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<p>The differential pricing is a pretty obvious attempt to manage
user density in the cells as they add capacity in the sky. Growing
pains.</p>
<p>In NZ, they sold at NZ$199 at one point if you were "rural" and
NZ$729 if you were "urban", except that their definitions of
"rural" included the built-up CBD of a few cities with population
into the 100's of thousands, and "urban" included lifestyle block
areas away from the big cities. A better definition would have
been:</p>
<ul>
<li>"urban" if truly urban and surrounded by sufficient geeks to
drive density up (look at central Tokyo where user density seems
to have gone through the roof!)<br>
</li>
<li>"urban" if in rural areas that attract a lot of lifestylers
and in which no fibre is on offer</li>
<li>"rural" if in urban areas devoid of sufficient numbers of
geeks</li>
<li>"rural" if truly out in the sticks <br>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">But they keep changing that in quite a
nimble fashion and rural and urban pricing seems to have started
to converge somewhat. <br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Starlink's hardware pricing is only one
lever, subscription is another, and that's reflected in their
pricing where service is involved that goes beyond the standard
stationary dishy setup. In areas that have fibre, they're not
competitive - they'd need to be US$50 / month or less to even get
a serious foot in the door there. Everywhere else, they are
selling well as long as the locals can afford it. So quite how
they will manage user density once everyone's bought a cheap dishy
will be interesting - can they grow capacity faster than user
base? Quite what that means for rural fibre expansion also remains
to be seen. Where available, fibre offers vastly better uplink
rates, lower latency, and - at present - lower ongoing pricing.<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 14/09/2023 5:52 am, Inemesit Affia
via Starlink wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAJEhh70hSJZkvWQBRXKc4evahSyj4p8rKjWnG6NTs0P45CDgYQ@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="auto">That's quite strange. They sell equipment at
different prices everywhere. So what's this price? I assume $500
to $750 but could it be even cheaper?
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Amazon said thier target is $400</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 6:05 PM
the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink <<a href="mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">
<ul>
<li>SpaceX is no longer absorbing the cost of the
Starlink antennas that it sells with its satellite
internet service, a company executive said on
Wednesday.</li>
<li>“We were subsidizing terminals but we’ve been
iterating on our terminal production so much that
we’re no longer subsidizing terminals, which is a good
place to be,” Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX vice president
of Starlink and commercial sales, said during a panel
at the World Satellite Business Week conference.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">[...]</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr"><font color="#888888"><font color="#888888"><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><a href="mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com</a></span></font></font><font color="#888888"><br>
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;display:inline">living
as The Truth is True<br>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;display:inline"><br>
</div>
</div>
</font></div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
--
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel
School of Computer Science
Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
The University of Auckland
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz">u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/">http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/</a>
****************************************************************
</pre>
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