Hi hackernews, I have a couple of questions on the potential to undermine existing telcos.
1) what is the theoretical capacity near term of the network in terms of # users per unit area and bit rate per unit area? What do you think the maximum single connection speed using the spectrum they have available?
2) is there potential to increase that capacity in the future? To what level? Perhaps they can develop multi-dish base stations which connect to many satellites at once? Beam forming? Multiple frequencies?
3) is there potential for starlink to offer more density by linking to space in one location and installing a cell phone tower to spread the connection locally? This has potential to drastically cut the cost to the user (standard hardware) and also increase density, but it requires fast single location connectivity to space.
4) has there been an analysis done of which existing telco customers starlink could potentially steal? Which telcos are most exposed? How many customers are in the group that would switch?
5) have you guys considered starlink from the perspective of zero marginal cost per customer acquired, Vs standard cable is high marginal cost per customer acquired? Said another way - all of starlink costs are upfront whether they have 1 customer or 1m customers, but standard telcos need to decide on investing in cable spend on a per customer basis. From this viewpoint have you guys thought about which customers normal telcos will decide to let go to starlink and not invest in new infrastructure in the face of starlink competition?
6) is it likely that Musk is sandbagging the potential capabilities of starlink in order to put cable/Telco companies at ease of the threat in case they look for regulatory protections?
7) have you guys compared starlink services to software services and what the implications of this might be? Software is all upfront in development and then zero marginal. Sounds like starlink may be quite similar. The other telcos are not in this position however (see #5 above).
1) what is the theoretical capacity near term of the network in terms of # users per unit area and bit rate per unit area? What do you think the maximum single connection speed using the spectrum they have available?
2) is there potential to increase that capacity in the future? To what level? Perhaps they can develop multi-dish base stations which connect to many satellites at once? Beam forming? Multiple frequencies?
3) is there potential for starlink to offer more density by linking to space in one location and installing a cell phone tower to spread the connection locally? This has potential to drastically cut the cost to the user (standard hardware) and also increase density, but it requires fast single location connectivity to space.
4) has there been an analysis done of which existing telco customers starlink could potentially steal? Which telcos are most exposed? How many customers are in the group that would switch?
5) have you guys considered starlink from the perspective of zero marginal cost per customer acquired, Vs standard cable is high marginal cost per customer acquired? Said another way - all of starlink costs are upfront whether they have 1 customer or 1m customers, but standard telcos need to decide on investing in cable spend on a per customer basis. From this viewpoint have you guys thought about which customers normal telcos will decide to let go to starlink and not invest in new infrastructure in the face of starlink competition?
6) is it likely that Musk is sandbagging the potential capabilities of starlink in order to put cable/Telco companies at ease of the threat in case they look for regulatory protections?
7) have you guys compared starlink services to software services and what the implications of this might be? Software is all upfront in development and then zero marginal. Sounds like starlink may be quite similar. The other telcos are not in this position however (see #5 above).
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!