Posted on 06/29/2021 3:29:47 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said Tuesday he plans to invest up to 30 billion dollars to develop his ambitious Starlink satellite internet service.
Starlink plans to deploy thousands of low-orbit satellites to provide high-speed internet to isolated and poorly connected areas.
It has so far deployed over 1,500 satellites and by August it will be able to provide coverage everywhere in the world except the North and South Poles, Musk told the Mobile World Congress, a telecoms industry conference underway in Barcelona, by video.
The Tesla chief said he expects to invest "at least five billion dollars, and maybe as much as ten billion" in Starlink before the service has a positive cash flow.
"Then over time it is going to be a multiple of that, and that would be 20 or 30 billion dollars. It is a lot basically," he added.
Starlink is currently operating in about a dozen countries, with more being added, and it currently has just over 69,000 active users, Musk said.
"We are on our way I think to having a few hundred thousand users, possibly over 500,000 users, within 12 months," he added.
"There is a need for connectivity in places that don't have it right now, or where it is very limited."
Musk said Starlink sells its terminals for $500 even though they cost the company over $1,000 to make, so his team is working to develop a model that is less expensive. He hopes to come up with a temrinal that costs the company just $220 to $250.
"Obviously selling terminals at half price is not super compelling," he said.
Musk said Starlink had two partnerships with "major company telcos" and was "in discussions with a number" of others, without giving further details.
He said Starlink could help telecom firms meet rural connectivity requirements contained in licences for the new super´fast 5G cellular networks which are being deployed around the world.
Musk's SpaceX firm, which operates Starlink, has requested authorisation from US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy up to 42,000 satellites to provide the satellite internet service.
Starlink faces competition from a number of rivals including OneWeb, a broadband satellite communications company acquired by a consortium of investors comprising the UK government and Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Global, and Amazon subsidiary Kuiper.
By the end of 2020 some 5.2 billion people, or 67 percent of the global population, subscribed to mobile services, according to the GSMA, industry body which organises the annual mobile congress.
They were supposed to Launch another 80 Satellites today but a small Plane flew into the area so it was rescheduled for tomorrow.
They were not Spacex Starlink satellites. They were satellites for other companies.
Huh?
They’ll block the sun! One way to cut back on glowbull discombobulation. 🤤
>> Unless you’re trying to suck up to the left.
No publication is safe from Leftwing dogma including this and the military mags.
This is more about Musk being Musk.
And this is why it is counter-productive for the Federal Government to get into rural broadband at this point in time.
Where did you get that from? This guy is the Cornelius Vanderbilt of this s generation. If you haven’t seen the History Channel show that starts with Vanderbilt in The Men Who Made America, do so.
Vanderbilt is arguably the most important businessman ever, even if he isn’t the richest. Musk is not popular on the Far Left because he calls them out at times. He gets this right and America owns the streaming service worldwide and Musk is patriotic
He should block YouTube, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc.
Don’t be surprised if he does do that, and that becomes where a John D Rockefeller type businessman emerges to take on Musk. I hope to live long enough to watch it play out.
And lose his costumers or not gain enough costumers at all?
Better option would be to create his own better versions and push them relentlessly.
>> What on earth are you talking about?
In the 1st sentence, I was referring to the pervasive Leftwing penetration into publications and magazines including such online publications as Military.com. The articles are often laced with Leftwing BS.
In the 2nd sentence, I intended to convey that Musk marches to his own beat, and doesn’t necessarily answer to any political party.
I’m a snowbird with properties in the north and in Florida.
I was hoping this would potentially be a solution to starting and stopping internet service in each location if I could have a single ISP covering both locations... Like you would think a satellite based provider would do.
However it looks like it is not that. You are locked into a single location.
Looks like the continued semi-annual hassle of cancelling one service and activating another (which is costly and a huge hassle with Comcast in FL) will continue for the foreseeable future.
Will operate at 3-4g from what I read. Good enough for the 3rd world I suppose. But they don’t have the money to pay for such...
When you’re able to send/receive Command & Control data to your forces at 40 ms and your opponent does it at 630 ms....
Get it?
Musk will have no problem making his investment back.
The Men Who Made America is absolutely outstanding.
Thanks for the correction.
Obama got a lot of mileage with Obama phones. This will get Musk a lot of mileage with the same people, right? Well... you might be right, maybe it won’t.
Why can’t these super-billionaires throw away money on traditional American citizens?
I know if I were in that group of billionaires, I might very well throw away $30bil on “LibWhacker Guns” for the needy good American citizens who can’t afford one.
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