Digicel and flow Bankrupt by 2025

[leoandru]

I would not get my hopes up on starlink. We do not have a complete picture and specs but the information available suggest the speeds available while great for underserved rural areas will be paltry in urban and metro areas. It will be a revolution in satellite internet for sure but it won't beat terrestrial internet. The physics is not in its favour.

[VRTECJA]

Just watch the video below they plan for 40000 satellites and revenue of 120 billion by 2025 for a system they pay 10 billion for.

He try comforting land based services by saying it's more target to less dense areas but with each satellite able to do 1 terabyte a second or 40000 people streaming 4k video from 1 satellite. With the progression of tech who believes that this will be 1 terabyte in 5 to 10 years at minimum this could be tripple, land based internet is maxed out with fiber and the disadvantage of not operating in the vacuum of space.

https://youtu.be/tuFS0zOwyBg

[leoandru]

Just watch the video below they plan for 40000 satellites and revenue of 120 billion by 2025 for a system they pay 10 billion for.

He try comforting land based services by saying it's more target to less dense areas but with each satellite able to do 1 terabyte a second or 40000 people streaming 4k video from 1 satellite. With the progression of tech who believes that this will be 1 terabyte in 5 to 10 years at minimum this could be tripple, land based internet is maxed out with fiber and the disadvantage of not operating in the vacuum of space.

https://youtu.be/tuFS0zOwyBg

I have seen that video a couple of months back. I'm actually sub to that guy he makes fantastic technological videos.
If you watch up to minute 3:30 Elon himself said it will not be for dense areas. The bandwidth of each satellite is estimated to be about 20 gbps. Starlink will be able to beat fiber in latency for inter Atlantic or inter pacific travel but it will not beat fiber capacity. There is fiber in low urban areas in UTAH that reaches 100 gbps they are breaking records almost every day sending data down a single fiber. The issue with fiber is the last mile technology used. I will be surprised if starlink offers more than 100mbps. But at least it might be symmetric

[leoandru]

Found a great source that aggregate information about starlink. If I found it earlier might have shortened this debate. I'll post some exerts from it:

- Will there be service in my country?
The satellites will cover the entire world however actually getting access will require your country's government permission.

SpaceX is focused to offer service in the United States and Canada first. In countries where SpaceX can, they are likely to sell directly to consumers, according to Shotwell.

Outside the United States, SpaceX is working nation by nation to get authorization to offer the service. “Every country has its own process,” said Shotwell.

Elon: "Hopefully working in Caribbean by end of 2020. Def by 2021."

Elon: "[Germany] Probably 2021. Depends on regulatory approvals."

Elon: "Hopefully start serving Africa early next year"

Visit starlink.com to sign up for updates on Starlink news and service availability in your area.

- Will Starlink be available in dense urban areas/cities?
Elon: "We'll have some small number of customers in Los Angeles but we can't do a lot of customers in Los Angeles because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough" also "I wanna be clear, it's not like Starlink is a huge threat to telcos. I want to be super clear. It is not. In fact it will be helpful to telcos because Starlink will serve the hardest to serve customers that telcos otherwise have trouble doing with landlines or even with cell radio stations, cell towers."

- What are some geopolitical issues Starlink may face?
Outside the United States, SpaceX is working nation by nation to get authorization to offer the service. “Every country has its own process,” said Shotwell.

Elon on the issue back in 2015: "From our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast and they'd have a choice of either shooting our satellites down... or not. China can do that. So we probably shouldn't broadcast there. <laughs> If they get upset with us, they can blow our satellites up. I mean, I'm hopeful that we can structure agreements with various countries to allow communication with their citizens but it is on a country by country basis. I don't think it's something that would affect the timeline. At least, it's not going to take longer than five years to do that. Not all countries will agree at first. There will always be some countries that don't agree. That's fine." Emphasis added.

Per the ITU constitution the US signed all telecommunications including satellite communications are regulated by nations: "While fully recognizing the sovereign right of each State to regulate its telecommunication ... the States Parties to this Constitution ... have agreed ..." In theory all countries should respect fair trade treaties they signed but in reality some countries may impose high fees or unacceptable conditions on Starlink. It is the job of the US government to make other countries abide to fair trade policies.

- What speeds can be expected for the average user?
"Service levels of 100 Mbps down / 40 Mbps up would generally be anticipated," wrote a SpaceX sales engineer to Nebraska rural broadband task force in July 2019.

CEO of Tape Ark who has been working with SpaceX to explore uses of Starlink to support oil and gas exploration said higher speed of 1 Gbps is possible with dual parabolic antennas on research vessels. SpaceX demonstrated 610 Mbps provided in flight to the cockpit of a military aircraft. The test didn't use retail Starlink antenna.

When asked about user experience in March 2020 Elon said that users will be able to watch HD movies and play video games without noticing speed.

[VRTECJA]

"From our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast and they'd have a choice of either shooting our satellites down.."



Thais is all I want to read they will not comply as I say when I fly on jet blue I dont get dish until I leave Jamaica airspace this is blocked from the plane as I know you can still get dish in jamaica. If they cant operate over the Caribbean it will affect their business no ships planes will get the service this is not TV and they are located in florida. Note the only one regulatory was mentioned is germany. Jamaica can talk but what can they do. Yes we might have to smuggle the equipment but we good at that. Eventually if it's too competitive and the public call for it they have to give in, signaling the end of our telecoms. As I say one good hurricane, and with the frequency of storms I would like to weather proof my life as much as possible, solar 1000 gal water tank and satellite internet and my glock me good.

The more I understand the system its becoming clear it was built for 2 things providing internet for rural and developing countries mainly. They will not make direct sales of the equipment but they will not and I repeat they will not block it

[leoandru]

"From our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast and they'd have a choice of either shooting our satellites down.."



Thais is all I want to read they will not comply as I say when I fly on jet blue I dont get dish until I leave Jamaica airspace this is blocked from the plane as I know you can still get dish in jamaica. If they cant operate over the Caribbean it will affect their business no ships planes will get the service this is not TV and they are located in florida. Note the only one regulatory was mentioned is germany. Jamaica can talk but what can they do.

The more I understand the system its becoming clear it was built for 2 things providing internet for rural and developing countries mainly. They will not make direct sales of the equipment but they will not and I repeat they will not block it

Elon was sepaking off the cuff. This part here is the most important

Per the ITU constitution the US signed all telecommunications including satellite communications are regulated by nations: "While fully recognizing the sovereign right of each State to regulate its telecommunication ... the States Parties to this Constitution ... have agreed ..." In theory all countries should respect fair trade treaties they signed but in reality some countries may impose high fees or unacceptable conditions on Starlink.

This means if Jamaica wants it blocked it will be blocked, else they open themselves to serious litigation and there are lots of greedy lawyers in the USA who will be chomping at the bits to take that case. Ultimately tho I don't think Jamaica will block it, they will likely give them license to broadcast. The more I read the more I'm absolutely sure starlink won't be bankrupting any telcos, fiber will always win over wireless we just need better technology from Flow to give us some sweet upload speeds.

Aside from that given that the lifespan of a satellite is only 5 years I don't see their service coming cheap at all plus the antenna will likely cost hundreds of US dollars plus shipping and tariffs will make it unreasonable for most of Jamaica.

[VRTECJA]

Elon was sepaking off the cuff. This part here is the most important


This means if Jamaica wants it blocked it will be blocked, else they open themselves to serious litigation and there are lots of greedy lawyers in the USA who will be chomping at the bits to take that case. Ultimately tho I don't think Jamaica will block it, they will likely give them license to broadcast. The more I read the more I'm absolutely sure starlink won't be bankrupting any telcos, fiber will always win over wireless we just need better technology from Flow to give us some sweet upload speeds.

Aside from that given that the lifespan of a satellite is only 5 years I don't see their service coming cheap at all plus the antenna will likely cost hundreds of US dollars plus shipping and tariffs will make it unreasonable for most of Jamaica.

As I say direct tv still works in Jamaica but have no license to broadcast there It can not be blocked. But hey if the service is targeted to developing countries It will be affordable. But we will see

[leoandru]

As I say direct tv still works in Jamaica but have no license to broadcast there It can not be blocked. But hey if the service is targeted to developing countries It will be affordable. But we will see

I'm not so sure why you are so adamant that it cannot be blocked, I don't know what the case is with direct Tv. Starlink has every intention to play nice with governments and the laws permit countries to regulate it, so it can be blocked. Starlink will probably geolocate ground equipment so they can turn them off when necessary.

Let us assume that Starlink can give every nation the middle finger, governments still control their ports and banks, they can make it a pain in the butt to import their equipment and a pain in the butt to pay for their service, so much so it would cripple any mass adoption in that country. They might even go the distance to charge and imprison people found with Starlink equipment.

Anyways I found some speed test for their beta launch.
https://testmy.net/host-history/spacex_starlink

[leoandru]

But hey if the service is targeted to developing countries It will be affordable. But we will see

I had to do research to add my speculation on cost and this article also speculation on cost. I would not frame it as what percentage of the broadband market can Starlink capture but how many underserved people can it reach? For example remote areas with no or very little internet access. For developing countries, I can see a village of maybe a few hundred people being served by a gigabit Starlink antenna that distributes the internet via WiFi which they can access via cheap cellphones/tablets funded by humanitarian missions.

For regions able to afford to pay for their own antenna attached to their homes lets say that this group reaches 40 million homes according to Starlink data. Given the time to put 12,000 satellites in the constellations comes to 7 years @ 10 billion dollars and that there need to be constant launches to replace satellites that have a lifespan of 5 years I think its safe to assume that keeping this network up and running will be in the billions per year + maintaining base stations etc. I would estimate Starlink with 40 million homes will need to charge $50 per month just to break even much less turn a profit and recoup their initial investment.

I also predict that these antennae will consume between 70 watts to 100 + watts to beam a single up to a satellite. Not a lot of power but significantly more than a cable box or fiber switch, it adds up over a month. I predict that the total cost of ownership will be north of $100 per month. This is all guesswork tho.

[BNOVA]

I had to do research to add my speculation on cost and this article also speculation on cost. I would not frame it as what percentage of the broadband market can Starlink capture but how many underserved people can it reach? For example remote areas with no or very little internet access. For developing countries, I can see a village of maybe a few hundred people being served by a gigabit Starlink antenna that distributes the internet via WiFi which they can access via cheap cellphones/tablets funded by humanitarian missions.

For regions able to afford to pay for their own antenna attached to their homes lets say that this group reaches 40 million homes according to Starlink data. Given the time to put 12,000 satellites in the constellations comes to 7 years @ 10 billion dollars and that there need to be constant launches to replace satellites that have a lifespan of 5 years I think its safe to assume that keeping this network up and running will be in the billions per year + maintaining base stations etc. I would estimate Starlink with 40 million homes will need to charge $50 per month just to break even much less turn a profit and recoup their initial investment.

I also predict that these antennae will consume between 70 watts to 100 + watts to beam a single up to a satellite. Not a lot of power but significantly more than a cable box or fiber switch, it adds up over a month. I predict that the total cost of ownership will be north of $100 per month. This is all guesswork tho.

A fair analysis. What about maintenance of CPEs or even satellites? Space might be vast but we get small meteorites from time to time.
I figure this is not really for developing countries but more likely for high speed transmission of data across the work for huge organisations when they need to move data across the world. Normal residential customers are just a value add.