FCC Chair Rosenworcel Proposes to Investigate Impact of Data Caps

Sun Jun 18 01:22:31 UTC 2023

>
>  part of that is because the markets never materialized to justify funding
> to improve it.
>

Not like there's funding here either ; Musk has been playing the same
financial shell games here that he did with SolarCity.  Even before the FCC
disqualified them for the $900M in broadband funds , they were saying
Starlink needed $30B or they'd go bankrupt.

On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 8:59 PM Crist Clark <cjc+nanog at pumpky.net> wrote:

> There are probably a few more than 100 000 ocean going ships in the world.
> There are maybe 60 000 airliners. They may be able to charge more per unit,
> maybe several times more, but it’s still orders of magnitude below the size
> of the consumer market.
>
> It’s not like satellite Internet is a new thing. It’s not even like LEO
> satellite is a new thing. Iridium and Globalstar been doing it for over two
> decades. Yeah, the service sucked, but part of that is because the markets
> never materialized to justify funding to improve it.
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 5:16 PM Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 5:41 PM Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> You are also assuming their only product is Home Internet. Providing
>> Internet to ships at sea, planes in the sky and other more unconventional
>> uses will provide a lot more revenue than the home Internet will.
>> >
>> >
>> > I am not assuming that at all.
>> >
>> > There is absolutely a market for sat internet. It's just not a $30B
>> revenue a year business as Musk has said.
>> >
>> > On land , why do wireline providers not build out into rural areas?
>> There is not enough subscriber density to recover buildout costs in an
>> acceptable timeframe.  Starlink has the same problem ; the number of
>> possible subscribers is exceptionally low relative to the buildout cost.
>>
>> No it does not. Reduced density in any area makes for a compelling
>> market for starlink. The buildout cost is fixed (cover the globe with
>> sats), once the globe is covered, taking advantage of any area under
>> that is straightforward. It is quite unlike wires in this case, or
>> even FWA, there is no power to towers, no need for power or cable
>> anything but a downlink site located somewhere within a few hundred
>> miles.
>>
>> We are also seeing rural 5G FWA expand rapidly, in part because the
>> gear costs the same no matter how many people are on it.
>>
>> > There won't ever be high demand for Starlink in urban areas because
>> it's not needed, and performance is bad when users are clustered like that.
>>
>> Agreed.
>>
>> > Again, I agree there is a market for sat internet. It's just never
>> going to be anywhere close to as large as what is claimed.
>>
>> I think we are arguing the difference between 10m people and 30m? 10m
>> people is quite a substantial business, barely cracking the ranks of
>> the larger ISPS, and yet ~$1B/month. Hard to complain...
>>
>> I would have liked it if starlink´s business service included BGP
>> peering, and other classic aspects of the internet that it does not
>> have as yet.
>>
>> >
>> > On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 7:25 PM <sronan at ronan-online.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> You are also assuming their only product is Home Internet. Providing
>> Internet to ships at sea, planes in the sky and other more unconventional
>> uses will provide a lot more revenue than the home Internet will.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Jun 17, 2023, at 7:04 PM, Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> 
>> >>>
>> >>> You’re assuming the launches are costing them something, which in
>> fact may not be true. Rumor has it, they are piggybacking on other payloads
>> which pay for the launches, particularly government contracts.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Assuming they are, they aren't doing enough of those launches to
>> piggyback enough sats to reach the 40k claim.
>> >>
>> >> Zero out the launch costs, subscriber revenue still doesn't doesn't
>> come close to touching the sat costs.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 6:27 PM <sronan at ronan-online.com> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> You’re assuming the launches are costing them something, which in
>> fact may not be true. Rumor has it, they are piggybacking on other payloads
>> which pay for the launches, particularly government contracts.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Jun 17, 2023, at 5:54 PM, Tom Beecher <beecher at beecher.cc> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> 
>> >>>>
>> >>>> As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not sure that the current economics
>> are the real economics. I'm pretty sure they've been purposefully
>> throttling demand because they still don't have the capacity so it would
>> make sense to overcharge in the mean time. Is there something inherent in
>> their cpe that makes them much more expensive than, say, satellite tv
>> dishes? I can see marginally more because of the LEO aspect, but isn't that
>> mainly just software? It wouldn't surprise me that the main cost is the
>> truck roll.
>> >>>
>> >>> - Starlink currently reports around 1.5M subscribers. At $110 a
>> month, that's $165M in revenue,
>> >>>
>> >>> - A Falcon 9 launch is billed out at $67M. A Falcon 9 can carry up to
>> 60 Starlink sats. That's ~667 launches to reach the stated goal of 40k sats
>> in the constellation. So roughly $45B in just launch costs, if you assume
>> the public launch price. (Because if they are launching their own stuff,
>> they aren't launching an external paying customer.)
>> >>> - The reported price per sat is $250k.
>> >>>
>> >>> Assuming they give themselves a friendly internal discount, the
>> orbital buildout cost are in the neighborhood of $30B for launches, and
>> $10B for sats.
>> >>>
>> >>> - The satellite failure rate is stated to be ~ 3% annually. On a 40K
>> cluster, that's 1200 a year.
>> >>>
>> >>> That's about 20 more launches a year, and $300M for replacement sats.
>> Let's round off and say that's $1B a year there.
>> >>>
>> >>>  So far, that's a $40B buildout with a $1B annual run rate. And
>> that's just the orbital costs. We haven't even calculated the manufacturing
>> costs of the receiver dishes, terrestrial network infra cost , opex from
>> staff , R&D, etc .
>> >>>
>> >>> Numbers kinda speak for themselves here.
>> >>>
>> >>>> I mean, I get that Musk is sort of a cuckoo bird but say what you
>> will he does have big ambitions.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Ambition is good. But reality tends to win the day. As does math.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> On Sat, Jun 17, 2023 at 4:38 PM Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com> wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On 6/17/23 1:25 PM, Tom Beecher wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Won't Starlink and other LEO configurations be that backstop sooner
>> >>>>> rather than later?
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Unlikely. They will remain niche. The economics don't make sense for
>> those services to completely replace terrestrial only service.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Why would they put up 40000 satellites if their ambition is only
>> niche? I mean, I get that Musk is sort of a cuckoo bird but say what you
>> will he does have big ambitions.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> From my standpoint, they don't have to completely replace the
>> incumbents. I'd be perfectly happy just keeping them honest.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm not sure that the current economics
>> are the real economics. I'm pretty sure they've been purposefully
>> throttling demand because they still don't have the capacity so it would
>> make sense to overcharge in the mean time. Is there something inherent in
>> their cpe that makes them much more expensive than, say, satellite tv
>> dishes? I can see marginally more because of the LEO aspect, but isn't that
>> mainly just software? It wouldn't surprise me that the main cost is the
>> truck roll.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Mike
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 4:17 PM Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> On 6/16/23 1:09 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> > On 6/16/23 21:19, Josh Luthman wrote:
>> >>>>> >> Mark,
>> >>>>> >>
>> >>>>> >> In my world I constantly see people with 0 fixed internet
>> options.
>> >>>>> >> Many of these locations do not even have mobile coverage.
>> >>>>> >> Competition is fine in town, but for millions of people in the US
>> >>>>> >> (and I'm going to assume it's worse or comparable in CA/MX)
>> there is
>> >>>>> >> no service.
>> >>>>> >>
>> >>>>> >> As a company primarily delivering to residents, competition is
>> not a
>> >>>>> >> focus for us and for the urban market it's tough to survive on a
>> ~1/3
>> >>>>> >> take rate.
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> > I should have been clearer... the lack of competition in many
>> markets
>> >>>>> > is not unique to North America. I'd say all of the world suffers
>> that,
>> >>>>> > since there is only so much money and resources to go around.
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> > What I was trying to say is that should a town or village have the
>> >>>>> > opportunity to receive competition, where existing services are
>> >>>>> > capped, uncapping that via an alternative provider would be low
>> >>>>> > hanging fruit to gain local marketshare. Of course, the
>> alternative
>> >>>>> > provider would need to show up first, but that's a whole other
>> thread.
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> Won't Starlink and other LEO configurations be that backstop sooner
>> >>>>> rather than later? I don't know if they have caps as well, but even
>> if
>> >>>>> they do they could compete with their caps.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Mike
>> >>>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Podcast:
>> https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058793910227111937/
>> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
>>
>>
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