It’s amazing how many companies that people assume are profitable are
anything but. At least for now. I guess we said this about Amazon once.
But Uber lost $1 billion on $3 billion in revenue in the most recent
quarter. They already have the app. They don’t own the cars. The
drivers are not employees. How are they losing so much money, unless
they are literally losing money on every sale and intending to make it
up on volume?
*From:*AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Bill Prince
*Sent:* Sunday, June 2, 2019 5:15 PM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] SpaceX Says Its 60 Starlink Satellites Are All
Phoning Home (and Fading Out) | Space
There are whole bunches of risk factors.
Assuming the satellite-mesh system works (and that is still an if;
note that this first batch does not include the sat-sat laser link
capability), I have not seen a real estimate of the system capacity. I
would presume there would be separate earth stations for each orbital
plane. There could even conceivably be multiple earth stations for
each orbital plane, which would make the system capacity flexible.
IDK if they're making money or not, but they are serving body blows to
the competition.
There was open speculation that the Falcon heavy was going into a
limited demand situation, but now that it seems to be working (so
far), that market opportunity may be shifting as well.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 6/2/2019 12:52 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
You’d think that SpaceX is highly profitable and is using those
profits to expand into the satellite Internet business. But
actually there is debate whether SpaceX is profitable without
accounting tricks, and even if it is profitable, the margins are
very thin. Reportedly the geostationary launch business is
softening, and SpaceX is actually looking to Starlink for
profits. No doubt it helps if you can launch your own satellites,
maybe even having them ride along while you get paid to launch
stuff for paying customers. But this sounds like a pretty risky
venture, paid for with borrowed money. If it wasn’t risky, it
wouldn’t be Elon, right?
*From:* AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Mike Hammett
*Sent:* Sunday, June 2, 2019 12:04 PM
*To:* AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <af@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] SpaceX Says Its 60 Starlink Satellites Are
All Phoning Home (and Fading Out) | Space
I would suspect they are going to have hundreds of earth stations
as opposed to one or two earth stations that legacy platforms
have. Up to the bird, maybe across one or two birds, and back down
to the fiber-fed earth stations. I've seen the numbers, but I
forgot the numbers. It's real bandwidth at each one.
-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL><https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb><https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions><https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix><https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange><https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
<https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
<https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From: *"Tim Withrow via AF" <af@af.afmug.com
<mailto:af@af.afmug.com>>
*To: *af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Cc: *"Tim Withrow" <timwith...@aol.com <mailto:timwith...@aol.com>>
*Sent: *Saturday, June 1, 2019 4:43:01 PM
*Subject: *Re: [AFMUG] SpaceX Says Its 60 Starlink Satellites Are
All Phoning Home (and Fading Out) | Space
What kind of bandwidth capacity could each satellite have at any
given point?
What is the usable bandwidth of their system? Who makes a radio
that big to carry/transmit such capacity or is it an
aggregate of small radio's?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Saturday, June 1, 2019 Bill Prince <af@af.afmug.com
<mailto:af@af.afmug.com>> wrote:
Naturally, we're all thinking about what effect this will have in
rural America, but I am also wondering if this would have some
effect on China's "great firewall"?
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 6/1/2019 1:47 PM, Ken Hohhof wrote:
I think one factor advocacy groups and govt critters need to keep
in mind is that instead of robust competition, what could occur is
“disruptive” pricing, having the effect of discouraging or
bankrupting the competition. And now some new entrant is the only
game in town. And if it turns out to be unreliable, or not to
have enough capacity, or their speeds are actually best effort,
or their satellites start dropping out of the sky, or whatever,
people can’t switch back to their old provider. Like being
dissatisfied with online stores and assuming you can always switch
back to the old brick and mortar store, from Uber and Lyft back to
taxis and limos. Sorry, they don’t exist anymore.
This is unlikely to happen in big cities, I doubt Comcast will go
bankrupt because of Starlink. But to just assume there will be
lots of choices out in the middle of nowhere driving the price
down without any of them turning off the lights, seems a little naïve.
And to assume big megacorps like SpaceX, Amazon, Googe, Facebook,
etc. would never price below cost to be “disruptive” also seems naïve.
*From:*AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com>
<mailto:af-boun...@af.afmug.com> *On Behalf Of *Bill Prince
*Sent:* Saturday, June 1, 2019 3:20 PM
*To:* af@af.afmug.com <mailto:af@af.afmug.com>
*Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] SpaceX Says Its 60 Starlink Satellites Are
All Phoning Home (and Fading Out) | Space
Sure. But after the clouds, geostationary still needs to go
another 23,000 miles. LEO only has to go a few hundred.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 6/1/2019 10:47 AM, Mathew Howard wrote:
Clouds are generally a lot lower than a couple hundred miles...
On Sat, Jun 1, 2019, 10:58 AM Bill Prince <part15...@gmail.com
<mailto:part15...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Maybe at geostationary distances, but these are only a few
hundred miles up.
bp
<part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
On 6/1/2019 8:56 AM, Matt Hoppes wrote:
> Don't those bands have significant attenuation issues
with like...
> clouds?
>
> On 6/1/19 10:55 AM, Bill Prince wrote:
>> According to Wikipedia, they will be on Ku, Ka, and V
bands.
>>
>>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellation)
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_%28satellite_constellation%29>
>>
>> bp
>> <part15sbs{at}gmail{dot}com>
>>
>> On 6/1/2019 7:46 AM, Jaime Solorza wrote:
>>> Wonder what frequencies they will use?
>>>
>>>
https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-phone-home-dimming.html
>>>
>>>
>>
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