[Starlink] starlink at sea

[David Lang]

It's also true that SpaceX tends to set their prices to undercut the competition 
by a nice margin, rather than trying for the lowest possible price (however they 
define their competition in a particular case)

We know that their list prices for launches are far above their costs, but still 
very comfortably below competing launchers for example (they've done enough 
special deals to indicate that they are willing to go MUCH lower than list to 
win a bid, and there's no reason to think that they lose money on any launch)

unfortuantly for the more casual boater, it seems that they've decided the 
competition is the type of service they've been using on their barges. (taking 
the market from the top down). We can hope that they will add a cheaper, less 
performant tier later.

David Lang

On Wed, 13 Jul 2022, Gary E. Miller via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:59:57 -0700
> From: Gary E. Miller via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: Gary E. Miller <gem at rellim.com>
> To: Dave Taht via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] starlink at sea
> 
> Yo David!
>
> On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 17:40:38 -0700 (PDT)
> David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
>
>> it all depends on what you are comparing it to. This isn't designed
>> for a 30 ft boat, but rather for commercial operations. SpaceX had
>> talked about how this replaces the earlier satellite services they
>> have had on their boats that were unreliable and cost >$150k/month
>> with much better service listing for <$50k/month (for all their boats)
>
> Yes, it compares favorably to the existing alternatives.  A mega-yauct
> owner would not notice the price.
>
>> This is designed to be an all-weather allways-on service, most
>> boaters could just use a standard starlink RV setup and put it out
>> when they need it (taking it down when the weather is poor)
>
> Excapt, Starlink will not let yuo use the RV roaming plan when offshore.
> The maritime plan explicitly covers open ocean.  The RV plan hardly goes
> beyond the sight of land.
>
> I imagine the main driver of the high cost is the prolem in getting
> downlink stations between California and Hawaii, etc.  This will be a
> real test of the sat to sat relaying.
>
> RGDS
> GARY
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
> 	gem at rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588
>
> 	    Veritas liberabit vos. -- Quid est veritas?
>    "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." - Lord Kelvin
>