Inconvenient truth about Starlink: it'll take competitors years to offer an on-par service

[mylesillidge]

Inconvenient truth about Starlink in South Africa

Even if Amazon could ramp up its private space-rocket programme overnight to match Elon Musk's SpaceX, it would take many years to offer a satellite Internet service on a par with Starlink.

Amid fierce public and political debate over Starlink's planned entry into South Africa, many critics have voiced overly optimistic views about Amazon Leo's ability to compete.

 

[charlieharper]

TLDR:

ANC is hoping Amazon would give away half the company for a license.

 

[ShaunSA]

What about the inconvenient truth that it's owned by a nazi?

Or are we suddenly willing to sacrifice our morals and principles for some cheap gains?

 

[Sopbeen]

Or are we suddenly willing to sacrifice our morals and principles for some cheap gains?

What do you mean suddenly? People have been doing that since the dawn of time - Just look at the DA/ANC

 

[ShaunSA]

What do you mean suddenly? People have been doing that since the dawn of time - Just look at the DA/ANC

For now I'm looking at MyBBérs

The ones who protest the orange nazi but watch the world cup are a typical example

 

[My_King]

k

 

[RaptorSA]

Satellite internet is tos and I don't care what numbers f**kface puts out, I still find it almost impossible to believe this money burning pipe dream is sustainable.

Meanwhile, get more fiber in the ground. It's always been called the "100 year infrastructure" for a reason.
If you're on terra firma you shouldn't need satellite.

"In 2025, SpaceX launched 170 rockets, averaging one nearly every two days."

They also deorbited 260 satellites in Six Months, funny how that never gets mentioned.

 

[Sopbeen]

Satellite internet is tos and I don't care what numbers f**kface puts out, I still find it almost impossible to believe this money burning pipe dream is sustainable.

Meanwhile, get more fiber in the ground. It's always been called the "100 year infrastructure" for a reason.
If you're on terra firma you shouldn't need satellite.

"In 2025, SpaceX launched 170 rockets, averaging one nearly every two days."

They also deorbited 260 satellites in Six Months, funny how that never gets mentioned.

View attachment 1920289

Starlink is incredibly profitable. It's BY FAR more profitable than their launch business or AI nonsense. They already cover all of their launching/maintenance overheads from just serving North America. The rest of the world is profit. Thats not even accounting for their military offering, which is going to rake in the money. Their overheads will be even lower once Starship starts launching. Lower launch cost combined with WAY more advanced sats.

While I agree it would be most wise to lay fibre everywhere, it will never be a solution to rural areas or people requiring mobile solutions (camping, ocean, airplane connectivity, mobile businesses, etc). Starlink/LEO is also a great backup solution to fibre. We have a business fibre connection that falls flat at least once a month. We are forced to fallback on 4/5G and its goddamn horrible for IP phones and connecting a bunch of people in 1 premises.

 

[Tim_vb]

did Tony Leon sponsor this article....

 

[Sworaxe]

ANC big brain move.

 

[RaptorSA]

That's quite an uninformed rant and ad-hominem.

You start with dismissing evidence without engaging it "I don’t care what numbers he puts out". That's butthurt of note over who knows what.

Fiber and satellite are not mutually exclusive, they solve different problems. The existence of one doesn't make the other unnecessary.

You ignore the economics of sparse populations. Running fiber to every remote home can cost many times more than serving dense urban areas. LEO is waay way cheaper than running tens of kilometers of fiber to every location on the planet lol.
You assume "money burning" without evidence. Simply asserting it is a “pipe dream” is not an argument.

Your deorbiting point lacks context. Saying “They deorbited 260 satellites in six months.” sounds alarming until you consider the scale. With over 10,000 satellites in orbit, deorbiting a few hundred over six months is only a few percent of the constellation. The number by itself does not demonstrate the system is failing or unsustainable. Starlink was designed around continual replacement. SpaceX’s business model assumes constant launches to replenish and upgrade the constellation. Frequent launches and retirements are expected features of the system, not signs of trouble.

The article’s main argument is not that satellite internet is better than fiber, it's that Amazon faces a significant challenge catching up to Starlink because SpaceX has a major advantage in launch capability and an existing constellation. Rebut that claim by all means.

Source for SpaceX's profitability:
TRUST ME BRO™

 

[Sapphiron]

What about the inconvenient truth that it's owned by a nazi?

Or are we suddenly willing to sacrifice our morals and principles for some cheap gains?

For me the biggest inconvenient truth is that starlink is the most comprehensive signals intelligence collection tool ever built and it's not even close. It being able to handle mobile phone calls is not a coincidence. It's sensitive enough to locate a cellphone or wifi SSID anywhere in the world, probably down to a per building level.

Why do you think the US government sunk billions into SpaceX, it was cheaper and more covert than getting the NSA to do it.

Similar to the flock cameras, it's not the tech that's the problem, it's the unregulated government access to the data.

 

[Tim_vb]

That's quite an uninformed rant and ad-hominem.

You start with dismissing evidence without engaging it "I don’t care what numbers he puts out". That's butthurt of note over who knows what.

Fiber and satellite are not mutually exclusive, they solve different problems. The existence of one doesn't make the other unnecessary.

You ignore the economics of sparse populations. Running fiber to every remote home can cost many times more than serving dense urban areas. LEO is waay way cheaper than running tens of kilometers of fiber to every location on the planet lol.
You assume "money burning" without evidence. Simply asserting it is a “pipe dream” is not an argument.

Your deorbiting point lacks context. Saying “They deorbited 260 satellites in six months.” sounds alarming until you consider the scale. With over 10,000 satellites in orbit, deorbiting a few hundred over six months is only a few percent of the constellation. The number by itself does not demonstrate the system is failing or unsustainable. Starlink was designed around continual replacement. SpaceX’s business model assumes constant launches to replenish and upgrade the constellation. Frequent launches and retirements are expected features of the system, not signs of trouble.

The article’s main argument is not that satellite internet is better than fiber, it's that Amazon faces a significant challenge catching up to Starlink because SpaceX has a major advantage in launch capability and an existing constellation. Rebut that claim by all means.

The satellites last around 5 years so the satellites are an operational cost

If 10K satellites are the minimum fleet size required then they are looking at replacing at least 2K satellites each year or 5 a day - approximately what they are currently launching.

 

[Spizz]

Satellite internet is tos and I don't care what numbers f**kface puts out, I still find it almost impossible to believe this money burning pipe dream is sustainable.

Meanwhile, get more fiber in the ground. It's always been called the "100 year infrastructure" for a reason.
If you're on terra firma you shouldn't need satellite.

"In 2025, SpaceX launched 170 rockets, averaging one nearly every two days."

They also deorbited 260 satellites in Six Months, funny how that never gets mentioned.

View attachment 1920289

Works for me. I’m somewhere over Somalia at the moment and getting game changing speeds.

 

[Spizz]

For now I'm looking at MyBBérs

The ones who protest the orange nazi but watch the world cup are a typical example

For every nugget of wisdom you come up with 10 piles of schite.

Edit: this is one of the 10 btw

 

[Sopbeen]

Source for SpaceX's profitability:
TRUST ME BRO™

Uhhh, or the FCC filings they made for the IPO:

SpaceX is heavily reliant on Starlink for growth and profit as it marches toward Nasdaq listing

SpaceX's IPO prospectus underscores the importance of Starlink to the company's operations.

www.cnbc.com

"SpaceX said its connectivity unit, which is primarily comprised of Starlink, generated $11.39 billion in revenue last year, accounting for 61% of total sales.... generating income of $4.42 billion"

Nobody claimed SpaceX as profitable, only Starlink. Since that is what this thread is about. SpaceX is in for a lot of short term pain thanks to the silly way they are absorbing the rest of Musk's kak ideas.

The satellites last around 5 years so the satellites are an operational cost

If 10K satellites are the minimum fleet size required then they are looking at replacing at least 2K satellites each year or 5 a day - approximately what they are currently launching.

In 2026 they have launched 1600 satellites thus far. They have retired 260 (Gen1) satellites in the same period, with another 350 slated for disposal soon. Their frequent launches mean that they are still growing the network by a large margin compared to disposals.

Once Starship starts launching, they will outpace it by an even greater margin. They will be able to lob a lot more mass to orbit and the V3 sats are, by far, more capable than the previous generations.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

What about the inconvenient truth that it's owned by a nazi?

Or are we suddenly willing to sacrifice our morals and principles for some cheap gains?

Germans unashamedly benefit from the Autobahn network to this day ... we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot just because some people got genocided

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

many years you say ...

Russia Launches First 16 Rassvet Satellites, Starting Deployment of its Starlink-like Internet Constellation | Space Voyaging

Russia launches 16 Rassvet satellites from Plesetsk, marking the first operational step of Bjuro 1440’s Starlink-like satellite internet constellation

www.spacevoyaging.com

 

[Sopbeen]

many years you say ...

Russia Launches First 16 Rassvet Satellites, Starting Deployment of its Starlink-like Internet Constellation | Space Voyaging

Russia launches 16 Rassvet satellites from Plesetsk, marking the first operational step of Bjuro 1440’s Starlink-like satellite internet constellation

www.spacevoyaging.com

Awesome. Only another four+ years before they can start offering services, assuming they can keep producing sats and launch them. They aim to provide service with 250 sats. I somehow HIGHLY doubt they'll achieve global coverage and serve millions of people with that amount. I suspect that capacity is going straight to military use.

 

[ToxicBunny]

many years you say ...

Russia Launches First 16 Rassvet Satellites, Starting Deployment of its Starlink-like Internet Constellation | Space Voyaging

Russia launches 16 Rassvet satellites from Plesetsk, marking the first operational step of Bjuro 1440’s Starlink-like satellite internet constellation

www.spacevoyaging.com

Well by their own timeline (which they've missed items on already) it would be around 9 years to get to 1/10th of Starlinks current satellite fleet.