divide out that 500 startup over 60 months because I need internet indefinitely for at least the next 5 years.

                                                  [–]Legitimate_Plum9 12 points13 points  (7 children)

                                                  A mobile hotspot that does speeds like that is $100s of dollars a month for 200gb and they charge you for a device too with a 2 year contract.

                                                  Dude, what? You are paying hundreds of dollars a month for a mobile hotspot?

                                                  [–]sirius_not_white 14 points15 points  (6 children)

                                                  https://www.verizon.com/plans/devices/hotspots?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D88202136023515969191184272136968787716%7CMCORGID%3D843F02BE53271A1A0A490D4C%2540AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1626622590&mboxSession=0982b0257404438eb00407accc920834#tab-nav

                                                  Verizon max plan size is 150gb for $80 and you have to pay $110 for the cell service.

                                                  If you need 300gb a month they don't just let you add a second 150gb for $80. You have to get a second dedicated line/plan for another $190.

                                                  I'm not, someone I know does it.

                                                  [–]milkcarton232 9 points10 points  (3 children)

                                                  The most insane part of this is the simple fact that you are comparing satellite internet to regular internet. Before starlink the cost of that shit was insanely high and super fucking slow. Starlink is a game changer costing only slightly more than what is considered normal city pricing and in some areas it may be more economical than existing options. Plenty of well off people want to live in areas that are not super well services by isp's, think mountain cities that would do great for this kind of thing

                                                  load more comments (2 replies)

                                                    [–]letmetellubuddy 10 points11 points  (3 children)

                                                    It's ridiculously overpriced but it does perform really well, speed wise and essentially zero outages.

                                                    I can't call it 'ridiculously' over-priced here in rural Ontario.

                                                    My previous provider (Bell) had a low cap (100GB) and low speeds (50MB/s) which they swore on a holy bible that they would not oversubscribe ... and the service was swamped within 6 months. Prime-time speeds would drop to 3-5MB/s. The cost with all the overages that I incurred were greater than my current bill with Starlink.

                                                    Since Starlink entered the market Bell did away with cap overage charges, and the throttle threshold has greatly increased (450GB), but the price has increased too so it's only a 25% savings to switch.

                                                    25% extra for better speed, more reliable service and no chance of throttling isn't a ridiculous cost, it's more like "you get what you pay for"

                                                    load more comments (25 replies)

                                                      load more comments (12 replies)

                                                        load more comments (2 replies)

                                                          load more comments (13 replies)

                                                            [–]RickSt3r 22 points23 points  (9 children)

                                                            Yes but then your limiting your market to destitute places that don’t have access to terrestrial IP services. Hell even the Facebook idea of blimp towers is probably more profitable given the huge cost of rockets.

                                                            [–]ACCount82 16 points17 points  (8 children)

                                                            SpaceX just happens to have access to the cheapest rockets in the entire industry.

                                                            Not really a coincidence. After SpaceX pulled off the first stage landing and reuse, they ended up with a lot of cheap launch capacity, and not enough clients to sell all of it to. Which is why they are building Starlink now. Starlink is a way for SpaceX to convert all of that "extra" launch capability into a steady revenue stream. They are leveraging their total space launch dominance to dominate the satcom industry in turn.

                                                            [–]OSS_HunterGathers 8 points9 points  (3 children)

                                                            That issue is decreasing daily as wireless via cell is growing. I was in the same boat where I could only get DSL 10/1 but more like 5-6/0.5 then I get T-Moble internet for $50 per month and not equipment charges. I did spend ~$300 on an roof 4x4 antenna that now gives me '5G' 200-400/20-60. I can have several people on video conference and streaming netflix without dropouts. Works rain or shine and since I have my modem and wifi router on a UPS I can have internet without power. Bonus... I have traveled with the modem and it worked but I hear they are clamping down on this with T-Mobile so your mileage may very.

                                                            load more comments (34 replies)

                                                              [–]kamikaziH2Omln21 95 points96 points  (15 children)

                                                              You're absolutely correct, although I think a lot of people are missing the point. There are plenty of places globally where the price is unfortunately competitive or the speeds that Starlink provide are otherwise unavailable. For the vast majority of Reddit users, this is not an issue, but we are also not the target audience.

                                                              The real frustration in my eyes shouldn't be the practicality of space internet. It is the misallocation of funds by ISPs, in the case of the US, for not being held accountable for taking government subsidies and lining the pockets of their executives instead of building remote infrastructure, as promised decades ago.

                                                              [–]JustaRandomOldGuy 7 points8 points  (1 child)

                                                              misallocation of funds by ISPs

                                                              Over 80 billion and counting. Money given for rural internet was pocketed. ISPs claimed anyone with a 3G phone had high speed internet. Congressional investigation revealed massive amounts of campaign donations, so the matter was dropped.

                                                              [–]TheSpatulaOfLove 10 points11 points  (0 children)

                                                              Amen to that.

                                                              load more comments (12 replies)

                                                                [–]Only_Razzmatazz_4498 13 points14 points  (22 children)

                                                                And it probably wouldn’t work if other similar options are available because it can’t really do high speed for densely populated areas due to aggregate bandwidth limits per beam servicing an area.

                                                                He needs the people in sparsely populated areas to buy in.

                                                                [–]DrDeus6969 26 points27 points  (21 children)

                                                                I think everyone here is too focused on only seeing starlink from the perspective of their own country. Starlink is aiming to achieve global coverage of high speed internet, this includes remote villages that don’t have good infrastructure and certainly no 5g phone towers. I know people who without starlink have not just slow speeds but also daily caps on their usage or else they get throttled at dial up speeds (if you even remember that speed)

                                                                [–]7374616e74 8 points9 points  (3 children)

                                                                Yes I come from a place with very low internet connectivity, thing is people there don’t really care about internet speed. All is left are places with 0 internet access, but I don’t think many would be able to pay even $10/mo for internet access.

                                                                [–]DrDeus6969 3 points4 points  (2 children)

                                                                That’s true, but you can see in situations like Ukraine, starlink can be quickly be deployed for “free” to people who need it in certain situations. So it has extra uses that physical infrastructure can’t do.

                                                                [–]Only_Razzmatazz_4498 7 points8 points  (12 children)

                                                                Yeah the market is there. The question is whether the market can afford it a price point they can make a profit. I think the realization that maybe not is driving them into branching into luxury applications like marine service, satellite to satellite, military, government, remote sensing and mining, RVs, etc.

                                                                In a way that worked for him at Tesla with the Roadster and then the expensive models until he could get costs low enough to offer more middle priced cars. I think a way forward for SpaceX is to stabilize the costs with luxury uses until they can lower the service for those other applications you are talking about. Volume is a wonderful way to reduce marginal costs. In the end right now it also has the advantage of helping subsidize the launch side of things with money moving around pockets lol. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Starlink division becomes it’s own company in 5 years time once the constellation is fully built.

                                                                load more comments (4 replies)

                                                                  [–]nanshaggr 13 points14 points  (0 children)

                                                                  If you look into rural options starlink is top tier though. We were paying more per month for a service that you couldn't watch Netflix uninterrupted on.

                                                                  I've talked to people that could easily afford it and they don't see it as a great option because they are so used to getting screwed over on internet they're extremely skeptical. They think they're going to have to pay a ton for equipment and have service that might be 2 or 3 times what they're used to, but is still pretty bad. They just don't trust it yet. I really think it will blow up in the coming years, they just need a shift in perception among rural customers.

                                                                  [–]QuietThunder2014 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                                                                  I do IT for a construction company. The upfront equipment pricing sucks but honestly it’s not much more expensive than decent cellular equipment which is our only other option at most sites. Comcast usually quotes us around 300,000+ to run lines and most places cellular is lucky to bring down 20mb. We have most sites on the $250 monthly 1TB plan which is actually reasonable compared to Comcast business. I hate giving him my money but at the end of the day it’s a lot less hassle and cost and overhead than cellular in 99% of locations. The biggest trick is getting a clear view of the sky.

                                                                  [–]hilltopper06 12 points13 points  (3 children)

                                                                  My brother has it (because it's all he can get in the middle of nowhere). It's expensive, cuts out periodically, and mediocre speedwise. It is still way better than the alternative of no internet (or other sat internet). If Elon wants it to go mainstream then it needs to be a $50 service with little to no upfront cost.

                                                                  [–]Popular-Objective-24 5 points6 points  (7 children)

                                                                  But it's not meant to compete with other services... you'd have to be crazy to choose satellite internet over a hardwired connection.

                                                                  For myself though Starlink has been a huge upgrade from my old 10Mbps connection, and quite frankly the price is better too.

                                                                  [–]Moopboop207 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                                                  Yeah. You literally have to have starlink be the ONLY option to get starling.

                                                                  load more comments (14 replies)

                                                                    [–]setphasorstolove 197 points198 points  (31 children)

                                                                    If you live in a metro area, it's not for you.

                                                                    [–]GL1TCH3D 45 points46 points  (20 children)

                                                                    I live in a metropolitan and the prices for starlink are about the same as what I pay for 50 down 5 up here (mbps, not gbps).

                                                                    The biggest issue we face is usually the upfront cost of the equipment. Since we're in a metro area, they don't offer any discounts like they do with rural areas.

                                                                    [–]dragondildo1998 42 points43 points  (8 children)

                                                                    Where I live 3mbps (seriously what they quoted me!) dsl is more than $55 a mo. Other option is satellite, usually starts at up to 25mbps and costs over $100 a month plus equipment rental. If I want up to 50mbps it's gonna be over $150 a month. And when they say "up to" that's on a good day, it can be really inconsistent down here. Starlink monthly pricing is actually competitive here, but it's the up front cost that is prohibitive for a lot of people.

                                                                    [–]ACCount82 21 points22 points  (6 children)

                                                                    Yeah, Starlink isn't trying to undercut the wired ISPs. Not their niche. They are trying to price match the satellite ISPs, and slowly strangle them by consistently offering better value for the same price.

                                                                    [–]dragondildo1998 8 points9 points  (4 children)

                                                                    Yeah I've heard of people getting over 100mbps with starlink around me, but I think it sits a little lower most of the time, but for the money it's your best bet in a lot of rural places.

                                                                    [–]Ancient_Persimmon 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                                                                    Not to mention the most annoying thing about conventional satellite internet is the 1000+ ms ping, whereas Starlink sits somewhere between fiber and cellular.

                                                                    load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                      load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                        [–]ACCount82 19 points20 points  (2 children)

                                                                        In an urban area, you might also face the issue of bandwidth allocation.

                                                                        There is a limited amount of bandwidth per area that the current network can funnel. SpaceX has been expanding that over time, but if an area is already too "dense" with terminals, SpaceX just wouldn't want any more clients there. They'll have capacity issues.

                                                                        Which is why SpaceX loves rural clients so much. Their type of network favors it when the clients are spread thin all across the world.

                                                                        [–]deathputt4birdie 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                                                        This is because Starlink can only connect to one satellite at a time, handing off the connection within milliseconds to the next satellite etc. There are only a limited amount of satellites overhead so current maximum density is 100 Starlink clients per 300 square km (source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/rm9t9t/spacex_presentation_on_starlink_current_density/)

                                                                        300 square km means each 'cell' is about 20km (12 miles) across

                                                                        Some quick napkin math: NYC (790 square km) could support ~270 Starlink dishes shared amongst a population of 8.1 million.

                                                                        For comparison, 5G supports up to 1 million connections per square kilometer. 6G will support 10 million per sq kilometer.

                                                                        TLDR; Starlink doesn't scale easily.

                                                                        load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                          load more comments (8 replies)

                                                                            [–]ReSpekMyAuthoriitaaa 2 points3 points  (3 children)

                                                                            Yea I'm his exact target. South GA in the country with literally no option besides huesnet which is a total scam and not enough cell data for Hotspot wifi (did that for 2 years with 500k download lol). I didn't hesitate to spend the money for starlink and it's been awesome and I regret nothing. It does cut out periodically so online gaming is a no go. Good for everything else. Price is a bit high still.

                                                                            load more comments (6 replies)

                                                                              [–]bicyclemycology 108 points109 points  (21 children)

                                                                              For people in rural areas Starlink is a complete game changer.. I don’t think the price is too bad. It’s been incredible and has drastically improved our quality of life.

                                                                              [–]ExtinctionBy2070 83 points84 points  (5 children)

                                                                              People don't realize that our only other option is Viasat or HughesNet.

                                                                              Let me walk you through that:

                                                                              Going to Reddit.com took a minimum of 10 seconds. Loading pictures is comparable to dial-up. Youtube videos are constantly buffering even at 360p or even 240p. They will always take at least 30 seconds to buffer long enough to play a little bit.

                                                                              Contrast to that, Starlink is identical to city broadband in every single way. My ping to online games is 40ms and I never disconnect. The signal stays strong even in the middle of a blizzard and only goes out when the dishy gets covered by the snow drift.

                                                                              [–]Dark_Rit 8 points9 points  (1 child)

                                                                              Speeds like that remind me of when I was a wee lad over 20 years ago in a suburb. Loading anything was a struggle and then the picture that was loading would break and we'd try to load it again...not fun times. The one nice thing was that video streaming wasn't much of a thing so we didn't tear our hair out trying to stream.

                                                                              [–]ExtinctionBy2070 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                                                                              that was loading would break and we'd try to load it again...not fun times.

                                                                              Oh my god I forgot this happened too. I blocked it out.

                                                                              Very frequently, at least 30% of the time you'd have to refresh the page because it just gave up.

                                                                              load more comments (3 replies)

                                                                                [–]calebkraft 11 points12 points  (6 children)

                                                                                same for me. I was on cellular before, and starlink was a massive upgrade for the same exact price. It's super frustrating because there are neighborhoods with fiber internet less than a mile away (on the other side of a river).

                                                                                Before starlink I was tempted to offer to pay someone's fiber just to set up a long range dish and wifi from their house to mine and share their bandwidth.

                                                                                load more comments (8 replies)

                                                                                  [–]scorchen 19 points20 points  (3 children)

                                                                                  As a full-time remote software developer for 17 years who also works and lives from a Ford Transit... its worth the monthly cost without question.

                                                                                  [–]drewts86 8 points9 points  (2 children)

                                                                                  Starlink is pointless for most people when there is access to faster connections (cable/fiber). Where it shines is for people that travel (RV/vanlife) or for people in rural areas where connection is limited. My folks, for example, can only get DSL where they live and they get a whopping 3mb/s download. Starlink also has more than double the latency of high speed wired connections and you also have to deal with service dropping out periodically, or if Daddy Elon feels like being a tyrant that day (Ukraine). Also, fuck giving money to Elon anyways - dude is a scumbag.

                                                                                  [–]fantasmoofrcc 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                                                                  140cdn per month...meh. splitting it with a neighbour for 70 per month (no bandwidth caps in my hexagon), sure!

                                                                                  [–]doalittletapdance 9 points10 points  (2 children)

                                                                                  I've been on the waitlist for 3 years, I'll pay the damn money just give it to me!

                                                                                  [–]CleetisMcgee 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                                                                                  Not a musk fan at all but I live in remote Alaska Internet provider here is less than 1/4 of the Speed star link offers, is 200 bucks a month and has a data cap . This was an easy get for me. and pretty soon. We’re getting close to majority of people in our small area using Starlink instead of the local ISP.

                                                                                  [–]ImLookingatU 7 points8 points  (3 children)

                                                                                  if they would cut the price to half of what it is. it would probably tipple the current user count. 60 a month is much easier than 120

                                                                                  [–]cordell507 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                                                                  120 is an absolute steal compared to its competitors.

                                                                                  load more comments (2 replies)

                                                                                    [–]Integrity32 16 points17 points  (15 children)

                                                                                    I feel my data is safer with anyone else other than Musk

                                                                                    [–]MmmmMorphine 9 points10 points  (1 child)

                                                                                    Even mecha Hitler? Or did they merge already... What year is it

                                                                                    load more comments (13 replies)

                                                                                      [–]Steelcity213 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                      It’s a better bang for your buck than high orbit satellite at least

                                                                                      load more comments (116 replies)

                                                                                        [–]Manikuba 829 points830 points  (67 children)

                                                                                        Can’t speak for home use but starlink on Maritime vessels have been a game changer. Crew members are able to stream and game to their hearts content on voyages. Speeds hover around 110Mbps With average ping of 50ms compared to 4Mbps 700ms ping on traditional vsat. And it’s significantly cheaper. Crew morale has greatly increased.

                                                                                        [–]fantasmoofrcc 118 points119 points  (7 children)

                                                                                        Was in the navy, not uncommon 5 years ago to have a 50k internet bill per month just for QoL usage at sea.

                                                                                        [–]Manikuba 41 points42 points  (1 child)

                                                                                        Oh you can still get 50k bill with iridium if your not paying attention

                                                                                        load more comments (5 replies)

                                                                                          [–]b0w3n 146 points147 points  (2 children)

                                                                                          Changed the name of the game in terms of bandwidth costs too, very similar to how AOL's unlimited changed the per-minute charge of dialup.

                                                                                          Very few of them have really restrictive data plans and costs anymore. Or, at least, they're very reasonable if you do need to go over it. My office manager got hit with an ~$800 bill one month for some netflix and youtube binging with viasat(I think it was them?) back about a decade ago.

                                                                                          [–]Typically_Wong 17 points18 points  (0 children)

                                                                                          I was hit with bills like that when I was deployed and owned a viasat that I shared with others in the unit. Didn't have tools to see who did it so I just blocked popular stream and porn sites. Made many people mad, but after I told them why it was done, they understood and we made a system on how porn was acquired.

                                                                                          Solution was for people to submit in writing what porn they wanted. It didn't stop the porn, but it was the best solution we could make lol

                                                                                          load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                                            [–]TheBirminghamBear 44 points45 points  (3 children)

                                                                                            Crew morale has greatly increased.

                                                                                            Except no one talks about the downside, which is that now my crew has become lazy and is too busy gaming and watching porn to board and pillage merchant vessels to get treasure.

                                                                                            [–]concussedYmir 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                                                                            Ever since COVID crews have become too lazy to properly reave the coastline. Murderous pirate unemployment needs to increase by at least 30-50%

                                                                                            load more comments (2 replies)

                                                                                              [–]HyperRadioactive 26 points27 points  (6 children)

                                                                                              Yea, 4mbps from a provider like Inmarsat GX at sea is like $30k/mo. Getting it dedicated from a Ku-Band beam or something is also like the same amount, but more reliable.

                                                                                              And the terminals for each of those are in the $50k regime just to start.

                                                                                              Now think about someone that has like 6-7 boats at sea at any given time. Quarter to half a million a month in internet alone with the old systems, and like $50k/mo with Starlink!

                                                                                              It's stupid how much maritime work SpaceX is getting, and at a much higher per user revenue than their residential subscribers.

                                                                                              [–]Cappy2020 127 points128 points  (25 children)

                                                                                              Yeah just to add, Starlink has been a godsend following the fires here in Maui.

                                                                                              Musk/Space X donated terminals here for free, and it’s the best (in most cases only) connectivity people here have to contact family elsewhere and have some semblance of normality.

                                                                                              I got downvoted in a /r/worldnews thread for making the same comment as it was “praising Musk”, so glad to see /r/technology hasn’t lost its marbles by comparison.

                                                                                              [–]DoctorJekkyl 33 points34 points  (6 children)

                                                                                              Musk is a POS, doesn't mean he can't do some good things.

                                                                                              [–]Electronic_Test_5918 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                                                                              Clock broken, media reports correct time twice a day.

                                                                                              load more comments (5 replies)

                                                                                                load more comments (18 replies)

                                                                                                  [–]jjwhitaker 5 points6 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                  This is where I've seen it more used as well, rural areas and sailboats. I met a couple last weekend that works afloat and loves it. I have gigabit at my apartment and no boat yet.

                                                                                                  [–]pieman3141 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                  I've seen van dwellers use Starlink as well. Park their vans, put up their dish, and bam, fast Internet. There's no real competition right now for that kind of service, assuming no 4G/5G coverage.

                                                                                                  load more comments (17 replies)

                                                                                                    [–]BoredAccountant 76 points77 points  (4 children)

                                                                                                    A 2015 presentation that "SpaceX used to raise money from investors" reportedly projected that in 2022, Starlink would hit 20 million subscribers and generate nearly $12 billion in revenue and $7 billion in operating profit.

                                                                                                    Wasn't this predicated on the network being complete? IIRC, they were still rate limiting the amount of new users to the network back in 2022, and they'd only just released an antenna that could be on a moving platform. Price also isn't there, especially when compared to cell networks which have had all that time to improve/expand.

                                                                                                    [–]HotDiggity3657 190 points191 points  (37 children)

                                                                                                    For those that need it, especially those that live at sea or nomadic lifestyles, starlink is second to none. But most people don't live like that.

                                                                                                    [–]Jaymakk13 61 points62 points  (13 children)

                                                                                                    I live in a rural area, and the only 2 options i have for the internet are Starlink or Hughesnet, which is, last i checked,$10 a gig.

                                                                                                    Starlink is $120 a month for us, with no data cap or throttling.

                                                                                                    We hardly get any cell signal at home so we have to have internet.

                                                                                                    My wife and daughter can stream and use their devices and i can game. But I've noticed from 11pm until about 2 am. that i disconnect a lot. Like every 10 mins or so between those hours.

                                                                                                    But, for our only feesable option it works, the main thing ive seen is i have 3 co workers on the waiting list for starlink in our area, we waited 8 months, the other guy just got his 3 weeks ago after a year, and the other guy is still waiting and its been almost 3 years for him.

                                                                                                    [–]HotDiggity3657 22 points23 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                    Have you looked into putting your dish higher up? Might be getting blocked from some satellites during those times by the tree lines. My dad is similar and after getting his up higher above the treeline it's been fine

                                                                                                    [–]Jaymakk13 26 points27 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                    Im in a small valley with legacy oaks, so i can't cut the trees, but it is on a 30-foot tower and is better than it was on the roof alone.

                                                                                                    Now its just the very bottom edge of the dishes view is blocked, before it was almost half of it.

                                                                                                    [–]HotDiggity3657 17 points18 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                    Gotcha, just gotta wait for more satellites then it seems like. They're launching more all the time

                                                                                                    load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                                                      [–]OnlyMath 5 points6 points  (8 children)

                                                                                                      People are saying that is expensive? I was paying that for cable internet a few years ago.

                                                                                                      [–]Jaymakk13 4 points5 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                      It's not really the monthly, you purchase the equipment.

                                                                                                      You out down, at the time, $100 deposit and say hey i want service here. When they have a dish and router ready for you they email and you have like 5 or 7 days to pay up like $700 i think. Then they ship your unit.

                                                                                                      You can sell the unit and service to someone else, or sell it back to starlink, but you own the equipment. No rental fee, just pay for access monthly.

                                                                                                      However, for most people in rural areas keeping 500-700 on hand to pay them whenever they decide to ship your items can be budget killing.

                                                                                                      load more comments (4 replies)

                                                                                                        [–]QuietThunder2014 14 points15 points  (4 children)

                                                                                                        It’s huge in the construction industry. A lot of job sites are in the middle of nowhere and cellular options are crap.

                                                                                                        [–]HotDiggity3657 4 points5 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                        I believe that, lots of good use cases out there just for the regular everyday joe at home not as much

                                                                                                        [–]Krabban 19 points20 points  (6 children)

                                                                                                        And a big part of the market that needs something like Starlink the most (Remote villages in Africa or Latin America for example) can't even afford it.

                                                                                                        [–]RdmGuy64824 10 points11 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                        They have different international pricing.

                                                                                                        [–]an0therblizzard 17 points18 points  (2 children)

                                                                                                        They also need infrastructure, energy, and food and water and medical treatment....

                                                                                                        There are plenty of rural places just in the US that don't have access to anything but DSL or other satellite services that can benefit from Spacex. Maybe latin america can improve their own internet services...

                                                                                                        load more comments (1 reply)

                                                                                                          load more comments (11 replies)

                                                                                                            [–]goldfaux 71 points72 points  (8 children)

                                                                                                            I know someone that has it. They live just outside of the city by about 6 blocks and don't have any other good options there. I think they like it, but they had to wait to be invited to join, then had to buy the expensive equipment and install it themselves. Also they said customer service is non existent. It seems to me that Starlink is limiting the number of subscribers rather then the other way around.

                                                                                                            [–]fantasmoofrcc 21 points22 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                            They can only service so many terminals per hex area (grid on a world map), so I can understand why semi-urban areas would take longer. I can only imagine how many satellites their end-game includes.

                                                                                                            load more comments (4 replies)

                                                                                                              [–]LaserTurboShark69 249 points250 points  (46 children)

                                                                                                              I would have sworn they had more than 1.5mil customers by how often people talk about it. I personally know 3 people who use it.

                                                                                                              [–]Lrw54321 201 points202 points  (32 children)

                                                                                                              Probably just depends on your location & social circles. If you live in an area with shitty traditional ISPs and/or have mid-high income friends, then sure, you'll see quite a few people using it. Doesn't really extrapolate well outside of that tho.

                                                                                                              [–]LaserTurboShark69 51 points52 points  (11 children)

                                                                                                              Good point, internet service is garbage in Manitoba.

                                                                                                              [–]Zonked_Zebra 13 points14 points  (2 children)

                                                                                                              Yup, anecdotal but probably about 1/3 of the people I know that live outside the city have starlink.

                                                                                                              load more comments (8 replies)

                                                                                                                [–]adminsblo 22 points23 points  (8 children)

                                                                                                                It's huge in my area cause there's no local offerings.

                                                                                                                [–]johnniecumberland44 4 points5 points  (8 children)

                                                                                                                Totally agree - I absolutely see no widespread uses cases for Starlink here in europe other than some remote places in Scandinavia and some islands maybe

                                                                                                                load more comments (2 replies)

                                                                                                                  [–]I_really_enjoy_beer 11 points12 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                                  I live in a rural area with shitty internet options, it's legitimately a life changing technology here. I bet I know over 40 households with it and every person asking for internet recommendations gets told to ignore Frontier and get Starlink.

                                                                                                                  load more comments (6 replies)

                                                                                                                    [–]CptanPanic 25 points26 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                    The 20 million projection was in 2015, so not surprised they are going to be a few years off their estimate.

                                                                                                                    [–]Kalo17 26 points27 points  (2 children)

                                                                                                                    Why is this sub just SpaceX/Tesla/X articles? This seems more like an anti Elon sub rather than a technology sub

                                                                                                                    [–]taw 126 points127 points  (21 children)

                                                                                                                    That hate boner reddit has for Elon is showing again.

                                                                                                                    Actual Starlink revenue for 2022 was $1.4 billion, up from $222 million in 2021

                                                                                                                    Yeah, totally a failing business, with just 530% revenue growth in a year, because some early projections from 2015 were too optimistic.

                                                                                                                    [–]Wes___Mantooth 39 points40 points  (11 children)

                                                                                                                    Yeah and 2015 was the year SpaceX first landed a rocket, so that estimate was in the very early days of the Falcon 9 reaching it's full potential. Everyone who has been following SpaceX knows they are always overly ambitious with timelines, but so far they always deliver in the end. Starlink wasn't even being launched back then, and now they are launching Starlink multiple times a week.

                                                                                                                    Starlink is going to be huge, and there's really nobody else who will be able to compete with it any time soon. Everywhere on the planet will have Internet coverage because of Starlink, and ships at sea and planes in the air will have fast dependable internet as well. I saw a stat recently that said that more than half of all satellites currently in Earth orbit are Starlink satellites. So yeah good luck to Amazon's Kuiper or anyone else catching that any time soon. It's only going to get easier and cheaper for SpaceX to put them up there when Starship becomes operational. There are like 5,000ish starlink satellites now and I think up to 42,000 are planned.

                                                                                                                    https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html

                                                                                                                    Fuck Elon though. Love what SpaceX is doing for humanity, but Elon sucks. I get more and more concerned every day about him getting in the way of SpaceX's progress. He's probably always been a prick, but he's definitely worse now than he was 10 years ago.

                                                                                                                    [–]futianze 28 points29 points  (4 children)

                                                                                                                    0 to $1.4 billion in 3-4 years and everyone on Reddit is in a state of schadenfreude… Musk delivering on his projections is always 2-3 years behind. I guarantee in 3 years this will be a $10 billion business..

                                                                                                                    [–]DirkDieGurke 9 points10 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                                    in 3 years this will be a $10 billion business..

                                                                                                                    Bro, 3 years in Musk time leaves the door open to a million possibilities. Anything can happen, good or bad. Don't count your satellites until they're in orbit.

                                                                                                                    [–]AHrubik 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                    Bro, 3 years in Musk time leaves the door open to a million possibilities.

                                                                                                                    The only realistic opinion in this thread. The shear magnitude of the fuckup with Twitter alone should showcase how this could go terribly wrong if he's involved even a tiny bit in the long term planning let alone the day to day operations.

                                                                                                                    load more comments (2 replies)

                                                                                                                      load more comments (4 replies)

                                                                                                                        [–]Dark_Vulture83 14 points15 points  (5 children)

                                                                                                                        I was paying $110AUD for shit internet here in Australia that barely got me above 50mb/s. My Starlink in $139AUD for 250+mb/s, so it’s actually a far better value for me. When Telstra sent me an email asking why I had left them after 7 years, I replied with one word…Starlink.

                                                                                                                        [–]Oddgenetix 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                        I know a ton of people back in my home state that are dying to get it but there's a frankly bizarre amount of the US that isn't covered, and probably won't be. Sad part is a ton of that coverage map doesn't have any other option either. my dad uses hughesnet satellite. 50gig cap. abysmal speeds. He'd pay twice what it costs to have it. But they seem to be more interested in covering areas that already have coverage via traditional ground based internet. sucks.

                                                                                                                        [–]KickBassColonyDrop 21 points22 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                        1M for a satellite megaconstellation is still a lot. Especially for a new player who's entire network has been operating for less than 5 years. It's no 20M of course, but that 1M is producing them $1.4Bn in revenue annually. Slated to uptick towards $4Bn by end of next year, and double that by end of 2025.

                                                                                                                        Similar to how Tesla by 2020 transitioned into a fully self funding model, SpaceX in probably the next 2-3 years is going to start generating software revenue via Starlink that will outpace NSSL and launch revenues and contracts such, that they can begin to self fund.

                                                                                                                        And similar to how Tesla basically exponentially took off thereafter, I fully expect SpaceX to double it's operational footprint by 2025 in terms of simultaneous operations between Falcon 9, Heavy, Starlink, and Starship.

                                                                                                                        [–]Occasionally_Correct 9 points10 points  (4 children)

                                                                                                                        I have a country home and it’s a life changer. It’s real internet no matter where you live for the same price you’re paying for garbage rural internet. They need to have the option to have it installed for you. They’re limiting they’re numbers by forcing people to install it themselves that may not have the tools or know-how.

                                                                                                                        [–]06yfz450ridr 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                        Let me tell you if you are in an area only covered by sat. This blows hughesnet , viasat etc out of the water. Even cell signal is very limited on all carriers.

                                                                                                                        Hughsnet was 10GB a month with 50 after hours. The 10 is gone in a matter of 2 days and latency is high. And it wasn't any more expensive monthly besides the hardware up front for starlink.

                                                                                                                        [–]Dry_Maize_4080 37 points38 points  (21 children)

                                                                                                                        "Starlink is bumping up against a reality articulated by many skeptics
                                                                                                                        of satellite Internet," the WSJ wrote. "The majority of the world's
                                                                                                                        population that the business could serve and that can afford high-speed
                                                                                                                        broadband lives in cities. In those regions, Internet service is readily
                                                                                                                        available, usually offers cheaper monthly costs than Starlink and
                                                                                                                        doesn't require specialized equipment."

                                                                                                                        But what Starlink is going to enable is people no longer having to live in cities to have good internet.

                                                                                                                        I'd already be gone if I didn't have kids in school. As soon as they are out of the house I'm heading for the boonies. WFH with Starlink.

                                                                                                                        [–]I_really_enjoy_beer 45 points46 points  (17 children)

                                                                                                                        Every article that compares Starlink to city internet availability needs to be immediately disregarded. Cities are not the fucking target market. Congratulations to anyone who can get gig speed for under $100, some people don't have that luxury. I went from 2 mbps Frontier with the actual world's shittiest customer service to 100+ mbps. Yes, it is expensive, but I have been in since the beta and have damn near been able to recoup the difference just because I could cut out satellite TV for streaming. I have absolutely zero regrets.

                                                                                                                        load more comments (3 replies)

                                                                                                                          [–]WestPhilippinesSea 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                          I live in a developing country, and the problems are as follows.

                                                                                                                          1. High price for the dish upfront and wait time.

                                                                                                                          2. Lose service during storms and hard rains

                                                                                                                          3. Torrenting or pirating, since its a usa service it goes by usa rules and you can be blocked or shut off due to pirating. Problem is you can't control everyone using or sharing the password from doing so, so what do you do?

                                                                                                                          4. Expensive network adapter, thats out of stock. It should just come with the dish, or be cheaper .

                                                                                                                          5. bad support, many in my country complain about the lack of customer service

                                                                                                                          [–]Nosiege 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                          It used to be quite good in Aus, and then oversaturation made it quite bad. Not sure how they anticipated maintaining a level of service with 20m when their 1m was subpar.

                                                                                                                          [–]vhalember 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                          This is systemic to Musk-owned companies.

                                                                                                                          Tesla was to be installing 1,000 solar roofs a week in 2020. The real figure, 21 in 2022.

                                                                                                                          Even two years late they were at 2.1% of the forecasted value.

                                                                                                                          Look at the Cybertruck, a "for 2021" product which just this week started getting trucks ready for shipment. It was to be the first EV truck, and now its the 6th, maybe 7th EV truck available on market?

                                                                                                                          [–]dragontaint69 8 points9 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                                          As much as Elon sucks, I gotta say star link is a godsend for rural communities

                                                                                                                          [–]lemon_o_fish 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                          I can see how Starlink would be a godsend for people living in areas with poor internet infrastructure, but I can't see myself using it ever. Fibre is still the gold standard, and Starlink doesn't come close in terms of latency and upload speed.

                                                                                                                          [–]BeltfedOne 255 points256 points  (141 children)

                                                                                                                          Fuck Musk for him screwing over Ukraine defending themselves.

                                                                                                                          [–]relditor 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                          Dude, we can’t have private corps involved in offensive military actions on either side. If the US military wants to help, or NATO, they should buy satellites and provide the service. I know it’s fun to hop on the musk hate train, but he want wrong here.

                                                                                                                          [–]AttapAMorgonen 102 points103 points  (50 children)

                                                                                                                          How did he screw over Ukraine? He did not change anything about Starlink, the service was NEVER enabled in Crimea. Ukraine asked him to enable it, because they planned to launch drone boats from Sevastopol, Starlink/Elon refused. The Starlink service area did not change at all, he simply didn't expand it upon their request.

                                                                                                                          You can use the web.archive to load the coverage map all the way back to 2022. Here's the coverage map of Ukraine in May of 2022, Crimea is clearly not being serviced.

                                                                                                                          So how did he "screw over Ukraine" by changing nothing about Starlink? The volume of misinformation on reddit surrounding this event is actually insane.

                                                                                                                          load more comments (89 replies)

                                                                                                                            [–]Civil_Ad_7068 103 points104 points  (31 children)

                                                                                                                            Imagine paying to have Elon spy on you and shut off your service as he pleases lmao

                                                                                                                            [–]trentshipp 44 points45 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                            The next best option in my area is $150/month for 3mbps. Yeah, I'll take that trade.

                                                                                                                            [–]whtthfgg 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                            Not a fan of Elon, but you are an idiot

                                                                                                                            [–]Faptasmic 17 points18 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                                            Imagine living in a place with no internet infrastructure.

                                                                                                                            [–]dafgar 24 points25 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                            As if your current ISP doesn’t already do the exact same thing?

                                                                                                                            [–]FuzzleFairy 57 points58 points  (3 children)

                                                                                                                            Imagine paying to have Elon

                                                                                                                            load more comments (20 replies)

                                                                                                                              [–]ZebZ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              Starlink's roll out was too fucking slow.

                                                                                                                              I had my dad on the wait-list for years trying to get off of Hughesnet, and the closest it ever got was "trust us we'll totally be available in your area soon!"

                                                                                                                              Meanwhile, his state used Biden Bucks to actually follow through a roll out of rural broadband, and now he finally got Xfinity last month.

                                                                                                                              [–]IHaveSexWithBagels 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              Most of the people not served by traditional broadband infrastructure are people who need access to clean water more than they need satellite internet that costs around what they make in a lifetime.

                                                                                                                              Edit: u/smartnership

                                                                                                                              [–]KidKonundrum 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                                                                                                                              Starlink has been a godsend as someone who lives very out of the way, and our only other internet provider was so crazy expensive that we would drop hundreds of dollars a month for a service that couldn’t even get above 1MB/s.

                                                                                                                              But goddamn I shudder to think of what will happen if it ever breaks cause I know their customer service is dogshit.

                                                                                                                              [–]metalrulez352 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              I've been waiting for 2 years for it to be available in my area. Not sure what the hold up is. People like me in rural areas are more than willing to pay for fast internet as soon as it's available

                                                                                                                              [–]Petarthefish 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              Yea its not like Elon Musk has lied about every single product they had revealed.

                                                                                                                              [–]levibub00 2 points3 points  (4 children)

                                                                                                                              Forgive my ignorance, but could you technically have starlink on a sailboat and just have full speed internet anywhere you sailed? On open water?

                                                                                                                              [–]DingoKis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              Starlink is good but 500€ hardware + 600€/year is too expensive for the average user, unless you have no other options.

                                                                                                                              Most FTTC/FTTH only cost 300€/year on average with hardware included.

                                                                                                                              [–]mander1518 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                                                                                                              $600 USD for the equipment? Hard pass.

                                                                                                                              load more comments (794 replies)