Starlink

[brucehoult]

What does "debunking" even mean here?

The system exists, it works as advertised, it has about 150,000 customers at present I think, which would be $15m a month revenue.

It is a good business? No idea. Not at that level of customers, obviously, but that's growing. Do all of Musk's business plans work out? No. Do a lot of them? Yes.

The Tesla buying Solar City trail doesn't seem to have a verdict yet. The latest I can find is this:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/judge-narrows-tesla-shareholders-lawsuit-against-musk-over-solarcity-deal-2021-10-25/

Some notes:

4:14: the original dish's cable is permanently attached. The new square dishes have a connector. People are now complaining about the connector chosen ...

5:15 It will cost SpaceX $750m to supply 500k dishes at a loss (subsidy ... the same as mobile phones are often sold, with a contract). Sounds about right.

5:45 "For the forseeable future Starship isn't ready to launch Starlink sats." Dunno. It's delayed, but mostly due to launch license delays at the moment. They'll probably have successful orbital launches this year, and Starlink is the obvious first payload. Even without recovery of the stages, Starship will still be much cheaper per satellite launched than Falcon 9.

6:15 "They haven't used Falcon Heavy. Why?" Because you can't fit any/enough more Starlink satellites inside the payload fairing to make it worthwhile? Gen 1 Starlink sats weigh about 260 kg, so 60 of them is 15,600 kg, well below the Falcon 9's 22,800 kg capability to LEO. Seems they're already volume limited with normal Falcon 9.

6:40 Will need 700+ Falcon 9 launches to get 42,000 sats up. No, stupid. Most of the sats will be launched by Starship. We know this. Starship is critical to long term Starlink plans.

6:50 SpaceX charges the US government $62m for a launch with a new 1st stage, $50m with a used one. Taking the average and multiplying by 700 launches gives $38.5 billion.

No, stupid. *Price* is not the same as *cost*. In particular the price you charge a finicky customer that requires prolonged contract negotiations by lots of your staff, a paperwork stack as high as the rocket, etc etc is multiple times the actual cost of providing the rocket. That's why you get $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats.

The boosters SpaceX is using for Starlink have generally already done 5 to 10 launches for paying customers. No paying customers are using such heavily used boosters. This means they are essentially free to SpaceX -- just the cost of barging them back, some (probably by now) minimal inspection and refurbishment, and the fuel (about $200,000).

One day, one of those boosters with 10+ flights on it is going to go BOOM. Will it be after 12, 15, 20, 30 flights? No one knows. SpaceX will of course be sad to lose 50 or 60 Starlink satellites, but they'll have another batch ready in two weeks.

The 2nd stage is thought to cost about $12.4 million. The fairing costs $6 million, but they're recovering and reusing a lot of those.

The actual cost to SpaceX of the average Falcon 9 launch for Starlink may be around $15m, 3.7x cheaper than the video estimates.

But they're getting off Falcon 9 and on to Starship as soon as possible, remember?

8:10 "SpaceX has 10,000 staff, which at entry level salary costs $457 million a year to service only 500,000 subscribed."  No, this is ALREADY INCLUDED in the cost of the rockets and satellites. You're double counting. And that's for everyone at SpaceX, including those building and selling rockets to other customers (at a profit), developing new stuff etc. And Starlink will have FAR more than 500,000 customers soon. That's just the pre-orders. Many will (like me) be waiting until they have an actual need for Starlink, and will simply buy the gear at that time -- I never had a preorder.

This guy is simply not making a serious attempt to work out the economics.

Performance:

11:30 "Starlink has a maximum download speed of 61.32 Mbps in August 2020." Uhhh .. ok. And in February 2022 I normally get 250 to 300 Mbps, with a low of 192 and high of 399.6

12:00 "our cable broadband does 819 Mbps down 915 Mbps". Congratulations. And perhaps you mean fibre not cable. Starlink is not meant to and will never compete with fibre. It's for people who can't get fibre.

The next 5 minutes or so saying starlink is inferior to viasat and hughes are irrelevant given this far too low speed used for Starlink. The net is full of customers switching from viasat or hughes to Starlink and being very happy about it.

Skipping a lot of rubbish to the conclusions at 40:45 ...

1) "Starlink adds no new product to the market place. It can't compete on speed or price with existing Viasat or HugesNet products." That's simply false in late 2021 and 2022. Starlink is massively faster and lower ping times.

2) "Starlink does meet the contracted "RDOF" requirements (100 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up, 100 ms latency, 2000 GB/month) to get a US government subsidy to provide internet to rural Americans."  Simply not true since the first shell of satellites was completed in late 2021.

3) "the market for Starlink is restricted to remote locations in North America, Europe and Australia, all of whom are already covered by other providers. The rest of the world needs running water more than it needs satellite internet". Interesting opinion, possibly not shared by a couple of billion people in India and China.

4) satellite collision risks ("Kessler syndrome").

5) "this is not a trillion dollar industry. It's not even a $10 billion industry". It's a $10 billion industry if they get 8.4 million $99/month customers signed up around the world. That seems conservative to me. USA has 60 million rural population, Australia and Canada 7 million each, NZ half a million. That's probably a reasonable estimate for the number of people who will not have fibre internet in the next decade (or ever).

6) effect on astronomy -- ohhh and "affecting the ability to detect asteroids that will collide with Earth". Uhh .. detecting them isn't much use if you don't have anyone who can launch an interplanetary interceptor rocket on short notice...

7) yet another "rocket Jesus" failure requiring bailout.

My summary: this guy just has a whole lot of misconceptions. From double-counting costs, to confusing prices and costs, to assuming no technological improvements or mass production savings. Both user terminals and satellites will get cheaper, launches will get much cheaper. With the laser-linked satellites now being launched fewer ground stations will be needed. Higher value customers (e.g. businesses paying 5x as much) will be added.

Maybe the whole thing will be financially viable and maybe it won't be. Musk isn't perfect by any means, but I think he's probably done his calculations a lot better than this guy has.

And meantime, I've got nice internet at a reasonable cost that would not otherwise be possible in this location, and it's probably going to work for at least the next five years.

[brucehoult]

Surprised you couldn't find anything on Starlink.  A brief search shows mentions in at least 38 threads, with roughly half a dozen that are specific Starlink discussions.  Some of the others are off topic/side tracks that are fairly extensive.

I get three, including this thread.

Starlink for me is frustrating.  It looks like a very good service for rural locations, and I am rural.  But I am rural in a mountainous, forested location.  According to the Starlink app I have no where near enough sky view to use their service.  And even if I could I would be many months or even years from the front of the service line.

I have a friend in California who's house is in the middle of a forest of very tall redwood trees. The app says he doesn't have enough sky view. In real life it works fine.



As for service queue, not knowing your address I can't say.

What I do know for 100% sure is that here in northern New Zealand there is no service queue if you live more than an easy bicycle ride from a decent town.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I have no doubt that any legal pushback on starlink is from mono/duo/oligopolistic existing companies annoyed that a new kid in town is playing on their turf. It is they who bankroll the shenanigans.

In terms of press coverage, ask yourself if anyone other than Musk was involved, would any article that you are reading be presented differently.

The big elephant in the room is that the existing status quo have agonised about how to connect users in the less densely populated areas. They sit and wait for obsolete tech to mature to then be reused where it is too often, too little, too late.

Finally someone has the balls to bridge the gap and it shits them. And they will tell you that someone flooding the market(?) with a new service interferes with their expectation of some day supplying their own service.

And shareholders bitching about not knowing what Musk bought. Gimme a break. Musk is one of the most watched mover and a groover that ever lived.

[CatalinaWOW]

Surprised you couldn't find anything on Starlink.  A brief search shows mentions in at least 38 threads, with roughly half a dozen that are specific Starlink discussions.  Some of the others are off topic/side tracks that are fairly extensive.

I get three, including this thread.

(Attachment Link)

Starlink for me is frustrating.  It looks like a very good service for rural locations, and I am rural.  But I am rural in a mountainous, forested location.  According to the Starlink app I have no where near enough sky view to use their service.  And even if I could I would be many months or even years from the front of the service line.

I have a friend in California who's house is in the middle of a forest of very tall redwood trees. The app says he doesn't have enough sky view. In real life it works fine.

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ]

As for service queue, not knowing your address I can't say.

What I do know for 100% sure is that here in northern New Zealand there is no service queue if you live more than an easy bicycle ride from a decent town.

Just go to the blog homepage (search entire forum) and use Starlink as the search term.


The sky view thing is interesting.  But it is a large investment given such contradictory data.  Starlink themselves say no.  Numerous reviewers say no, including one I remember who was wildly enthusiastic about the service but reports that he loses service predictably when the satellite goes behind one of the few trees on his property that are tall enough to block the view.  I don't know what your redwood friends situation is; he may have extremely poor internet options and intermittent connectivity may be satisfactory to him.  Intermittent connectivity is my primary complaint with my current service providers - Viasat and 4G phone service.  While the higher speeds are attractive my primary annoyance is loss of connectivity.  Getting 400 page not found errors because the net went down for longer than the search timeout gets old very quickly.

[brucehoult]

Just go to the blog homepage (search entire forum) and use Starlink as the search term.

That's what I did. Same result no matter whether I use the search box in the top right (with "Entire forum") or the Search button in the row with "ome Help Search Profile ..."

[oPossum]

I get 9 results using advanced search for 'starlink' in topic subject only.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Just go to the blog homepage (search entire forum) and use Starlink as the search term.

That's what I did. Same result no matter whether I use the search box in the top right (with "Entire forum") or the Search button in the row with "ome Help Search Profile ..."

If by chance the search term was 'star link'  (with a space in between), I got a result which is closer to what you are saying.

[brucehoult]

I really didn't expect that looking for the single word "starlink" was an advanced search!

[oPossum]

Normal search returns 38 results.

[brucehoult]

Normal search returns 38 results.

Not for me, it doesn't. I've already showed screenshots.

[rob77]

no it's not, static IPv4 is a nice to have, not essential. you can easily workaround the NATs with VPN.. i'm hosting some servers behind 2 NATs .. the server has a vpn connection to a VPS running openvpn with a public IP address.. all public DNS records are pointing to that VPS and it just forwards the traffic through the VPN to the server behind NAT. another benefit is that when my fibre connection goes down i can use LTE as backup - the VPN reconnects and my servers are still available with the same public IP

but fully agree with the ipv6 point.

In other words, you have public IPv4, it's just coming from another provider. However you get it, the service is pretty necessary for many businesses (though as things go more cloud-y, it's becoming less so).

Can you set up tunnels and get your traffic through the NAT? Sure, at the cost of latency, MTU, complexity, failure points, and whatever a nearby VM costs you to host. But requiring that kind of jank for basic functionality is not really a characteristic of a business-class connection, at least in North America; that's part of what you're paying extra for. This is the kind of thing you use to get past a restrictive hotel WiFi, not something you want to run your business on if it can be avoided.

or you can see it the other way...
- you have a very easy and fast redundacy - you connect through any other connection and services are instantly up & running  with zero configuration change.
- the VPS provider has DDOS protection, IPS and IDS in front of your VM, your internet connection doesn't - so using a dedicated VM to get the public IP is beneficial
- many businesses are using VPNs , so one more doesn't matter.  MTU is not a problem as long as icmp works (pmtu discovery goes through) , or you can clamp the MSS to make sure it will work also for clients behind networks managed by idiots.
- the cost of the VM is the same as the cost of a static IPv4 address, but getting some extra benefits.
- another point is that at least in the EU the ISP is required to keep connection tracking data, so technically you would have to inform every visitor of the hosted web page if you host it directly on the IP of your internet connection.

regarding failure points.. yes it's one more.. but we're talking about hosting services behind a internet connection which is for connecting end users and doesn't have a SLA suitable for hosting services... move your servers to a server hosting if this is a issue.

[ve7xen]

or you can see it the other way...
- you have a very easy and fast redundacy - you connect through any other connection and services are instantly up & running  with zero configuration change.
- the VPS provider has DDOS protection, IPS and IDS in front of your VM, your internet connection doesn't - so using a dedicated VM to get the public IP is beneficial
- many businesses are using VPNs , so one more doesn't matter.  MTU is not a problem as long as icmp works (pmtu discovery goes through) , or you can clamp the MSS to make sure it will work also for clients behind networks managed by idiots.
- the cost of the VM is the same as the cost of a static IPv4 address, but getting some extra benefits.
- another point is that at least in the EU the ISP is required to keep connection tracking data, so technically you would have to inform every visitor of the hosted web page if you host it directly on the IP of your internet connection.

regarding failure points.. yes it's one more.. but we're talking about hosting services behind a internet connection which is for connecting end users and doesn't have a SLA suitable for hosting services... move your servers to a server hosting if this is a issue.

Look, providing small business network services is what I do for a living. I know the ins and outs of it, what businesses require, what level of technical ability they have in house, and how the services are / can be delivered. This is the kind of solution we engineer and deploy for them, to solve exactly these kinds of problems. A typical small business doesn't have in-house IT staff, may not have any dedicated IT staff at all, and even the typical consultants in this space that I have dealt with are not skilled up enough at networking to deploy something like this in a reliable and effective fashion. Sure it is 'easy' if you know what you are doing, but most of the potential customers for this service don't, and don't even know who to hire to make it work well for them. They or their consultant buys/subscribe to Meraki, plugs in the boxes, and can't handle much else. They aren't going to be building an opnsense firewall to terminate a wireguard VPN to a VPS they manage themselves that's doing their inbound NAT. The point is that since it doesn't come with a feature that is essential to many business, and you will have to hack it yourself, makes it less attractive, not that it makes it useless...

Anyway this is all off-topic, so I'll leave it at that.

[brucehoult]

The point is that since it doesn't come with a feature that is essential to many business, and you will have to hack it yourself, makes it less attractive, not that it makes it useless...

We don't know what features the Starlink BUSINESS OFFERING (Starlink Premium) will or won't have for FIVE TIMES the price.

I think it would be a mistake to expect they haven't thought these issues through. It's not rocket science.

The OOBE for the standard Starlink kit is *exceptional* for average unsophisticated home customers who just want to plug it in and have it work using the supplied WIFI router. Much easier than any DSL or cable or fibre or 4G kit I've ever seen.

[Psi]

Looking at Starlink with an eye for very very long term.  (Not current Starlink but what might exist 40 years from now)
I do wonder if we will get to the point where miniatured phased array antennas and future RF technology will allow cellphones to communicate with Starlink directly.  I think we maybe seeing a glimpse at the future where your cellphone may work anywhere on earth.

[SilverSolder]

Looking at Starlink with an eye for very very long term.  (Not current Starlink but what might exist 40 years from now)
I do wonder if we will get to the point where miniatured phased array antennas and future RF technology will allow cellphones to communicate with Startlink directly.  I think we maybe seeing a glimpse at the future where your cellphone may work anywhere on earth.

That's where we need to get to...

[brucehoult]

Looking at Starlink with an eye for very very long term.  (Not current Starlink but what might exist 40 years from now)
I do wonder if we will get to the point where miniatured phased array antennas and future RF technology will allow cellphones to communicate with Startlink directly.  I think we maybe seeing a glimpse at the future where your cellphone may work anywhere on earth.

Our tech is getting fairly close to fundamental limits now, so I don't know whether or not that is possible. Maybe it's possible right now to have a hand-held device communicate at 100+ Mbps rates with a satellite 450 km up, but just too expensive to build.

But it's always going to be 6500 times easier than talking to a geosynchronous satellite 80 times higher, and over the equator, not over you. Worse case for each system (Starlink at 30º above the horizon, geosynch from polar regions) is about a 50:1 distance ratio.

[brucehoult]

"Common Sense Skeptic" has just today uploaded a new video "MUSK ON TRIAL - Kimbal the Cook Pt1"




I note that this channel expresses its unbiased and unbounded skepticism on 8 topics and no others:

1 ) Elon Musk

2 ) Kimball Musk

3 ) Tesla

4 ) SpaceX (12 videos on Starship alone)

5 ) Solar City

6 ) Neuralink

7 ) The Boring Company

8 ) the dangers of long term living in space or on Mars


I must say it's quite reassuring he focuses his laser vision and knowledge on such a wide range of topics.

[brucehoult]

This morning at 05:28 AM my Starlink dish got a new software version and spent 2 minutes rebooting and reacquiring internet.

Interestingly, I have the same IP address after as before. So there is still just one IP change in 5.5 days of monitoring it.

[mawyatt]

Looking at Starlink with an eye for very very long term.  (Not current Starlink but what might exist 40 years from now)
I do wonder if we will get to the point where miniatured phased array antennas and future RF technology will allow cellphones to communicate with Startlink directly.  I think we maybe seeing a glimpse at the future where your cellphone may work anywhere on earth.

Might be possible, and maybe sooner than you think 

Tests are being conducted this month on a new type phased array system based upon a millimeter wave voltage controlled transmission effect in Liquid Crystals, which just might lead to the displays in laptops, phones, iPads, and computers becoming MMW phased array systems.

Anyway, here's a 128 Channel Controller for some demos of this new technology going on this month, 64 channels shown. First results from a couple days ago were the beams were spot on

If things go well this will be condensed into a chip. Also, think some research is ongoing into Faster Than Nyquist Communications 

Fun stuff indeed!!

Best,

[mawyatt]

Another bit of advanced technology related to phased arrays. Think of a system where the elements in the array aren't fixed in time or space relative to each other, but constantly moving. Each element can become an effective member of an overall phased array by controlling the special waveforms to/from each element in real time, thus forming a dynamic in time and space synthetic aperture phased array system.

What if these "elements" were individuals/vehicles/aircraft with radios/phones wandering around in the air, in the battlefield, in the desert, on the beach, at sea, on a campus, in an office, on the interstate and so on??

This was a component of a successful DARPA program called CLASS (Computational Leverage Against Surveillance Systems) from a decade ago!! Awhile back we did the computational chip for the special algorithms that made this happen!!

Now what if all those individual "elements" were mini-phased array clusters implemented with LCDs in phones, laptops, displays, Pads, all teaming together to form dynamic massive phased array systems and creating a much larger effective aperture and greater effective number of elements

Best,

[Psi]

Now you have me thinking about a multi channel phased array antenna built inside a MEMS chip that vibrates each nodes position back and forward at high speed to create a much larger phased array 

[Ed.Kloonk]

[floobydust]

This doesn't make sense, dated Feb. 9, 2022 and the birds are already up there, or this is 49 additional ones:
"...Elon Musk’s firm said it expects as many as 40 of the 49 brand-new Starlink satellites deployed in a launch last Thursday were destroyed. The cosmic storm struck just one day after a Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the costly satellites into orbit."
https://nypost.com/2022/02/09/a-geomagnetic-storm-had-disastrous-consequences-for-spacexs-latest-effort-to-launch-starlink-satellites-into-orbit/

[coppice]

This doesn't make sense, dated Feb. 9, 2022 and the birds are already up there, or this is 49 additional ones:
"...Elon Musk’s firm said it expects as many as 40 of the 49 brand-new Starlink satellites deployed in a launch last Thursday were destroyed. The cosmic storm struck just one day after a Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the costly satellites into orbit."
https://nypost.com/2022/02/09/a-geomagnetic-storm-had-disastrous-consequences-for-spacexs-latest-effort-to-launch-starlink-satellites-into-orbit/

The storm occurred between the rocket going up and the satellites moving to their final orbits. Now 40 of the 49 satellites sent up this time will not be able to reach their final orbits, and will fall back into the atmosphere. 49 is a small part of their total deployment, so its not a threat to their business. However, it is interesting how much a solar storm can screw up an activity close to Earth.

[CatalinaWOW]

In a further announcement they said that the satellites were oriented in a low drag mode and then the electronics were put into a "safe" mode to minimize the chances of damage.  The forty lost satellites never came out of safe mode.

Speculation on my part.  There are several possibilities here.  A software bug.  Damage from the solar storm.  Batteries ran dry before solar cells could be re oriented for better power.  And several more.  It will be interesting to see how much effort Starlink puts into figuring out.  I can see arguments for everything from nothing on up to a full on NASA human safety type analysis.