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SpaceX Adds 500,000 New Starlink Users in 4 Months (pcmag.com)

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[–]diederich 101 points102 points  (22 children)

Another $660m in revenue each year? That's quite nice.

[–]aquarain 53 points54 points  (11 children)

150m/yr added each month. Makes the math easier on annual run rate. $1.8B per year per year.

[–]useflIdiot 40 points41 points  (10 children)

Telecom is $1 trillion per year market. Starlink can attack a substantial number of the most lucrative segments: mobile data, fixed data, backhaul, broadcast etc.

The technology is only in its infancy, there is ample opportunity to improve spectrum density, aquire new allocations, densify, upsize and power up the satellites, design crafts for Karman line operation etc.

[–]AlwaysLateToThaParty 22 points23 points  (9 children)

I'd say they're adding new markets. Starlink offers a service where there was no service before.

[–]aquarain 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Yes the trend is accelerating growth so this is a point in time estimate.

[–]useflIdiot 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yup, we should expect growth in the multiple billion / year2 in the short run, with an acceleration of the rate of growth on the order of $1 billion/year3

[–]useflIdiot 5 points6 points  (6 children)

There was no place on Earth without any internet service, even the most remote spots where served by either GEO sats or Iridium. The pricepoints, adjusted for bandwidth, were so many orders of magnitude over Starlink that you could say those markets were created anew.

[–]AlwaysLateToThaParty 0 points1 point  (5 children)

There was no place on Earth without any internet service

You are mistaken. As an Australian I find that assertion ridiculous. People die on a regular basis in my country because of the lack of it, and now they will be able to sms, let alone just having broadband. And you want to talk about 'price points'? Yeah nah. These people are the new market, and there's no surprise about the take up of starlink in Oz.

[–]Jarnis 5 points6 points  (2 children)

100% of Australia can get Geo satellite internet. It may cost too much and have ridiculously low bandwidth, but it is available.

[–]CollegeStation17155 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Weren't there some legal restrictions on using the GEO constellations due to some heavy handed lobbying by the terrestrial ISPs?

[–]AlwaysLateToThaParty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It may cost too much and have ridiculously low bandwidth

Which makes it another market.

[–]useflIdiot 3 points4 points  (1 child)

I'm not sure what prompted this emotional outburst but this is an adult conversation. My claims were very well explained and factual, your feelings on the issue notwithstanding.

[–]AlwaysLateToThaParty 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My claims were very well explained and factual

You don't know what a market is. Sports cars and two-seater city vehicles are both cars. But they are targeted to different markets of consumers.

[–]Cornslammer 7 points8 points  (5 children)

Do we know if everyone pays sticker? Do resellers take a cut?

[–]ralf_ 20 points21 points  (3 children)

In much of the world Starlink is cheaper. 50 Dollars in some European countries and randomly looked at Kenya: Kes. 6,500 which is $50 too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/17zxzbz/starlink_40month_in_italy_down_from_50month/

[–]Nishant3789🔥 Statically Firing 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Do they get the same speeds as countries that pay more?

[–]ralf_ 13 points14 points  (0 children)

They get better speeds than US areas, because the satellites are less utilized:

https://www.starlink.com/map?view=download

[–]warp99 2 points3 points  (0 children)

New Zealand is NZ$80 so close to US$50 for a lower bandwidth service at 100 Mbps down and unlimited up. Otherwise we would get around 250Mbps because of the high fiber uptake rate and relatively low population density.

This is very similar pricing to a 200 Mbps fiber connection.

I was seriously looking at getting it in the middle of a city with good fiber because I live in a private lane and there is difficulty getting all 33 landowners to agree and give permission for a fiber install.

[–]terraziggy 8 points9 points  (0 children)

See https://www.starlink-prices.com/personal/residential/usd/low

Prices now start from 28 USD/mo. In Spain signups skyrocketed a few weeks ago thanks to the new €29/mo (31.5 USD) deprioritized plan. Three weeks ago share of Spain traffic was 0.8% of all Starlink traffic according to Cloudflare radar. Today it's 2.4%. From about 20k to 60k customers in three weeks.

Starlink does not allow to resell residential plan. Business resellers I believe buy bandwidth or data at an undisclosed rate and set their own prices.

[–]LateMeeting9927 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’m always angry I couldn’t invest in Starljnk, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough in the secondary market. :)

[–]PaulC1841 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Avg price depends on the region. I pay $50/month.

[–]diederich 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Cool, I understood that the price was cheaper in some places, but wasn't aware of how deep the discounts were. May I ask what your region is?

[–]PaulC1841 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Central Europe

[–]H-K_47💥 Rapidly Disassembling 47 points48 points  (1 child)

My family was one of them. About 10 times better than our old internet. Pricier too but worth it.

[–]TheycallmeDoogie 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Same, farmers & now use Netflix for the first time at home

[–]thatguy5749 42 points43 points  (4 children)

It's crazy how this thing is taking off. I've also noticed that my typical speeds exceed the FCC broadband subsidy requirement (100/20 required, 250/25 is typical). Whoever made the call not to apply the subsidy to SpaceX should be eating a lot of crow right now.

[–]cargocultist94 17 points18 points  (1 child)

What crow? They got their buddies more money, and will enjoy a better beach house with the money earned. And if some people don't get Internet then tough shit, shouldn't have been poor.

[–]thatguy5749 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sigh.

[–]sora_mui 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Now they could claim that the program is a success without even giving out the appropriate subsidy

[–]IWantaSilverMachine 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Whoever made the call not to apply the subsidy to SpaceX should be eating a lot of crow right now.

I think they prefer the flavour of pork...

[–]vilette 35 points36 points  (24 children)

It would be very interesting to see how users are distributed worldwide

[–]ClearlyCylindrical 22 points23 points  (12 children)

Had a look at where it's over capacity to see if that could potentially answer this question, but for some reason there's a huge area out of capacity in the middle of the amazon rainforest. Anyone know why this could be the case?

[–]Competitive_Bit_7904 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Communities all over the place uses Starlink now. Here's an example of it.

https://stories.starlink.com/stories/internet-from-space-for-the-itaquera-community-in-the-brazilian-amazon

[–]Disastrous_Elk_6375 24 points25 points  (1 child)

You know the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon? Whell, they're not uncontacted anymore...

[–]TimmysDrumsticks 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And now their on Amazon in the Amazon.

[–]atomfullerene 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My guess for "lots of people in the middle of the Amazon" is usually Manaus, but I don't know if that's where you are looking at.

[–]mschweini 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Had a look at where it's over capacity

where can one see that?

[–]ClearlyCylindrical 6 points7 points  (3 children)

From the official website

[–]Nishant3789🔥 Statically Firing 7 points8 points  (2 children)

Can we talk about how crappy their color coding is?

<image>

[–]jiayounokim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah like basically -5 opacity for each section

[–]protomyth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Must be a thing with communication companies. Look at T-Mobile's site for the horror in purple.

[–]SantaCatalinaIsland 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Because it requires satellite laser links instead of going direct to ground?

[–]aquarain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ancient aliens.

[–]Simon_Drake 13 points14 points  (7 children)

There's a surprisingly high number of users in Europe, places that are only a short drive away from major cities but haven't had their internet infrastructure updated for a decade or two.

[–]Reddit-runner 29 points30 points  (6 children)

There is a bar at the shore of Lake Constance which put a Starlink antenna on its roof for card payments, because this is apparently cheaper than creating a cable connection to the nearest house.

The house is 500m away.

The house is on the edge of a dense 10.000 inhabitant "village".

Lake Constance is in the middle of one of the most developed areas of the world. Center of Europe.

That's my go-to example when people refuse to understand how the economics of Starlink work.

[–]manicdee33 11 points12 points  (2 children)

500m and probably €10k to trench in a new service. Then compare that to the startup and yearly operational costs of Starlink, that install cost is probably equivalent to 20 years of operation. Number pulled out from behind my ear of course.

[–]dankhorse25 0 points1 point  (1 child)

There are many wireless solutions using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Unfortunately they don't seem to gain traction. 60Ghz p2p links can easily achieve over 500mbps. It's all likely because of overregulation

[–]manicdee33 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Overregulation" when it comes to spectrum is why bluetooth and wifi can coexist with microwave ovens and remote control garage doors.

[–]BonquiquiShiquavius 4 points5 points  (2 children)

There has to be more to it than just card payments. A pay as you go cell phone plan could cover that very cheaply.

[–]Fun-Equal-9496 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Those plans don’t allow an entire bar to join, most mobile plans intentionally block large scale hot spotting and throttle past a certain point.

[–]BonquiquiShiquavius 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, but then you see it's not just card payments, like I suggested. If they're giving their patrons free wifi, then ya, Starlink makes more sense.

[–]JackONeill12 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Have a look at the download speed map: https://www.starlink.com/map?view=download

That should give you a rough idea. Of course, speed also depends on available ground stations so for example, there is lower speed in the middle of the rainforest. But for the US you can see where more people are using it.

But of course, this is roughly just the population distribution: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/USA_states_population_density_map.PNG

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1138/

[–]terraziggy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

https://radar.cloudflare.com/traffic/as14593?dateRange=28d

Top 24 countries in which Starlink has more than 10K customers:

Country Share
US 35.0
Canada 10.2
Australia 7.6
Brazil 5.1
Mexico 4.6
Germany 3.9
Philippines 3.6
Ukraine 3.4
UK 3.0
France 2.6
Spain 2.4
Poland 2.1
New Zealand 2.0
Nigeria 1.6
Italy 1.2
Chile 1.0
Japan 1.0
Dominican Republic 0.7
Colombia 0.6
Zambia 0.6
Ireland 0.5
Rwanda 0.4
Malawi 0.4
Kenya 0.4
Total 94

[–]ceo_of_banana 3 points4 points  (0 children)

<image>

This is from the Starship update 2+ months ago.

[–]Maxx7410 7 points8 points  (0 children)

that means that they are adding 100.000+ per month does this mean that they havent increse the production of Dishes? what is the status of the new starlink factory in texas? they need to increse dish production a lot.

[–]Vxctn 16 points17 points  (0 children)

In the end I think people will see the internet part of the satillites like people see the "phone" part of the cell phones. Critical, but really at the end of the day more of an enabler of the truly revolutionary capabilities (cell phone, lasers enabling "space" internet for satillites, etc).

[–]LutherRamsey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

3.5 million by August.

[–]DecronymAcronyms Explained 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
FCC Federal Communications Commission
(Iron/steel) Face-Centered Cubic crystalline structure
GEO Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)
HLS Human Landing System (Artemis)
ISRO Indian Space Research Organisation
Isp Specific impulse (as explained by Scott Manley on YouTube)
Internet Service Provider
LEO Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)
LSP Launch Service Provider
(US) Launch Service Program
MHI Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, builder of the H-IIA
ULA United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)
Jargon Definition
Starlink SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation

NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 23 acronyms.
[Thread #12638 for this sub, first seen 8th Apr 2024, 21:10] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–]Echo71Niner -5 points-4 points  (28 children)

Hey guys, how many years do you think it will take before they eventually force SpaceX to breakup because they now pretty much run space and communications?

[–]PoliteCanadian 18 points19 points  (2 children)

It's not illegal to have a monopoly, it's illegal to engage in anticompetitive behavior.

[–]Jarnis 7 points8 points  (1 child)

They do not have a monopoly.

OneWeb.

Orbcomm.

Various GEO internet sat providers.

Being wildly better and cheaper service than your competition is not a monopoly. SpaceX is not doing anything other companies could not do. Lack of competitor skill is not illegal.

[–]paul_wi11iams -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They do not have a monopoly. * OneWeb. * Orbcomm. * Various GEO internet sat providers.

None of your examples are also launch service providers. The problem raised by u/Echo71Niner is if SpaceX runs both Space [launching] and telecommunications. I think the company would also need to have taken advantage of its LSP role to exclude competitors.

[–]paul_wi11iams 9 points10 points  (5 children)

how many years do you think it will take before they eventually force SpaceX to breakup because they now pretty much run space and communications?

Elon once mentioned spinning off Starlink as a separate entity so that would be a protection in itself.

But if SpaceX refrains from using its dominant position in providing launch services, as an entry barrier to LEO internet (or similar), can the company be forced to break up? So far, it seems that when a competitor asks for its launch services, SpaceX is delighted to oblige.

There was a precedent with Boeing and a postal service. [article]. For no particular fault of his own, William Boeing was forced to quit the company that carries his own name! We'd need to look at what the triggering factors were and how they apply today. Starshield being launched on Falcon 9 and then Starship could turn out to be problematical.

It would be one thing to split activities on paper. Effectively separating them would be another. There would be some dense networking between ex-colleagues suddenly finding themselves on opposite sides of the table and its hard to believe they would cease working together.

[–]Jarnis 4 points5 points  (2 children)

SpaceX will almost certainly just happily launch anything at a listed price with no consideration on the customer or the payload. Doing anything else (ie. prioritizing internal stuff or outright not accepting contracts from competitiors) would be like saying 'please break us up' and nothing says they are doing anything like that. Only reason SpaceX is not launching Kuiper is because Bezos doesn't like giving Elon Musk money :D

Even in launches they also have competition. ULA, Arianespace, soon maybe Blue Origin, ISRO, MHI (Japan) all can sell you a launch. If you ignore politics and trade embargos, even Russia will still sell you launches. You probably won't buy from them, but anyway. Rocketlab is also technically a competitor, even if Electron is too smol. They making Neutron.

It is all a quite competitive field. Winning is not a monopoly.

[–]paul_wi11iams 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Only reason SpaceX is not launching Kuiper is because Bezos doesn't like giving Elon Musk money :D

and thanks to a shareholder lawsuit against Amazon, even that has changed

[–]Jarnis 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hmm, I guess I missed that headline. Well, even more data to prove SpaceX will launch anything if you have a moneybag to pay the list price.

[–]Echo71Niner -1 points0 points  (1 child)

I feel like the company is most definitely on its way to own telecommunications on earth by offering it at low prices, possibly see them even swallowing up other telecom companies in the process. They will have to break things up because they are growing very fast and with AI now, their growth will speed up.

[–]paul_wi11iams 2 points3 points  (0 children)

with AI now, their growth will speed up

AI could have the last word. I'm just floating an idea here, but there may be such a thing as "loyal AI" that will work alongside another instance of itself operating in the competing company. This might turn out to be a mechanism by which AI beats democratically elected government.

BTW. I made some late edits to my preceding comment.

[–]Drachefly 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Project Kuiper should keep them from being a monopoly, but we'll see how they do at putting that up.

[–]redwins 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Starship will probably have reasonable prices so that that doesn't happen. So far they have shown good will launching other constellations, and the prices for the government have also been very reasonable, for HLS, Dragon rides etc. But if they're forced to split, I can see SpaceX changing it's attitude. No more bargains either for other companies or the government. But they will still go forward with their Mars plans because all they'll do is distribute the expenses between SpaceX and Starlink. Unfortunately that's not the ideal scenario, a company that has been split will hold resentment, and will have less care about exercising it's power and influence in ways that are not visible, as we have seen with Boeing. The story of Boeing is the story of what happens when the government thinks it's in the position to tell who has too much power.

[–]thatguy5749 9 points10 points  (12 children)

You could separate Starlink from SpaceX (and SpaceX intends to do that at some point) but you couldn't really break up Starkink itself. That's not how it works.

[–]Echo71Niner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Starkink itself

lol are you already foreseeing their upcoming brands? I think Starlink is going to become huge, they are on their way to own the market by lower prices. Compare the rates from 2020 to 2024, not just fee but also speeds and coverage.

[–]SantaCatalinaIsland -3 points-2 points  (4 children)

They're already launching two different kinds of satellites, ones for broadband and ones for direct to cell.

[–]thatguy5749 4 points5 points  (3 children)

No they aren't.

[–]SantaCatalinaIsland -3 points-2 points  (2 children)

View of last night's deployment of 21 @Starlink satellites, six of which have Direct to Cell capabilities that help eliminate mobile network dead zones around the world

-https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1776992633698820428

[–]thatguy5749 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Those are regular starlink satellites with an additional antenna. They are not dedicated satellites for direct so cell.

[–]Jarnis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And once those are tested to work, eventually all future sats will be of the new version. This is just the beta test batch (which should also allow a spotty "will get sent eventually" text message service already)

[–]mistahclean123 -5 points-4 points  (5 children)

Tell that to AT&T after they were forced to divide into all the Bells!

[–]thatguy5749 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Each satellite serves the whole world, so you really can't divvy it up.

[–]Jarnis 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Only because it was not feasible to build a similar network next to the AT&T network at the time.

Anyone with deep pockets can do the same with Sats that SpaceX is doing. Amazon / Kuiper is working towards it right now. Oneweb is kinda "light" version of it (that might have been quite sweet in a world where Starlink doesn't exist, but... oops)

[–]CertainAssociate9772 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At the beginning of the Oneweb journey, Musk was working on it. SpaceX was supposed to create and launch Oneweb satellites. But Musk disagreed with Oneweb's leadership on the architecture and size of the grouping.

[–]PoliteCanadian 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Turning one national monopoly into a dozen regional monopolies. Success! /s

[–]aquarain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And then they reassemble.

[–]Martianspirit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure what rules applied for breaking up Boeing manufacture and airline. Breaking up Bell was a matter of lack of competition. Starlink certainly has competition.

[–]MercatorLondon -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Most of the wind turbines needs some sort of internet connection

[–]AlwaysLateToThaParty 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They're also connected by big fat wires to the grid.