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Elon Musk to disrupt Telecommunications next with Starlink internet satellites
Tech Wire Asia ^ | 02/25/2021 | Joe Devanesan

Posted on 02/25/2021 7:31:08 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Elon Musk has successfully scaled new industries and disrupted the incumbents of others, becoming the world’s richest person early this year by upending the global auto industry and disrupting aerospace heavyweights with reusable rockets. Now Musk is looking to seriously disrupt the global telecommunications space with his Starlink internet satellites.

Over the course of 18 launches, Elon Musk and his Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) have deployed collectively 1,023 satellites into low-earth orbit that will enable Starlink internet services. The company says it is building 120 Starlink satellites a month, launching as many as 60 Starlink satellites at a time aboard its Falcon 9 reusable rockets, and there are already enough up there that Starlink internet is already signing up early beta customers in the US, UK, and Canada.

SpaceX has told investors that Starlink is angling for a piece of the US$1 trillion telecommunications market that consists of connectivity services such as of in-flight internet, maritime services, and demand in large swaths of rural land or underserved developing markets, including the vast potential in China and India.

Starlink is the latest ambitious project from the mind of Elon Musk: to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, that is purpose-designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November 2018 approved SpaceX to launch 11,943 satellites, with the company aiming to deploy 4,425 satellites in orbit by 2024.

The expanding Starlink internet satellite constellation is hanging in low-earth orbit, closer to the planet than traditional satellites. This is close enough to enable Musk’s newest venture to roll out internet services along a wide stretch of North America and the UK. As SpaceX sends up more satellites, the coverage area will grow, expanding the potential customer base – and new revenue stream – beyond the grassroots stages it is at today.

Starlink marks SpaceX’s first foray into a truly consumer-facing product. Maintaining strong service while growing the customer base is something an Elon Musk enterprise has not attempted before. SpaceX began a public beta program of Starlink internet in October 2020, with service priced at US$99 a month, in addition to a US$499 upfront cost to order the Starlink Kit, which includes a user terminal and Wi-Fi router to connect to the satellites.

Thus far, feedback from early Starlink testers has been positive. Brian Rendel, a beta tester who struggled for years with sluggish internet speeds at his rural 160-acre farm overlooking Lake Superior in Michigan, US, says he is now getting speeds of 100 megabytes per second for downloads and 15 to 20 megabytes per second for uploads – far superior to his previous service provider.

“This is a game-changer,” said Rendel, a mental health counselor, who can now easily watch movies and hold meetings with clients over Zoom. “It makes me feel like I’m part of civilization again.”

“The big deal is that people are happy with the service and the economics of Starlink versus other alternatives,” concurred Luigi Peluso, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, that follows the aerospace and defense industries. “SpaceX has demonstrated the viability of their solution.”

A consumer-viable business like Starlink will go a long way to bolstering SpaceX’s push, according to COO Gwynne Shotwell, to become the latest Elon Musk venture to be taken public, after the meteoric gains in the stock market last year by clean energy automaker Tesla, that helped solidify Musk’s position as the world’s richest individual.

But industry watchers believe Starlink will encounter more competition than just taking over the telecommunications sector. Fiber optic cable is widely considered to be too expensive to lay down in remote regions and many rural locations, which is where Musk and Starlink can occupy the gap. But at the same time, cellular connectivity is expected to make big advances with 5G over the next few years and then 6G. Meanwhile, a number of innovative attempts to extend cellular to unserved areas are being developed by other well-established firms Facebook’s internet.org project.

“There will always be early Starlink adopters who think that anything from Elon Musk is cool,” said John Byrne, a telecom analyst at GlobalData. “But it’s hard to see the satellite trajectory keeping pace with the improvements coming with cellular.”



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; Society
KEYWORDS: elonmusk; satellites; starlink; telecommunications
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To: T-Bird45
The article’s closing reference to 5G/6G being competition to Starlink is so much wishful thinking. For the same reason why cable and fiber don’t go to lesser-populated rural areas, i.e. $$$/sq.mi/subscriber, Starlink will quickly gain share with service & online speed. Last week, I was barely outside the Tulsa metro and the I-44 corridor when I lost Internet connectivity on my phone because it wasn’t even 3G service. That area will be years before 5G arrives and Musk will have already locked in his subscriber base.

I can see him making offers to subscribers along rural roads: install a special base station that also provides 5G cellular to the surrounding area, and get a big discount.

41 posted on 02/26/2021 4:09:21 AM PST by PapaBear3625 ("Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." -- Voltaire)
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To: mewzilla

Musk is sometimes a pothead, BUT he is a genius and seems to lean more conservative during the last few years. He just moved to Texas which shored up his conservatism a bit. Trump thinks very highly of him.


42 posted on 02/26/2021 4:21:30 AM PST by salmon76 (They call me Big Boomer McKraken. I live at the corner of Breaking Street and Bombshell Avenue.)
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To: PapaBear3625
I can see him making offers to subscribers along rural roads: install a special base station that also provides 5G cellular to the surrounding area, and get a big discount.

That is definitely in line with his type of thinking and would represent a significant power shift in telecomm.

43 posted on 02/26/2021 4:25:20 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: salmon76

I know the guy’s a freaking genius.

His move to TX could just mean he’s not keen on giving money to bureaucrats.

If Musk’s on the side of the angels, then God bless him and yippee for us!

But I still find that conga line circling over my head uber creepy.


44 posted on 02/26/2021 4:29:53 AM PST by mewzilla (Break out the mustard seeds. )
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To: SeekAndFind; Bobalu; Liz; HarleyLady27; V K Lee; rlmorel; GOPJ; SunkenCiv; ...
 

Some quick facts about low earth orbit (LEO) telecommunications sats.

  • Miniature Expendable Satellites --The satellites are built on a standard 3U electronic rack form factor. They sit in spring-loaded boxes on the rocket. And of course, once in orbit, their solar panels flip out and start powering the device.

  • Lifespan of 10 years. These low-orbit sats will keep flying for 10 years before they burn up in the atmosphere as it spirals into the earth. There’s no fuel onboard.

  • Low Orbit Equals Low Latency -- The altitude these sats fly is 550 KM, roughly the height of Florida -- Jacksonville to Miami. The traditional satellites fly at 136,000 kilometers which costs you 650 milliseconds of delay as the data travels up or down.

45 posted on 02/26/2021 5:30:13 AM PST by poconopundit (Hard oak fist in an Irish velvet glove: Kayleigh the Shillelagh we salute your work!)
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To: BipolarBob

Not in name, but the theory, yes. It seems like it would make sense to get an international consensus on requiring all objects put into LEO to have a method of self-deorbiting at the end of their useful life. It would only involve a method of reducing the speed enough to fall back into the atmosphere and burn up. A small retrorocket and an orientation method would do it.


46 posted on 02/26/2021 6:27:48 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (DemocRats would burn the country to the ground to be absolute rulers over the ashes.)
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To: SeekAndFind

What arrogance. They contacted me to help with Beta testing. They wanted to charge me for equipment and $99 a month to WORK FOR THEM. Only 1 out of a hundred people are actually going to need or use that kind of data speed. Videos stream just fine on higher end 3G and 4G speeds so these advertised speeds will rarely ever actually be used. At those rates they are not going to corner the market just yet.


47 posted on 02/26/2021 7:54:34 AM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: PapaBear3625

5G tower needs a fiber connection.


48 posted on 02/26/2021 10:22:47 PM PST by Ozark Tom
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To: Openurmind

A pots line and 12 Mbps for $92.00 a month from CenturyLink for comparison?


49 posted on 02/26/2021 10:27:27 PM PST by Ozark Tom
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To: KTM rider

I have been PRAYING musk would do this, NOW give us phones, lap tops and tablets THEN we will be free of the commies censoring ALL!! Musk has had ENOUGH and I was hoping he would come through!!!


50 posted on 02/26/2021 10:31:53 PM PST by Trump Girl Kit Cat (Yosemite Sam raising hell)
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To: Ozark Tom

It begs the question... Do you need more because they are telling you that you need more? When youtube videos or internet TV will stream fine on 2 Mbs? How many do you want to watch at one time?

At some point I start to wonder if it is just competition for the fastest engine needed or not.


51 posted on 02/27/2021 6:55:28 PM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: SeekAndFind

Will people lose service during a storm like directv?


52 posted on 02/27/2021 6:58:35 PM PST by stuck_in_new_orleans ( )
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To: stuck_in_new_orleans
Will people lose service during a storm like directv?

I'll let you know when I go online.
I've had satellite internet before (About 20 years ago).
Something tells me that they've improved it by now.
53 posted on 02/27/2021 7:01:12 PM PST by RandallFlagg (Only a moronic, suicidal group would try a Great Purge 2021 on an armed American. We're ready!)
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To: SeekAndFind

“But it’s hard to see the satellite trajectory keeping pace with the improvements coming with cellular.”

Not for anything who understands how the cell network functions. 5G is only suitable for densely populated urban areas. It’s severely range limited and requires a huge fiber optic network to support it.

That’s phenomenally expensive and the ROI in rural areas will never make any sense.

L


54 posted on 02/27/2021 7:05:04 PM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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To: PapaBear3625

“There’s nothing stopping Musk from setting up cell towers in rural areas, with the voice/data traffic going over Starlink.”

Thus removing the huge investment in fiber backbone.

If the numbers work it’s genius.

L


55 posted on 02/27/2021 7:10:32 PM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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