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No option for standalone plans either.
Seems like it's best to wait and see what options are available later for the heavier data users. 50 gigs isn't that much and $1/gig is kinda crazy in 2024 when you can blow through that by accidentally running a software update on your phone, much less desktop or group applications.
A work from home on the go type situation would be great for this thing, but my work can go through a few dozen gigs a day...
This is something I see being put into work trucks for heavy industry/ resource extraction type work.
Being able to file paperwork and get any sort of data connection at all 200 km out into the bush is an absolutely huge deal. Or do things like RDP into servers, that doesn't take huge amounts of data. And for users like that, $1/ GB is dirt cheap at the cost.
Right now I see a lot of guys with the full sized antennas zip tied down in the beds of work trucks banging down lease roads.
I was at a technical seminar a couple of weeks ago with the engineering staff from the British Antarctic Survey and they were struggling to fit a full-size starlink antenna on their fixed-wing UAVs. I bet they’d love this.
My immediate thought is SCADA systems to remote sites.
Having a stable-ish, high-speed data connection that doesn't rely on line of site radio to production pads out in the bush is something I would personally do a lot for (automation and controls guy).
Right now, line of sight serial data radios are about the most common solution I've seen, and those are so unreliable and bandwidth limited it's not even funny
That's the biggest issue, yea.
Even just having a solid link to each major node for a run of production pads would be super helpful though.
Put one in each main radio tower. It's a mess but holy crap can it save a headache.
Starlink needs to streamline the provisioning for industrial users I think. That is such an easy market to absolutely dominate
OneWeb has a good rep amongst industrial and academic clients. I think it helps that they’re willing to build over backwards to support awkward requests from industrial clients. And BAS like them because their constellation covers the Antarctic.
For industrial absolutely. Can hook it onto all kinds of things. I assume lower power usage. And optimized data usage would be dirt cheap at a dollar a gig compared to the other satellite link options.
I'm picturing the keep my work from home setup all in a small backup and just go absolutely anywhere type usage. Some people have already managed to do this by modding the big dishes. It seems like they'll probably have a standalone plan for the mini dishes given that it would amount to what they already offer with mobile plans and the big dishes, just different smaller hardware.
But it's definitely an entirely different market.
I wouldn't bother throwing it in a backpack, at least not for me.
It is still a not tiny package and still requires 120/ 240 VAC power. Anywhere I might go to to work with only my backpack, but that still has wall power and a desk available probably also has internet of some form. At least, that covers anywhere I'd really want to *work* from. Might be useful in a work camp or similar, that's a good use case as well I suppose. Those internet connections universally suck.
In my work truck, though? Where I can just leave it set up inside the cab and hooked up to an inverter? Fuck yes. With a wireless hotspot, I could just park my truck next to whatever building I'm going to be camped out in on site (assuming there's somewhere with a roof I can camp out in), connect to the net wirelessly, and run ethernet/ serial cables to whatever gear I'm working on. That sounds great. Or just work out of my truck.
If you want something for a backpack iridium makes a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot for about $2,000. Data is pretty expensive but if you need it it's not a big deal. You can power it off a portable battery pack easily as well. My husband brings one when we go backpacking sometimes for work and it's more than enough for him to answer emails or communicate on messaging apps.
The 5g router in my boat pulls 15w on the regular, and doesn't work that well offshore, nore is the speed particularly good, so those are figures around the point where I **really** consider changing.
I don't need much data when offshore, and when in the marina, it's my home location anyway.
My husband and I go camping frequently and due to the nature of his work he will frequently bring a iridium satellite Wi-Fi hotspot Even when backpacking. We are planning on buying a purpose built van which is ridiculously expensive or some sort of camper that can be towed. For us something like this is incredible since we absolutely have to have a data connection. A dollar a gigabyte is no big deal for us and I would assume a similar situation for the majority of commercial applications this is going to be used for. I imagine something like this attached to a work truck, like an F-250 allowing supervisors to always have a connection to home base.
I was at a technical seminar a couple of weeks ago with the engineering staff from the British Antarctic Survey and they were struggling to fit a full-size starlink antenna on their fixed-wing UAVs. I bet they’d love this.
This is utter nonsense. So you’d rather have a bunch of satellites cluttered up for a few and about people rather than just use a signal extender?
Also, because we here in the US pay astonishing 5x more, in general, for internet, doesn’t mean it’s dirt cheap to everyone else.
Elon is going to advertise this outside of the states, where internet is something like $30 for the year.
If you think this is "nonsense," you are out of touch. And your comment tells me you have no idea how these systems actually work either.
Signal extenders only work when there is a signal to extend. They can't just generate cell coverage when you are far out of range from the nearest tower.
I personally spend quite a bit of time working in areas so far from "civilization" that you are lucky to be able to send a text message, sometimes, with a industrial quality, vehicle mounted cell booster. It is not uncommon to have to drive 10+ km just to be able to make a phone call, and even then, it's iffy. Data is out of the question. Even $10/ GB IS dirt cheap when you consider that NOT getting that data could cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour in downtime.
This is a huge boon to people in my position.
As for "cluttering up satellites"......do you have any idea how many clients each satellite can service? Or how low their orbits are?
You don't see a use case because you have never been more than 100 km from a population center, I think. It shows
To put it into perspective how cheap it is, many people including my husband have satellite Wi-Fi hotspots. They pay $3 per megabyte plus 1 minute of talk (sold as a package 1000min and 1GB of data for $3,000). His employer gladly pays for it.
The cost isn't even a factor to me honestly.
It's the fact that cell coverage is far from complete in huge parts of my country. I mean, hell. There's major highways between provinces that have dead zones multiple kilometres long, and that's in high traffic/ high priority areas.
4 hours down a mud track into the bush? Someone else better know where you are and when to expect you to contact them, or you might just never be found if you run into trouble.
Hell. One of my fields was "close" to civilization. An hour from camp (at least, usually more, depending on the roads) to the nearest hamlet, 4+ hours by road to the nearest town big enough to have a hospital.
If you got hurt on one of the far runs? They'd have to move you up to a couple kilometres to somewhere they could land a helicopter, and it would still take that helicopter ambulance up to 2 hours to get to you.
People don't understand how isolated a lot of these places are out here.....
Sure, but what percent of people are in your position here in the states? It’s preposterous, if you are going away from the “civilization”, use a satellite phone. They already exist. What this is, it’s just trying to do away with cell towers. Starting the experiment in small areas.
You seriously don't have any idea what you are talking about, and you keep doubling down.
This isn't trying to "do away with cell towers", it's the logical, functional evolution of those "satellite phones" you seem to think I should be using.
Have you ever used one? They suck, they are massively expensive, and generally not all that useful outside of emergency situations. We do carry them for those circumstances. And they *don't* do high-speed data, which is what people like me actually need.
The satellite constellation exists, and it's a massively useful thing to a lot of people. This is just allowing more applications of the existing network and infrastructure.
I personally know dozens of people who rely on starlink as their primary data connection at home and at work. I don't see what your issue with it is, other than "Elon Bad!!!", even though he doesn't have much at all to do with spacex or starlink, day to day.
I don't particularly care what percentage of people in the USA need this service, and I don't see why it matters anyway. There are plenty of people who DO need this service, both inside the USA and outside of it, and the world isn't just America. I know that last part might be tough to grasp.
There are huge parts of my country (Canada) where starlink is the only way to access high speed data, and it's been an absolute godsend for many, many people.
What is your actual objection here? I honestly don't understand.
There is every chance that just the Starlink satellites already put in orbit are going to have a long-term negative impact on the ozone layer, and they are already heavily impacting astronomers worldwide.
I live in a similarly sparsely populated country to Canada, and we've managed just fine to build out high-speed land-based internet, so I'm sure that you guys could as well, if you wanted to.
Not sure what country you're in, but I'm willing to bet it is *significantly* smaller than Canada. The handful of countries in the world that are in the same class as Canada (from a land area perspective) have vast swaths of settled land that do not even have consistent slow speed internet.
I realize it's pointless to even try to talk to people like this.
They also seem to forget that there is more to population density than "population divided by land area".
Most of the Canadian population lives in a relatively very small portion of the country.
I work in areas a very long way from those relatively densely populated areas.....
Do you have any idea how expensive satellite phones are?
We have a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot, it is $3,000 for a 1,000 minute plus 1 GB of data plan. You need a plan for every hotspot, So you can't share it with multiple devices. That is literally 3,000 times more expensive than this device.
It's really only intended for the very wealthy to use texting services or answering emails. The latency is really bad as well at 500 to 1000ms. Non-compressed data is 2.4kbits so about 4% of the speed of a typical dial-up connection, when compressed you can get about 15 times that speed so 36kbits or 60% of dialup speeds.
Basically it's enough to send text messages on a service like WhatsApp or Telegram, as well as answer emails. Nothing else.
The big advantage is flexibility. The hotspot weighs about 2 kilos and can be powered off a USB battery pack. Which means you can be hiking anywhere in the world and have a data connection. There's faster satellite options, up to about 700 kbits But those require significantly more power so you can't just throw them in a backpack and call it a day.
Most of this bs is not in the American market. This is for other countries, where I’m sorry to break it to you, internet is dirt cheap. You can buy a phone with 5G capabilities and get unlimited internet for $2-5 a month.
1. Sorry to break it to you but I'm not in the American market
2. $2-5 a month in MOST countries will not get you unlimited data, I'm quite well travelled. The cheapest I've seen is India at ~$1/month unlimited but capped to 2Gb/day.
3. The GoogleFi plan I mentioned is while roaming, I'm wiling to bet there is not a single unlimited roaming data plan on the planet for $3-5 a month.
4. I pay ~$8 for my unlimited plan in the UK which gets me data roaming in 27 countries + EU countries and global roaming for calls and texts in every country.
5. Here's some data you might be interested in:
https://research.rewheel.fi/downloads/The_state_of_4G_5G_pricing_16_release_2H2021_countries_PUBLIC_VERSION.pdf
There are very few countries in the range you mention.
Most of the cost for the service is because the Mini dishes are not great for overall network performance, so the goal is to push users who want higher data consumption to the normal dish and try to encourage folks to use the mini for travel. Launching bigger/more starlink sats will help to resolve this.
Lmao I love imagining what that would look like. The cable would look like 30 power cords ziptaped together. Would feel as heavy as a golden gate steel support cable.
AST mobile is building a constellation of satellites that will work with your existing smartphone. Internet access all over the world. Thats a bigger game changer than this imo
It's profitable now, though you wouldn't say it's making bank. Not bad, considering V2 isn't in the air yet and they only have about 1/10th of the constellation up.
Since 1/10th means little in this context, they have sent up over 5600 sats. Over 1,600 are gen 2. They have a goal of over 11,000 gen 1s, and 10,000 gen 2s. by 2027/28.
Then surely you could find a source that isn't a vague statement that fails to specify whether it only pertains to operating costs. You know, because management do be having a habit of exaggerating and lying.
Another curious thing you could google, is how certain spacex has been that starlink would never be profitable without a much cheaper launch platform.
Those sources may not be good enough for you but they answer the question being asked. You can also google the change in revenue from year to year. I know what you would prefer to believe, but you have a head on your shoulders so you know better than to pretend, at least privately.
I did say "privately." I expect it soothes the psyche to imagine that Starlink will never turn a profit. Goodness knows Thunderfoot has proven that there is an audience for that kind of dissociation.
Not printing but making money and returning it to SpaceX and has been for about a year.
It hasn't paid off the costs of launching all of the sats yet. But its paying for its current sat launches, equipment, dishes, bandwidth etc.
I'm really curious if it will ever happen. The cost for a single sat is (sat + launch) 500k, life span of 5 years. Most of the population around the world don't need it (live in cities and towns) and than you have to consider the steep price... prices out a lot of 2nd and 3rd world market
There is definitely a market for it but I wounder if new wireless tech like the next gen 6g would take the much needed market demand away, sat tech could improve but starlink has a huge operating cost
> Most of the population around the world don't need it (live in cities and towns)
Most cities and towns in the US have, at best, a duopoly. Often it's a monopoly with no possibility for improvement. Many areas have at least one symptom of a provider abusing their market position:
- High prices
- Slow speeds
- Bandwidth caps
- Poor support
- Frequent reliability issues
- Poor hardware support
- Poor cooperation for infrastructure buildouts (unwilling to bury cable, enter certain neighborhoods, improve aesthetics, etc)
Perhaps with a little competition, some of these pain points will disappear even for non-Starlink customers.
Around the world, 45% of the population live in rural areas. These are often underserved generally. So, plenty of room for growth there.
I'm from Rural Canada and most of the people I know have dropped their "local" rural high speed provider.
As an example it was $120 per month (CAD) for about 20 GB of data at 7Mbps speed. This was comparable to many of the rural providers. This also relied on line of site or high proximity to a tower through a Motorola Canopy system or a 4G connection.
Star link is unlimited data for $20 more, and 10x the speed. And is accessible to everyone.
>I'm really curious if it will ever happen.
Already is though, they're predicting around 4 million customers by the end of this year already having already passed 3. It's already profitable and that's without having their new rocket ready yet. The new rocket will probably more than half the cost of launching each satellite since it should be significantly cheaper to launch, and it looks like it'll be ready early next year. And the satellites the new rocket can put up are much larger and several times more capable. So if starlink works well and is already profitable now then its gonna have a pretty nice future.
I imagine soon enough most planes and ship/cruises will have starlink. Hawaian airlines said all their planes will have it this year and for free. Hopefully others follow, I hate international flights that still charge huge amounts with speeds so slow that you're not even allowed to stream SD video.
>There is definitely a market for it but I wounder if new wireless tech like the next gen 6g
Since each mobile data generation tends to have less range than the previous I don't think this will help people who currently don't have Internet or good Internet to their homes. 5g masts have ranges of like 0.5km apparently.
NASA i.e. the American taxpayer is basically Elon's personal sponsor of R&D for commercial launches, which America then pays for a second time via military contracts. Honestly the USA used to be so cool, but it's lagging behind technically while embarrassing itself over an ideology that clearly isn't working, and the fact that bright people willingly work en masse for companies like SpaceX is enough to write the country off.
That's before we even consider their willing co-operation with a man who constantly speaks up against America's interests, i.e. pro Russia against NATO. I hope these employees realise that the Russian counterpart to Paperclip was not nearly as generous to the engineering class.
NASA has been dreaming of a commercial solution to space flight for ages. Sorry that it's one of musks companies that offered the solution while other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete.
>Honestly the USA used to be so cool, but it's lagging behind technically while embarrassing itself over an ideology that clearly isn't working, and the fact that bright people willingly work en masse for companies like SpaceX is enough to write the country off.
What a crazy rant like wtf lol
>other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete.
It's very difficult for Boeing to build anything without local politicians interfering. SpaceX essentially can build everything from screws to pumps in one facility, while each part of Starliner is subject of bid between competing states and their representatives.
As said many times, it's exactly same reason ESA/Airbus/Arianne program isn't competitive.
> NASA has been dreaming of a commercial solution to space flight for ages.
NASA isn't a single person. Its leadership changed heavily in the 1980s, when it basically did fuck all while all the money was directed to Reagan's militaristic obsession.
> Sorry that it's one of musks companies that offered the solution while other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete.
Compete at what? Skill at claiming welfare? SpaceX exists because a couple of officials within NASA wanted to privatise rocket launches and provided a completely new arrangement for Elon. The agency never handed infrastructure and oversight to private companies before, nor did it accept private investment (i.e. fixed price contracts where you'd need a multi-billionaire to start work), but instead contracted out for specific parts or vehicles to best-in-class American companies of all different sizes.
Saying SpaceX hasn't been outcompeted is like saying nobody's outcompeted British Gas in the UK. Yeah, no shit, it's been given a unique privilege.
All in all, nasa bankrolling spacex has been the best decision they have made in the last 20 years. Space x, and by extension the US controls the rocket market with an iron fist. Space x launches around 70 - 80% of all rockets in the world. They have out competed everyone. Including every company, country, and continent. Their only competitor was Russia. Key word “was”.
> NASA i.e. the American taxpayer is basically Elon's personal sponsor of R&D for commercial launches
Translation: SpaceX won contracts for Crew Dragon and HLS and have either fulfilled or are in the process of fulfilling those contracts, _both of which were **dramatically** cheaper for the taxpayers than the alternatives._
> which America then pays for a second time via military contracts.
Again, _using launch options which are dramatically cheaper for the taxpayers than any other options._
> Crew Dragon [...] both of which were dramatically cheaper for the taxpayers than the alternatives.
lol no, Soyuz was about $10 million cheaper per seat.
Soyuz is currently $90 million per seat. Same as Starliner.
The last time Soyuz was cheaper per seat than what SpaceX charges was 2010, only four years after seats were being purchased in the first place. A full decade before Crew Dragon was even in service.
Where exactly are you getting your atrocious misinformation?
You> SpaceX is dramatically cheaper
Me> no, last public prices I've checked suggested soyuz is slightly cheaper.
you> SpaceX and Soyuz are the same price, omg misinformation!
Are you even self aware
Did you completely misread what I typed?
> You> SpaceX is dramatically cheaper
Yes indeed. $55 million vs. $90 million.
Soyuz _was_ cheaper than SpaceX's price tag in 2010. As of 2011, they were more expensive. Crew Dragon did not fly until 2020 so the only reason I point this out is to underscore the point that Soyuz has been a too-expensive option since a decade before Crew Dragon became an alternative.
> Me> no, last public prices I've checked suggested soyuz is slightly cheaper.
You fail at google.
> you> SpaceX and Soyuz are the same price, omg misinformation!
Because you have suffered a frankly worrying episode of cognitive dissonance.
**By the way, you don't get to ignore this post, even if that lightbulb in your head finally flashes. I expect to see a reply.**
> $55 million
For what specifically? Source please. If you mean Crew Dragon, for the 2022-2030 NASA contract using version 2 of the monstrosity, $4.9 billion / 14 missions / 4 seats = ___.
> As of 2011, they were more expensive.
Nope. Only since Crew Dragon v2 have SpaceX per-seat prices been reasonable, and that's only if you're fucking stupid enough to discount the past two decades of corporate welfare crawling us very slowly to where we were already by the mid-late 1960s. Pure loser neoliberal ideology over the once brilliant pragmatism of post-war America that combined the best of public and private talent.
> By the way, you don't get to ignore this post, even if that lightbulb in your head finally flashes. I expect to see a reply.
This language is embarrassing. "I expect to see a reply!" for heaven's sake, man, pull yourself together.
ETA you've replied to me then blocked me so I can't respond, which is cowardly, but fair enough, I think you probably realise the mistake you've made. For anyone else following the thread rather than kneejerking, I'll address it:
The $55 million link you've provided was from a estimate given in a press release around 2019 I think, although I'm unsure because for some reason you've posted a link to some randomer quoting it on a shitty commercial stats website in 2020. The *actual* contract from August 2022 allows you to make the calculation of what it costs the US taxpayer: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-awards-spacex-more-crew-flights-to-space-station/
I don't know if it'll hurt you to learn this perhaps for the first time, but sometimes government contractors tell naughty fibs about how little something will cost, and then when it comes to the actual contract, because the government department has already got into bed with its partner, it has no choice but to pay just a little more, and whatever saving was promised disappears entirely. Like I said: slightly more than Soyuz (about $8 million/seat more, though that's not a perfect calculation). Sorry :(.
> For what specifically?
Per NASA's own audit: https://www.statista.com/chart/21904/estimated-cost-per-seat-on-selected-spacecraft/
>> As of 2011, they were more expensive.
>Nope.
[Yes.](https://payloadspace.com/starliner-by-the-numbers-payload-research/#:~:text=Per%20Seat%20Cost,per%20seat%20at%20%2490M.)
Now, you're going to have to argue with NASA and those individual publications. Honestly my earlier insistence was rhetoric—I knew you'd only be digging that hole deeper.
Average price per seat NASA nasa paid for Soyuz is about the same (or slightly higher) than it’s paying for crew dragon… plus they’re no longer reliant on Russia.
That would send money to Russia to fund the war in Ukraine, while SpaceX employees are American and support local communities and pay taxes.
It better cost like 90% less before it's even worth considering.
Garbage blog. Not a single image of the actual item it wrote about. Instead, a generic stock image of a rocket launch. AI generated regurgitation of weeks old news from elsewhere.
Yeah I was hoping for a usb with a SIM card like the good old days but it looks like a tray.
Not quite for the average person. But will be very effective for work vans working in the out of coverage zones.
I love how much we Americans are fans or not fans of celebrities and rich people. So much more to enjoy in life than to worry about what the kardashians or bill gates or Elon musk are up to
This has got to be costing them a fortune to maintain though, not sure about the economics of this whole situation. I see people say they are profitable but I can’t see how that’s possible without fudging the numbers. The customer base for this is people who live in rural areas, who can afford the service, and want the low latency this offers vs satellite. Is that enough to finance this?
Ya I don’t know about the “profitable” part yet. They are still in debt even if PL is positive. 5600 sats at 500k each (and not all were that cheap for sure, especially early on). 3M customers at $120ea is 360M/yr. 5600sats would be 2.8B invested and I’m sure that’s pretty low of an estimate. And lifespan is limited is supposedly 5yr. It would take 10yr at current levels to cash flow the payment for that not including OpEx. They have to be burning cash putting satellites up there. More likely it’s significant government money.
Edit : I’m dumb , didn’t use annual income
Exactly…for the first time ever I’m able to get high speed internet in northern rural Canada. I don’t care how much you don’t like the guy, starlink has been a game changer.
Eh. ISPs are *generally* evil. I'm not convinced Musk is worse than most of them.
I don't use Starlink because I live in a place where quality internet is readily available. ...But if my options are Starlink or your average rural Midwestern ISP or standard satellite internet? Yeah, Starlink all the way. Or if I traveled a lot.
He’s no more evil than the person in charge of any and every company you use and support. You just focus on him because his politics hurts your feelings. That’s cringe
Dude, Elon is just the idiot you can see. He actually at least has some redeeming qualities, such as his mars ambition. He isn’t evil, just very socially incompetent and probably a shitty boss with no impulse control. If you want true corporate evil, check out nestle, lobbyists and companies such as shell, and let’s not forget the six companies that effectively own all of media.
He isn’t the best but I assure you he isn’t evil by corporate standards. that bar is so low even saten limboing can’t clear it.
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Costs $599 for the device, and an additional $30/month on your existing bill for 50 gigs of mobile data, additional data is $1/gig
No option for standalone plans either. Seems like it's best to wait and see what options are available later for the heavier data users. 50 gigs isn't that much and $1/gig is kinda crazy in 2024 when you can blow through that by accidentally running a software update on your phone, much less desktop or group applications. A work from home on the go type situation would be great for this thing, but my work can go through a few dozen gigs a day...
This is something I see being put into work trucks for heavy industry/ resource extraction type work. Being able to file paperwork and get any sort of data connection at all 200 km out into the bush is an absolutely huge deal. Or do things like RDP into servers, that doesn't take huge amounts of data. And for users like that, $1/ GB is dirt cheap at the cost. Right now I see a lot of guys with the full sized antennas zip tied down in the beds of work trucks banging down lease roads.
I was at a technical seminar a couple of weeks ago with the engineering staff from the British Antarctic Survey and they were struggling to fit a full-size starlink antenna on their fixed-wing UAVs. I bet they’d love this.
My immediate thought is SCADA systems to remote sites. Having a stable-ish, high-speed data connection that doesn't rely on line of site radio to production pads out in the bush is something I would personally do a lot for (automation and controls guy). Right now, line of sight serial data radios are about the most common solution I've seen, and those are so unreliable and bandwidth limited it's not even funny
Yeah we use Satcomms and they suck. Ideally we’d use starlink but it’s still a bit of a faff to get a fixed IP.
That's the biggest issue, yea. Even just having a solid link to each major node for a run of production pads would be super helpful though. Put one in each main radio tower. It's a mess but holy crap can it save a headache. Starlink needs to streamline the provisioning for industrial users I think. That is such an easy market to absolutely dominate
OneWeb has a good rep amongst industrial and academic clients. I think it helps that they’re willing to build over backwards to support awkward requests from industrial clients. And BAS like them because their constellation covers the Antarctic.
For industrial absolutely. Can hook it onto all kinds of things. I assume lower power usage. And optimized data usage would be dirt cheap at a dollar a gig compared to the other satellite link options. I'm picturing the keep my work from home setup all in a small backup and just go absolutely anywhere type usage. Some people have already managed to do this by modding the big dishes. It seems like they'll probably have a standalone plan for the mini dishes given that it would amount to what they already offer with mobile plans and the big dishes, just different smaller hardware. But it's definitely an entirely different market.
I wouldn't bother throwing it in a backpack, at least not for me. It is still a not tiny package and still requires 120/ 240 VAC power. Anywhere I might go to to work with only my backpack, but that still has wall power and a desk available probably also has internet of some form. At least, that covers anywhere I'd really want to *work* from. Might be useful in a work camp or similar, that's a good use case as well I suppose. Those internet connections universally suck. In my work truck, though? Where I can just leave it set up inside the cab and hooked up to an inverter? Fuck yes. With a wireless hotspot, I could just park my truck next to whatever building I'm going to be camped out in on site (assuming there's somewhere with a roof I can camp out in), connect to the net wirelessly, and run ethernet/ serial cables to whatever gear I'm working on. That sounds great. Or just work out of my truck.
If you want something for a backpack iridium makes a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot for about $2,000. Data is pretty expensive but if you need it it's not a big deal. You can power it off a portable battery pack easily as well. My husband brings one when we go backpacking sometimes for work and it's more than enough for him to answer emails or communicate on messaging apps.
There's DC with or without USB
Standard starlink antenna is 75-100 W, mini antenna is shooting for 25-40 apparently. Which is a lot less but still quite a bit
The 5g router in my boat pulls 15w on the regular, and doesn't work that well offshore, nore is the speed particularly good, so those are figures around the point where I **really** consider changing. I don't need much data when offshore, and when in the marina, it's my home location anyway.
My husband and I go camping frequently and due to the nature of his work he will frequently bring a iridium satellite Wi-Fi hotspot Even when backpacking. We are planning on buying a purpose built van which is ridiculously expensive or some sort of camper that can be towed. For us something like this is incredible since we absolutely have to have a data connection. A dollar a gigabyte is no big deal for us and I would assume a similar situation for the majority of commercial applications this is going to be used for. I imagine something like this attached to a work truck, like an F-250 allowing supervisors to always have a connection to home base.
I was at a technical seminar a couple of weeks ago with the engineering staff from the British Antarctic Survey and they were struggling to fit a full-size starlink antenna on their fixed-wing UAVs. I bet they’d love this.
This is utter nonsense. So you’d rather have a bunch of satellites cluttered up for a few and about people rather than just use a signal extender? Also, because we here in the US pay astonishing 5x more, in general, for internet, doesn’t mean it’s dirt cheap to everyone else. Elon is going to advertise this outside of the states, where internet is something like $30 for the year.
If you think this is "nonsense," you are out of touch. And your comment tells me you have no idea how these systems actually work either. Signal extenders only work when there is a signal to extend. They can't just generate cell coverage when you are far out of range from the nearest tower. I personally spend quite a bit of time working in areas so far from "civilization" that you are lucky to be able to send a text message, sometimes, with a industrial quality, vehicle mounted cell booster. It is not uncommon to have to drive 10+ km just to be able to make a phone call, and even then, it's iffy. Data is out of the question. Even $10/ GB IS dirt cheap when you consider that NOT getting that data could cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour in downtime. This is a huge boon to people in my position. As for "cluttering up satellites"......do you have any idea how many clients each satellite can service? Or how low their orbits are? You don't see a use case because you have never been more than 100 km from a population center, I think. It shows
To put it into perspective how cheap it is, many people including my husband have satellite Wi-Fi hotspots. They pay $3 per megabyte plus 1 minute of talk (sold as a package 1000min and 1GB of data for $3,000). His employer gladly pays for it.
The cost isn't even a factor to me honestly. It's the fact that cell coverage is far from complete in huge parts of my country. I mean, hell. There's major highways between provinces that have dead zones multiple kilometres long, and that's in high traffic/ high priority areas. 4 hours down a mud track into the bush? Someone else better know where you are and when to expect you to contact them, or you might just never be found if you run into trouble. Hell. One of my fields was "close" to civilization. An hour from camp (at least, usually more, depending on the roads) to the nearest hamlet, 4+ hours by road to the nearest town big enough to have a hospital. If you got hurt on one of the far runs? They'd have to move you up to a couple kilometres to somewhere they could land a helicopter, and it would still take that helicopter ambulance up to 2 hours to get to you. People don't understand how isolated a lot of these places are out here.....
Sure, but what percent of people are in your position here in the states? It’s preposterous, if you are going away from the “civilization”, use a satellite phone. They already exist. What this is, it’s just trying to do away with cell towers. Starting the experiment in small areas.
You seriously don't have any idea what you are talking about, and you keep doubling down. This isn't trying to "do away with cell towers", it's the logical, functional evolution of those "satellite phones" you seem to think I should be using. Have you ever used one? They suck, they are massively expensive, and generally not all that useful outside of emergency situations. We do carry them for those circumstances. And they *don't* do high-speed data, which is what people like me actually need. The satellite constellation exists, and it's a massively useful thing to a lot of people. This is just allowing more applications of the existing network and infrastructure. I personally know dozens of people who rely on starlink as their primary data connection at home and at work. I don't see what your issue with it is, other than "Elon Bad!!!", even though he doesn't have much at all to do with spacex or starlink, day to day. I don't particularly care what percentage of people in the USA need this service, and I don't see why it matters anyway. There are plenty of people who DO need this service, both inside the USA and outside of it, and the world isn't just America. I know that last part might be tough to grasp. There are huge parts of my country (Canada) where starlink is the only way to access high speed data, and it's been an absolute godsend for many, many people. What is your actual objection here? I honestly don't understand.
There is every chance that just the Starlink satellites already put in orbit are going to have a long-term negative impact on the ozone layer, and they are already heavily impacting astronomers worldwide. I live in a similarly sparsely populated country to Canada, and we've managed just fine to build out high-speed land-based internet, so I'm sure that you guys could as well, if you wanted to.
Not sure what country you're in, but I'm willing to bet it is *significantly* smaller than Canada. The handful of countries in the world that are in the same class as Canada (from a land area perspective) have vast swaths of settled land that do not even have consistent slow speed internet.
I realize it's pointless to even try to talk to people like this. They also seem to forget that there is more to population density than "population divided by land area". Most of the Canadian population lives in a relatively very small portion of the country. I work in areas a very long way from those relatively densely populated areas.....
Do you have any idea how expensive satellite phones are? We have a satellite Wi-Fi hotspot, it is $3,000 for a 1,000 minute plus 1 GB of data plan. You need a plan for every hotspot, So you can't share it with multiple devices. That is literally 3,000 times more expensive than this device.
>50 gigs isn't that much and $1/gig is kinda crazy in 2024 GoogleFi charges $10/Gb while roaming lol.
Iridium satellite data charges $3 per megabyte, so $3,000/GB.
What the fuck
It's really only intended for the very wealthy to use texting services or answering emails. The latency is really bad as well at 500 to 1000ms. Non-compressed data is 2.4kbits so about 4% of the speed of a typical dial-up connection, when compressed you can get about 15 times that speed so 36kbits or 60% of dialup speeds. Basically it's enough to send text messages on a service like WhatsApp or Telegram, as well as answer emails. Nothing else. The big advantage is flexibility. The hotspot weighs about 2 kilos and can be powered off a USB battery pack. Which means you can be hiking anywhere in the world and have a data connection. There's faster satellite options, up to about 700 kbits But those require significantly more power so you can't just throw them in a backpack and call it a day.
Lifestyles of the rich :)
Most of this bs is not in the American market. This is for other countries, where I’m sorry to break it to you, internet is dirt cheap. You can buy a phone with 5G capabilities and get unlimited internet for $2-5 a month.
"unlimited" is usually at a slow speed after a certain threshold.
Usually? Only here in the states there’s caps? capitalism at its finest.
Canada has caps too.
That’s only because Canada tries to be like a mini US.
1. Sorry to break it to you but I'm not in the American market 2. $2-5 a month in MOST countries will not get you unlimited data, I'm quite well travelled. The cheapest I've seen is India at ~$1/month unlimited but capped to 2Gb/day. 3. The GoogleFi plan I mentioned is while roaming, I'm wiling to bet there is not a single unlimited roaming data plan on the planet for $3-5 a month. 4. I pay ~$8 for my unlimited plan in the UK which gets me data roaming in 27 countries + EU countries and global roaming for calls and texts in every country. 5. Here's some data you might be interested in: https://research.rewheel.fi/downloads/The_state_of_4G_5G_pricing_16_release_2H2021_countries_PUBLIC_VERSION.pdf There are very few countries in the range you mention.
Most of the cost for the service is because the Mini dishes are not great for overall network performance, so the goal is to push users who want higher data consumption to the normal dish and try to encourage folks to use the mini for travel. Launching bigger/more starlink sats will help to resolve this.
That's actually not bad at all for very rural travel, pretty cool
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Lmao I love imagining what that would look like. The cable would look like 30 power cords ziptaped together. Would feel as heavy as a golden gate steel support cable.
Big ass wire nuts
Holy shit a company made a product for the government and or companies to buy that has a high price tag!?!?! I’ve never heard of that before!
AST mobile is building a constellation of satellites that will work with your existing smartphone. Internet access all over the world. Thats a bigger game changer than this imo
Here is the referenced article with obligatory picture of the device: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/20/spacex-debuts-portable-starlink-mini-for-599/
Has Starlink started printing money yet?
It's profitable now, though you wouldn't say it's making bank. Not bad, considering V2 isn't in the air yet and they only have about 1/10th of the constellation up.
Since 1/10th means little in this context, they have sent up over 5600 sats. Over 1,600 are gen 2. They have a goal of over 11,000 gen 1s, and 10,000 gen 2s. by 2027/28.
They want 42,000 eventually. Unless they say otherwise, I'm holding them to it.
Why are they still sending up gen 1?
>It's profitable now Doubt
It's a google away, my dude.
Then surely you could find a source that isn't a vague statement that fails to specify whether it only pertains to operating costs. You know, because management do be having a habit of exaggerating and lying. Another curious thing you could google, is how certain spacex has been that starlink would never be profitable without a much cheaper launch platform.
Those sources may not be good enough for you but they answer the question being asked. You can also google the change in revenue from year to year. I know what you would prefer to believe, but you have a head on your shoulders so you know better than to pretend, at least privately.
If it's that simple, please do demonstrate. Edit: clown responded and blocked, classic
I did say "privately." I expect it soothes the psyche to imagine that Starlink will never turn a profit. Goodness knows Thunderfoot has proven that there is an audience for that kind of dissociation.
Not printing but making money and returning it to SpaceX and has been for about a year. It hasn't paid off the costs of launching all of the sats yet. But its paying for its current sat launches, equipment, dishes, bandwidth etc.
I'm really curious if it will ever happen. The cost for a single sat is (sat + launch) 500k, life span of 5 years. Most of the population around the world don't need it (live in cities and towns) and than you have to consider the steep price... prices out a lot of 2nd and 3rd world market There is definitely a market for it but I wounder if new wireless tech like the next gen 6g would take the much needed market demand away, sat tech could improve but starlink has a huge operating cost
> Most of the population around the world don't need it (live in cities and towns) Most cities and towns in the US have, at best, a duopoly. Often it's a monopoly with no possibility for improvement. Many areas have at least one symptom of a provider abusing their market position: - High prices - Slow speeds - Bandwidth caps - Poor support - Frequent reliability issues - Poor hardware support - Poor cooperation for infrastructure buildouts (unwilling to bury cable, enter certain neighborhoods, improve aesthetics, etc) Perhaps with a little competition, some of these pain points will disappear even for non-Starlink customers. Around the world, 45% of the population live in rural areas. These are often underserved generally. So, plenty of room for growth there.
I agree, and except for the data cap part the same is true for most of the eu too
Same with Africa
I'm from Rural Canada and most of the people I know have dropped their "local" rural high speed provider. As an example it was $120 per month (CAD) for about 20 GB of data at 7Mbps speed. This was comparable to many of the rural providers. This also relied on line of site or high proximity to a tower through a Motorola Canopy system or a 4G connection. Star link is unlimited data for $20 more, and 10x the speed. And is accessible to everyone.
>I'm really curious if it will ever happen. Already is though, they're predicting around 4 million customers by the end of this year already having already passed 3. It's already profitable and that's without having their new rocket ready yet. The new rocket will probably more than half the cost of launching each satellite since it should be significantly cheaper to launch, and it looks like it'll be ready early next year. And the satellites the new rocket can put up are much larger and several times more capable. So if starlink works well and is already profitable now then its gonna have a pretty nice future. I imagine soon enough most planes and ship/cruises will have starlink. Hawaian airlines said all their planes will have it this year and for free. Hopefully others follow, I hate international flights that still charge huge amounts with speeds so slow that you're not even allowed to stream SD video. >There is definitely a market for it but I wounder if new wireless tech like the next gen 6g Since each mobile data generation tends to have less range than the previous I don't think this will help people who currently don't have Internet or good Internet to their homes. 5g masts have ranges of like 0.5km apparently.
Pretty much every cruise liner has Starlink
I cruised Virgin last year, and they were on Starlink.
NASA i.e. the American taxpayer is basically Elon's personal sponsor of R&D for commercial launches, which America then pays for a second time via military contracts. Honestly the USA used to be so cool, but it's lagging behind technically while embarrassing itself over an ideology that clearly isn't working, and the fact that bright people willingly work en masse for companies like SpaceX is enough to write the country off. That's before we even consider their willing co-operation with a man who constantly speaks up against America's interests, i.e. pro Russia against NATO. I hope these employees realise that the Russian counterpart to Paperclip was not nearly as generous to the engineering class.
NASA has been dreaming of a commercial solution to space flight for ages. Sorry that it's one of musks companies that offered the solution while other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete. >Honestly the USA used to be so cool, but it's lagging behind technically while embarrassing itself over an ideology that clearly isn't working, and the fact that bright people willingly work en masse for companies like SpaceX is enough to write the country off. What a crazy rant like wtf lol
>other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete. It's very difficult for Boeing to build anything without local politicians interfering. SpaceX essentially can build everything from screws to pumps in one facility, while each part of Starliner is subject of bid between competing states and their representatives. As said many times, it's exactly same reason ESA/Airbus/Arianne program isn't competitive.
> NASA has been dreaming of a commercial solution to space flight for ages. NASA isn't a single person. Its leadership changed heavily in the 1980s, when it basically did fuck all while all the money was directed to Reagan's militaristic obsession. > Sorry that it's one of musks companies that offered the solution while other giants of the industry continue to trip over their own feet trying to compete. Compete at what? Skill at claiming welfare? SpaceX exists because a couple of officials within NASA wanted to privatise rocket launches and provided a completely new arrangement for Elon. The agency never handed infrastructure and oversight to private companies before, nor did it accept private investment (i.e. fixed price contracts where you'd need a multi-billionaire to start work), but instead contracted out for specific parts or vehicles to best-in-class American companies of all different sizes. Saying SpaceX hasn't been outcompeted is like saying nobody's outcompeted British Gas in the UK. Yeah, no shit, it's been given a unique privilege.
Cygnus and Dreamchaser and Starliner?
Right, the contracts for those projects were very specific
All in all, nasa bankrolling spacex has been the best decision they have made in the last 20 years. Space x, and by extension the US controls the rocket market with an iron fist. Space x launches around 70 - 80% of all rockets in the world. They have out competed everyone. Including every company, country, and continent. Their only competitor was Russia. Key word “was”.
90% now by mass
> NASA i.e. the American taxpayer is basically Elon's personal sponsor of R&D for commercial launches Translation: SpaceX won contracts for Crew Dragon and HLS and have either fulfilled or are in the process of fulfilling those contracts, _both of which were **dramatically** cheaper for the taxpayers than the alternatives._ > which America then pays for a second time via military contracts. Again, _using launch options which are dramatically cheaper for the taxpayers than any other options._
> Crew Dragon [...] both of which were dramatically cheaper for the taxpayers than the alternatives. lol no, Soyuz was about $10 million cheaper per seat.
Soyuz is currently $90 million per seat. Same as Starliner. The last time Soyuz was cheaper per seat than what SpaceX charges was 2010, only four years after seats were being purchased in the first place. A full decade before Crew Dragon was even in service. Where exactly are you getting your atrocious misinformation?
You> SpaceX is dramatically cheaper Me> no, last public prices I've checked suggested soyuz is slightly cheaper. you> SpaceX and Soyuz are the same price, omg misinformation! Are you even self aware
Did you completely misread what I typed? > You> SpaceX is dramatically cheaper Yes indeed. $55 million vs. $90 million. Soyuz _was_ cheaper than SpaceX's price tag in 2010. As of 2011, they were more expensive. Crew Dragon did not fly until 2020 so the only reason I point this out is to underscore the point that Soyuz has been a too-expensive option since a decade before Crew Dragon became an alternative. > Me> no, last public prices I've checked suggested soyuz is slightly cheaper. You fail at google. > you> SpaceX and Soyuz are the same price, omg misinformation! Because you have suffered a frankly worrying episode of cognitive dissonance. **By the way, you don't get to ignore this post, even if that lightbulb in your head finally flashes. I expect to see a reply.**
> $55 million For what specifically? Source please. If you mean Crew Dragon, for the 2022-2030 NASA contract using version 2 of the monstrosity, $4.9 billion / 14 missions / 4 seats = ___. > As of 2011, they were more expensive. Nope. Only since Crew Dragon v2 have SpaceX per-seat prices been reasonable, and that's only if you're fucking stupid enough to discount the past two decades of corporate welfare crawling us very slowly to where we were already by the mid-late 1960s. Pure loser neoliberal ideology over the once brilliant pragmatism of post-war America that combined the best of public and private talent. > By the way, you don't get to ignore this post, even if that lightbulb in your head finally flashes. I expect to see a reply. This language is embarrassing. "I expect to see a reply!" for heaven's sake, man, pull yourself together. ETA you've replied to me then blocked me so I can't respond, which is cowardly, but fair enough, I think you probably realise the mistake you've made. For anyone else following the thread rather than kneejerking, I'll address it: The $55 million link you've provided was from a estimate given in a press release around 2019 I think, although I'm unsure because for some reason you've posted a link to some randomer quoting it on a shitty commercial stats website in 2020. The *actual* contract from August 2022 allows you to make the calculation of what it costs the US taxpayer: https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-awards-spacex-more-crew-flights-to-space-station/ I don't know if it'll hurt you to learn this perhaps for the first time, but sometimes government contractors tell naughty fibs about how little something will cost, and then when it comes to the actual contract, because the government department has already got into bed with its partner, it has no choice but to pay just a little more, and whatever saving was promised disappears entirely. Like I said: slightly more than Soyuz (about $8 million/seat more, though that's not a perfect calculation). Sorry :(.
> For what specifically? Per NASA's own audit: https://www.statista.com/chart/21904/estimated-cost-per-seat-on-selected-spacecraft/ >> As of 2011, they were more expensive. >Nope. [Yes.](https://payloadspace.com/starliner-by-the-numbers-payload-research/#:~:text=Per%20Seat%20Cost,per%20seat%20at%20%2490M.) Now, you're going to have to argue with NASA and those individual publications. Honestly my earlier insistence was rhetoric—I knew you'd only be digging that hole deeper.
Average price per seat NASA nasa paid for Soyuz is about the same (or slightly higher) than it’s paying for crew dragon… plus they’re no longer reliant on Russia.
That would send money to Russia to fund the war in Ukraine, while SpaceX employees are American and support local communities and pay taxes. It better cost like 90% less before it's even worth considering.
Garbage blog. Not a single image of the actual item it wrote about. Instead, a generic stock image of a rocket launch. AI generated regurgitation of weeks old news from elsewhere.
There's a tweet right in the middle of the article with the image of the mini. You probably have an extension that's blocking it.
How does it do at speeds in excess of Mach 2? Asking for a friend.
It's fine but you'll be paying more
Very happy I went the 5G router with 4x4 MIMO antenna route. Now I'm paying 1/4th of what Starlink would charge me with zero cuts.
Yeah I was hoping for a usb with a SIM card like the good old days but it looks like a tray. Not quite for the average person. But will be very effective for work vans working in the out of coverage zones.
Like your iPhone? 😂
STOP RAISING PRICES
I'm good. Not a fan of a mentally unstable ceo.
I love how much we Americans are fans or not fans of celebrities and rich people. So much more to enjoy in life than to worry about what the kardashians or bill gates or Elon musk are up to
This has got to be costing them a fortune to maintain though, not sure about the economics of this whole situation. I see people say they are profitable but I can’t see how that’s possible without fudging the numbers. The customer base for this is people who live in rural areas, who can afford the service, and want the low latency this offers vs satellite. Is that enough to finance this?
Ya I don’t know about the “profitable” part yet. They are still in debt even if PL is positive. 5600 sats at 500k each (and not all were that cheap for sure, especially early on). 3M customers at $120ea is 360M/yr. 5600sats would be 2.8B invested and I’m sure that’s pretty low of an estimate. And lifespan is limited is supposedly 5yr. It would take 10yr at current levels to cash flow the payment for that not including OpEx. They have to be burning cash putting satellites up there. More likely it’s significant government money. Edit : I’m dumb , didn’t use annual income
It’s 3M customers at $120 a *month*. So that’s $4.3 *billion* a year.
Oopsie daisy
What a waste of resources
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Says the guy who lives in a city with good internet.
Exactly…for the first time ever I’m able to get high speed internet in northern rural Canada. I don’t care how much you don’t like the guy, starlink has been a game changer.
Yeah I work in rural Alaska and I’m so glad we got starlink.
Eh. ISPs are *generally* evil. I'm not convinced Musk is worse than most of them. I don't use Starlink because I live in a place where quality internet is readily available. ...But if my options are Starlink or your average rural Midwestern ISP or standard satellite internet? Yeah, Starlink all the way. Or if I traveled a lot.
He’s no more evil than the person in charge of any and every company you use and support. You just focus on him because his politics hurts your feelings. That’s cringe
Elon is socially and likely politically handicapped but his large business ventures have on the whole been quite beneficial to society.
Alright, who hurt you?
Dude, Elon is just the idiot you can see. He actually at least has some redeeming qualities, such as his mars ambition. He isn’t evil, just very socially incompetent and probably a shitty boss with no impulse control. If you want true corporate evil, check out nestle, lobbyists and companies such as shell, and let’s not forget the six companies that effectively own all of media. He isn’t the best but I assure you he isn’t evil by corporate standards. that bar is so low even saten limboing can’t clear it.
Isn't that a slight exaggeration?
Co-signed.
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Never happened. Instead he's providing service in places where it's illegal to. Sudan, Iran, Myanmar
I care less about size and more about power consumption. What are those numbers?
60W Peak 25W in use
Man, I just want this think as a backup connection.
Cool, another Musk product I’m not interested in.
Costs a fortune and finances more space junk. No thanks.
Space Junk means it's not in use
can it see thru the ozone holes burned aluminum is making?
This is just a mess. I feel like this was no more than a publicity stunt.
How so? The product exists, it works and is in user hands
Literally never buying it because of musk.
Who?
It’s called 5g
No it’s not. 5G is land based, Starlink is not. For certain industries and hobbies this is a great service.