[Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[the keyboard of geoff goodfellow]

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"He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
EXCERPT:

Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink Internet
service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly tripled in just two
years.

An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates that the
service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with about 60 percent of
that coming from consumers who subscribe to the service. Similarly, the
media publication Payload estimated that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in
revenue last year.

These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred million
dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However, with revenues
expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion, Quilty Space estimates that
free cash flow will grow to about $2 billion. SpaceX is privately held, so
its financial numbers are not public.

*Growing subscribers*

By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet service
based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites to the ground
provides significantly faster and lower latency service than satellites in
geostationary space—SpaceX has already exceeded space-based communication
networks developed earlier.

At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers. Quilty's
director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous incumbent players,
Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million subscribers at their peak
about half a decade ago, largely in North America, with some in South
America and a smattering in Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3
million subscribers this year alone.

SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including government
customers, particularly the US Department of Defense, as well as maritime
(75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well as 300 cruise ships) and
aviation segments.

"The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX was
building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've got evidence
that the company will generate the type of free cash flows from the
business that could pay for said endeavor," said Chris Quilty, co-chief
executive and president of Quilty Space...

[...]
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/


-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
living as The Truth is True

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[Starlink] "They are retiring and incinerating about 4 or 5 Starlinks every day"

[Brandon Butterworth]

'UNPRECEDENTED' STARLINK REENTRIES: What goes up, must come down--which 
could be a problem when you're launching thousands of satellites. Since 
2018, SpaceX has placed more than 7,000 Starlink satellites into Earth 
orbit, and now they are starting to come down. In January alone, more 
than 120 Starlinks deorbited, creating a shower of fireballs.

"The sustained rate of daily reentries is unprecedented," says Jonathan 
McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics who 
tracks satellites. "They are retiring and incinerating about 4 or 5 
Starlinks every day."

Planners have long known this would happen. First generation (Gen1) 
Starlink satellites are being retired to make way for newer models. 
"More than 500 of the 4700 Gen1 Starlinks have now reentered," says 
McDowell.

When Starlinks reenter, they disintegrate before hitting the ground, 
adding metallic vapors to the atmosphere. A study published in 2023 
found evidence of the lingering devris. In February 2023, NASA flew a 
WB-57 aircraft 60,000 feet over Alaska to collect aerosols. 10% of the 
particles contained aluminum and other metals from the "burn-up" of 
satellites.

What we're observing is a giant uncontrolled experiment in atmospheric 
chemistry. The demise of just one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 
30 kilograms (66 pounds) of aluminum oxide, a compound that eats away at 
the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold 
between 2016 and 2022, and the recent surge is increasing the pollution 
even more.

On the bright side, each reentry produces a beautiful fireball--and the 
odds are increasing that you'll see one. Visit the Aerospace Corporation 
for reentry predictions, and submit your photos here.

https://spaceweather.com

Re: [Starlink] "They are retiring and incinerating about 4 or 5 Starlinks every day"

[Kenneth Porter]

For the archives, persistent link to the 2025-02-06 blog entry:

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=06&month=02&year=2025

Re: [Starlink] "They are retiring and incinerating about 4 or 5 Starlinks every day"

[Dave Taht]

I really hate phrasing like this.

"The demise of just one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about
30 kilograms (66 pounds) of aluminum oxide, a compound that eats away
at the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased
8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the recent surge is increasing the
pollution even more."

The atmosphere weighs 5.1 billion billion kilograms. In other words,
each satellite adds 1/203,333,333.333 more to the stratosphere.The
article would be more honest if it talked to the percentage increase
overall rather than the increase in detection.

This paper gives some pretty good estimates for the amount of this
stuff entering the atmosphere:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2024GL109280#:~:text=Upon%20reaching%20an%20altitude%20of,reaching%20the%20stratospheric%20ozone%20layer.

But doesn´t project the effect on the ozone layer (in a quick skim)

...

The article does not include any reference to the  amount of global
warming added by aluminium oxide, but I originally imagined that it is
comparable to freon as to its effects to within an order of magnitude.

It is believed there are several million kilograms of Freon in the
atmosphere today.

But in researching this, it seems to believed here that alum oxide
actually might reduce global warming, but contributes to alzheimers!!?

https://www.bmj.com/content/377/bmj.o1150/rr-1

Now, since the quantities involved are so minute... coping... with
either conclusion... from this brief foray from the article, into the
science... is beyond my ken, and the study itself was definately worth
reading, and they should probably fly test flights more often.

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=06&month=02&year=2025

PS meteoroid flux averages at 32.2 metric tons/day.

On Wed, Feb 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM Kenneth Porter via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> For the archives, persistent link to the 2025-02-06 blog entry:
>
> https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=06&month=02&year=2025
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink



-- 
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[Ulrich Speidel]

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Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers paying 
about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog standard dishy 
end users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.

Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other 
posts today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 
satellites. Even if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed 
incorrectly that they all got to enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 
years, we'd be looking at 1,400 of them needing to get replaced each 
year going forward. Assuming here 1000 kg per satellite going forward 
(just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's a US$1M 
replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), and 
that's got to come out of those $8.2b. So I guess profit might be closer 
to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere near that 
so far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well beyond 
replacement rate, the launch costs of anything older than Starship are 
higher, and the V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 kg. So that 
mightn't leave quite that much change out of the $8.2b to throw at other 
projects. But it's certainly looking like a sustainable business.

But then Starlink are growing. I guess with Elon now being in de-facto 
control of the FCC, they'll get what they want, but more sats up there 
also means having to replace more eventually. So that cost will go up.

It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:

  * capacity available to sell and
  * markets to sell into.

And here lies the crux: Capacity comes in two types:

 1. Spectral capacity. That's SpaceX's ability to find a frequency to
    serve a customer on that isn't already in use in the customer's
    neighbourhood.
 2. Beam capacity: The ability to find a spare beam on a satellite that
    can be used for that customer.

Now the second one of these is easy to address - just launch more sats 
and put more beams on each sat. But the second capacity is worth nothing 
in a place where you don't have the first one, which can't be increased 
by launching more satellites - at least not unless they're different 
ones that allow for smaller cells and sharper beams. That's a route that 
Starlink are trying to go down FAIK, but there's limited growth 
potential here.

And looking at the Starlink availability map, spectral capacity is 
something they currently seem to be grappling with in quite a number of 
places. From the Greenwich Meridian roughly east, they're "sold out" in: 
the greater London area, Accra, Lagos, Benin City, Warri, Port Harcourt, 
Abuja, Lusaka, Bulawayo, Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, Antananarivo, Jakarta, 
Perth, Manila, Brisbane, Bethel, quite a lot of areas south of 
Anchorage, spots around Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Whitehorse, the 
Seattle-Portland corridor, Sacramento, Grande Prairie, Spokane, San 
Diego, Missoula, Edmonton, Apache Junction, Nogales, Aspen Park, 
Guadalajara (MX), Monterrey (MX), Mexico City, Austin, Puero Escondido 
(MX), De Ridder, Mérida (MX), San Salvador, Playa del Carmen (MX), 
Peterborough (CA), Tuskegee, San Jose (CR), Highlands (NC), much of 
western Jamaica, parts of the Dominican Republic, much of Puerto Rico, 
Iqualuit, Leticia (BR), Rincón de Los Sauces, Sao Gabriel da Caochoeira, 
Tefé (BR), Manaus (BR), Sao Paulo BR), Rio de Janeiro. It's been like 
this for a couple of months now, so I guess it's not a problem with the 
Dishy supply chain.

Read: Not much growth potential at present in and around population 
centres where Starlink used to be available and where there isn't good 
existing ground infrastructure.

There used to be a lot of availability "flickering" in areas where there 
was more demand than beam capacity - this has gone solidly to 
"available" now where it's not "sold out". So we can assume that the 
market there is saturated now mostly.

There remain those countries where Starlink isn't officially available 
yet. Some of these get roaming service, and I'm aware of at least one of 
these where spectral capacity is uncomfortably near (BTW: USAID was 
going to pay for a fibre cable there so China wouldn't, but I guess Elon 
doesn't want USAID to pay for the cable so China can own it. While 
they're waiting for it, Starlink gets seen there as being unable to meet 
demand. It makes no sense to me. Incidentally, the country has one of 
the largest sovereign waters in the world and China is just waiting for 
the opportunity to get a naval base there I guess - on the far side of 
Guam. Bye America!).

Other countries where you can't get Starlink yet might contribute 
another few million users - India in particular. But with Starlink not 
being able to support particularly high user densities anywhere because 
of the spectral constraints, we're unlikely to see billions of customers 
there either.

On 6/02/2025 4:53 am, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink wrote:
> "He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
> EXCERPT:
>
>     Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink
>     Internet service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly
>     tripled in just two years.
>
>     An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates
>     that the service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with
>     about 60 percent of that coming from consumers who subscribe to
>     the service. Similarly, the media publication Payload estimated
>     that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year.
>
>     These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred
>     million dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However,
>     with revenues expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion,
>     Quilty Space estimates that free cash flow will grow to about $2
>     billion. SpaceX is privately held, so its financial numbers are
>     not public.
>
>     *Growing subscribers*
>     *
>     *By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet
>     service based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites
>     to the ground provides significantly faster and lower latency
>     service than satellites in geostationary space—SpaceX has already
>     exceeded space-based communication networks developed earlier.
>
>     At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers.
>     Quilty's director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous
>     incumbent players, Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million
>     subscribers at their peak about half a decade ago, largely in
>     North America, with some in South America and a smattering in
>     Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3 million subscribers
>     this year alone.
>
>     SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including
>     government customers, particularly the US Department of Defense,
>     as well as maritime (75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well
>     as 300 cruise ships) and aviation segments.
>
>     "The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX
>     was building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've
>     got evidence that the company will generate the type of free cash
>     flows from the business that could pay for said endeavor," said
>     Chris Quilty, co-chief executive and president of Quilty Space...
>
> [...]
> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
>
>
> -- 
> Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz 
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[David Lang]

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just one note on the 5 year service life. The orbit they are in is such that a 
failed satellite will reenter within 5 years. That doesn't mean that they only 
have fuel for 5 years of operation

Also re: revenue, many places outside the US pay less than $100/month, and many 
users in the US pay more than $100/month, so it's hard to come up with the 
average per-subscriber revenue. But I agree thta it makes the article revenue 
numbers plausable.

David Lang


On Thu, 6 Feb 2025, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:

> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2025 21:47:26 +1300
> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
> To: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment
>     of promise and peril (Ars Technica)
> 
> Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers paying 
> about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog standard dishy end 
> users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.
>
> Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other posts 
> today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 satellites. Even 
> if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed incorrectly that they all got to 
> enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 years, we'd be looking at 1,400 of them 
> needing to get replaced each year going forward. Assuming here 1000 kg per 
> satellite going forward (just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's 
> a US$1M replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), 
> and that's got to come out of those $8.2b. So I guess profit might be closer 
> to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere near that so 
> far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well beyond replacement 
> rate, the launch costs of anything older than Starship are higher, and the 
> V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 kg. So that mightn't leave quite 
> that much change out of the $8.2b to throw at other projects. But it's 
> certainly looking like a sustainable business.
>
> But then Starlink are growing. I guess with Elon now being in de-facto 
> control of the FCC, they'll get what they want, but more sats up there also 
> means having to replace more eventually. So that cost will go up.
>
> It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:
>
> * capacity available to sell and
> * markets to sell into.
>
> And here lies the crux: Capacity comes in two types:
>
> 1. Spectral capacity. That's SpaceX's ability to find a frequency to
>   serve a customer on that isn't already in use in the customer's
>   neighbourhood.
> 2. Beam capacity: The ability to find a spare beam on a satellite that
>   can be used for that customer.
>
> Now the second one of these is easy to address - just launch more sats and 
> put more beams on each sat. But the second capacity is worth nothing in a 
> place where you don't have the first one, which can't be increased by 
> launching more satellites - at least not unless they're different ones that 
> allow for smaller cells and sharper beams. That's a route that Starlink are 
> trying to go down FAIK, but there's limited growth potential here.
>
> And looking at the Starlink availability map, spectral capacity is something 
> they currently seem to be grappling with in quite a number of places. From 
> the Greenwich Meridian roughly east, they're "sold out" in: the greater 
> London area, Accra, Lagos, Benin City, Warri, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Lusaka, 
> Bulawayo, Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, Antananarivo, Jakarta, Perth, Manila, 
> Brisbane, Bethel, quite a lot of areas south of Anchorage, spots around 
> Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Whitehorse, the Seattle-Portland corridor, 
> Sacramento, Grande Prairie, Spokane, San Diego, Missoula, Edmonton, Apache 
> Junction, Nogales, Aspen Park, Guadalajara (MX), Monterrey (MX), Mexico City, 
> Austin, Puero Escondido (MX), De Ridder, Mérida (MX), San Salvador, Playa del 
> Carmen (MX), Peterborough (CA), Tuskegee, San Jose (CR), Highlands (NC), much 
> of western Jamaica, parts of the Dominican Republic, much of Puerto Rico, 
> Iqualuit, Leticia (BR), Rincón de Los Sauces, Sao Gabriel da Caochoeira, Tefé 
> (BR), Manaus (BR), Sao Paulo BR), Rio de Janeiro. It's been like this for a 
> couple of months now, so I guess it's not a problem with the Dishy supply 
> chain.
>
> Read: Not much growth potential at present in and around population centres 
> where Starlink used to be available and where there isn't good existing 
> ground infrastructure.
>
> There used to be a lot of availability "flickering" in areas where there was 
> more demand than beam capacity - this has gone solidly to "available" now 
> where it's not "sold out". So we can assume that the market there is 
> saturated now mostly.
>
> There remain those countries where Starlink isn't officially available yet. 
> Some of these get roaming service, and I'm aware of at least one of these 
> where spectral capacity is uncomfortably near (BTW: USAID was going to pay 
> for a fibre cable there so China wouldn't, but I guess Elon doesn't want 
> USAID to pay for the cable so China can own it. While they're waiting for it, 
> Starlink gets seen there as being unable to meet demand. It makes no sense to 
> me. Incidentally, the country has one of the largest sovereign waters in the 
> world and China is just waiting for the opportunity to get a naval base there 
> I guess - on the far side of Guam. Bye America!).
>
> Other countries where you can't get Starlink yet might contribute another few 
> million users - India in particular. But with Starlink not being able to 
> support particularly high user densities anywhere because of the spectral 
> constraints, we're unlikely to see billions of customers there either.
>
> On 6/02/2025 4:53 am, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink wrote:
>> "He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
>> EXCERPT:
>>
>>     Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink
>>     Internet service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly
>>     tripled in just two years.
>>
>>     An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates
>>     that the service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with
>>     about 60 percent of that coming from consumers who subscribe to
>>     the service. Similarly, the media publication Payload estimated
>>     that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year.
>>
>>     These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred
>>     million dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However,
>>     with revenues expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion,
>>     Quilty Space estimates that free cash flow will grow to about $2
>>     billion. SpaceX is privately held, so its financial numbers are
>>     not public.
>>
>>     *Growing subscribers*
>>     *
>>     *By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet
>>     service based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites
>>     to the ground provides significantly faster and lower latency
>>     service than satellites in geostationary space—SpaceX has already
>>     exceeded space-based communication networks developed earlier.
>>
>>     At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers.
>>     Quilty's director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous
>>     incumbent players, Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million
>>     subscribers at their peak about half a decade ago, largely in
>>     North America, with some in South America and a smattering in
>>     Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3 million subscribers
>>     this year alone.
>>
>>     SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including
>>     government customers, particularly the US Department of Defense,
>>     as well as maritime (75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well
>>     as 300 cruise ships) and aviation segments.
>>
>>     "The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX
>>     was building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've
>>     got evidence that the company will generate the type of free cash
>>     flows from the business that could pay for said endeavor," said
>>     Chris Quilty, co-chief executive and president of Quilty Space...
>> 
>> [...]
>> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
>> living as The Truth is True
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Starlink mailing list
>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>
>

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_______________________________________________
Starlink mailing list
Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[Dave Taht]

On Thu, Feb 6, 2025 at 12:47 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
> Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers paying about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog standard dishy end users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.
>
> Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other posts today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 satellites. Even if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed incorrectly that they all got to enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 years,

As best as I remember from something a few years ago, the fuel
usage was far, far below expectations, something like 3% over 3 years.
So aside from the lowest orbits perhaps, starlink does not need to retire
a satellite in under 5 years, except for upgrades.

> we'd be looking at 1,400 of them needing to get replaced each year going forward.

They are presently launching 22 sats every other day. call it 4000/yr.

So assuming the same launch cadence, call it 21k sats in orbit before
they can grow no more.

>Assuming here 1000 kg per satellite going forward (just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's a US$1M replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), and that's got to come out of those $8.2b.

This seems to assume each launch is 22m. I have no idea what the
second stage costs at this point...

>So I guess profit might be closer to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere near that so far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well beyond replacement rate, the launch costs of anything older than Starship are higher, and the V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 kg. So that mightn't leave quite that much change out of the $8.2b to throw at other projects. But it's certainly looking like a sustainable business.

Actually connecting to the internet costs money too, and each ground
station is probably 1m+, and there are all sorts of other costs in
manufacturing and network support.

Still it certainly looks like a sustainable business.

>
> But then Starlink are growing. I guess with Elon now being in de-facto control of the FCC, they'll get what they want, but more sats up there also means having to replace more eventually. So that cost will go up.

The FCC has lost authority to regulate the internet via title II,
which is good because they had no staff for it. Historically Brendan
Carr (and Nathan Simington and Ajit Pai) have been quite friendly to
all forms of wireless, be it 5g, or wisps, or sat. So while I expect a
friendly spectrum regime, not much on the internet front.

What happens next at the NTIA is anyone´s guess.
>
> It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:
>
> capacity available to sell and
> markets to sell into.

Some very large countries like India, are dragging their feet. I do
wonder what will happen in onterio, where they just uncanceled a
100m starlink contract (
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ontario-cancels-starlink-contract-latest-canadian-tariffs-protest-2025-02-03/)

and are trying to put 2.5B into another sat system. Once the furor
dies down over there, I have no idea what will happen.

In general I expect most future growth for starlink to be in rural
throughout the world, and their initial estimates were for 30m users
worldwide, which I think is quite achievable in 5-7 years.

> And here lies the crux: Capacity comes in two types:
>
> Spectral capacity. That's SpaceX's ability to find a frequency to serve a customer on that isn't already in use in the customer's neighbourhood.
> Beam capacity: The ability to find a spare beam on a satellite that can be used for that customer.
>
> Now the second one of these is easy to address - just launch more sats and put more beams on each sat. But the second capacity is worth nothing in a place where you don't have the first one, which can't be increased by launching more satellites - at least not unless they're different ones that allow for smaller cells and sharper beams. That's a route that Starlink are trying to go down FAIK, but there's limited growth potential here.
>
> And looking at the Starlink availability map, spectral capacity is something they currently seem to be grappling with in quite a number of places. From the Greenwich Meridian roughly east, they're "sold out" in: the greater London area, Accra, Lagos, Benin City, Warri, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Lusaka, Bulawayo, Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, Antananarivo, Jakarta, Perth, Manila, Brisbane, Bethel, quite a lot of areas south of Anchorage, spots around Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Whitehorse, the Seattle-Portland corridor, Sacramento, Grande Prairie, Spokane, San Diego, Missoula, Edmonton, Apache Junction, Nogales, Aspen Park, Guadalajara (MX), Monterrey (MX), Mexico City, Austin, Puero Escondido (MX), De Ridder, Mérida (MX), San Salvador, Playa del Carmen (MX), Peterborough (CA), Tuskegee, San Jose (CR), Highlands (NC), much of western Jamaica, parts of the Dominican Republic, much of Puerto Rico, Iqualuit, Leticia (BR), Rincón de Los Sauces, Sao Gabriel da Caochoeira, Tefé (BR), Manaus (BR), Sao Paulo BR), Rio de Janeiro. It's been like this for a couple of months now, so I guess it's not a problem with the Dishy supply chain.

That´s a really great list. However, in terms of square footage quite small.

> Read: Not much growth potential at present in and around population centres where Starlink used to be available and where there isn't good existing ground infrastructure.
>
> There used to be a lot of availability "flickering" in areas where there was more demand than beam capacity - this has gone solidly to "available" now where it's not "sold out". So we can assume that the market there is saturated now mostly.
>
> There remain those countries where Starlink isn't officially available yet. Some of these get roaming service, and I'm aware of at least one of these where spectral capacity is uncomfortably near

>(BTW: USAID was going to pay for a fibre cable there

Where?

>so China wouldn't, but I guess Elon doesn't want USAID to pay for the cable so China can own it. While they're waiting for it, Starlink gets seen there as being unable to meet demand. It makes no sense to me. Incidentally, the country has one of the largest sovereign waters in the world and China is just waiting for the opportunity to get a naval base there I guess - on the far side of Guam. Bye America!).

In general assuming elon cares about things at this level of grand
strategy is probably a decent assumption and I kind of expect that
once the slash and burn approach to things like USAID is exhausted
that worthy projects will actually proceed faster.

But anyway, you got a link to this project?

>
> Other countries where you can't get Starlink yet might contribute another few million users - India in particular. But with Starlink not being able to support particularly high user densities anywhere because of the spectral constraints, we're unlikely to see billions of customers there either.

30m is more than enough for a highly profitable entity.

> On 6/02/2025 4:53 am, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink wrote:
>
> "He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
> EXCERPT:
>
> Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink Internet service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly tripled in just two years.
>
> An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates that the service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with about 60 percent of that coming from consumers who subscribe to the service. Similarly, the media publication Payload estimated that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year.
>
> These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred million dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However, with revenues expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion, Quilty Space estimates that free cash flow will grow to about $2 billion. SpaceX is privately held, so its financial numbers are not public.
>
> Growing subscribers
>
> By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet service based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites to the ground provides significantly faster and lower latency service than satellites in geostationary space—SpaceX has already exceeded space-based communication networks developed earlier.
>
> At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers. Quilty's director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous incumbent players, Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million subscribers at their peak about half a decade ago, largely in North America, with some in South America and a smattering in Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3 million subscribers this year alone.
>
> SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including government customers, particularly the US Department of Defense, as well as maritime (75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well as 300 cruise ships) and aviation segments.
>
> "The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX was building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've got evidence that the company will generate the type of free cash flows from the business that could pay for said endeavor," said Chris Quilty, co-chief executive and president of Quilty Space...
>
> [...]
> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/
>
>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>
> --
> ****************************************************************
> Dr. Ulrich Speidel
>
> School of Computer Science
>
> Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
>
> The University of Auckland
> u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
> ****************************************************************
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink



-- 
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos

Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[Ulrich Speidel]

Just trying to get to ballpark figures here. It's well understood that 
current Starlink service life is limited by technological obsolescence 
rather than fuel reserves.

The $100/month is based on the cost of a fixed subscription in the 
markets I've seen (US, Japan, NZ, Australia, Germany, Fiji) but yes it 
varies, and there are different grades of service in many markets, too.

The fundamental question is whether it generates enough cashflow to 
finance a Mars programme at a time when the launch rate is still well 
above replacement rate, launch costs are still higher than they would be 
with Starship in routine service, and much of the low-hanging fruit in 
terms of rich rural markets have already been picked.

On 7/02/2025 12:11 am, David Lang wrote:
> just one note on the 5 year service life. The orbit they are in is 
> such that a failed satellite will reenter within 5 years. That doesn't 
> mean that they only have fuel for 5 years of operation
>
> Also re: revenue, many places outside the US pay less than $100/month, 
> and many users in the US pay more than $100/month, so it's hard to 
> come up with the average per-subscriber revenue. But I agree thta it 
> makes the article revenue numbers plausable.
>
> David Lang
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Feb 2025, Ulrich Speidel via Starlink wrote:
>
>> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2025 21:47:26 +1300
>> From: Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Reply-To: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
>> To: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a 
>> moment
>>     of promise and peril (Ars Technica)
>>
>> Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers 
>> paying about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog 
>> standard dishy end users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.
>>
>> Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other 
>> posts today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 
>> satellites. Even if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed 
>> incorrectly that they all got to enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 
>> years, we'd be looking at 1,400 of them needing to get replaced each 
>> year going forward. Assuming here 1000 kg per satellite going forward 
>> (just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's a US$1M 
>> replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), 
>> and that's got to come out of those $8.2b. So I guess profit might be 
>> closer to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere 
>> near that so far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well 
>> beyond replacement rate, the launch costs of anything older than 
>> Starship are higher, and the V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 
>> kg. So that mightn't leave quite that much change out of the $8.2b to 
>> throw at other projects. But it's certainly looking like a 
>> sustainable business.
>>
>> But then Starlink are growing. I guess with Elon now being in 
>> de-facto control of the FCC, they'll get what they want, but more 
>> sats up there also means having to replace more eventually. So that 
>> cost will go up.
>>
>> It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:
>>
>> * capacity available to sell and
>> * markets to sell into.
>>
>> And here lies the crux: Capacity comes in two types:
>>
>> 1. Spectral capacity. That's SpaceX's ability to find a frequency to
>>   serve a customer on that isn't already in use in the customer's
>>   neighbourhood.
>> 2. Beam capacity: The ability to find a spare beam on a satellite that
>>   can be used for that customer.
>>
>> Now the second one of these is easy to address - just launch more 
>> sats and put more beams on each sat. But the second capacity is worth 
>> nothing in a place where you don't have the first one, which can't be 
>> increased by launching more satellites - at least not unless they're 
>> different ones that allow for smaller cells and sharper beams. That's 
>> a route that Starlink are trying to go down FAIK, but there's limited 
>> growth potential here.
>>
>> And looking at the Starlink availability map, spectral capacity is 
>> something they currently seem to be grappling with in quite a number 
>> of places. From the Greenwich Meridian roughly east, they're "sold 
>> out" in: the greater London area, Accra, Lagos, Benin City, Warri, 
>> Port Harcourt, Abuja, Lusaka, Bulawayo, Harare, Maputo, Nairobi, 
>> Antananarivo, Jakarta, Perth, Manila, Brisbane, Bethel, quite a lot 
>> of areas south of Anchorage, spots around Fairbanks, Delta Junction, 
>> Whitehorse, the Seattle-Portland corridor, Sacramento, Grande 
>> Prairie, Spokane, San Diego, Missoula, Edmonton, Apache Junction, 
>> Nogales, Aspen Park, Guadalajara (MX), Monterrey (MX), Mexico City, 
>> Austin, Puero Escondido (MX), De Ridder, Mérida (MX), San Salvador, 
>> Playa del Carmen (MX), Peterborough (CA), Tuskegee, San Jose (CR), 
>> Highlands (NC), much of western Jamaica, parts of the Dominican 
>> Republic, much of Puerto Rico, Iqualuit, Leticia (BR), Rincón de Los 
>> Sauces, Sao Gabriel da Caochoeira, Tefé (BR), Manaus (BR), Sao Paulo 
>> BR), Rio de Janeiro. It's been like this for a couple of months now, 
>> so I guess it's not a problem with the Dishy supply chain.
>>
>> Read: Not much growth potential at present in and around population 
>> centres where Starlink used to be available and where there isn't 
>> good existing ground infrastructure.
>>
>> There used to be a lot of availability "flickering" in areas where 
>> there was more demand than beam capacity - this has gone solidly to 
>> "available" now where it's not "sold out". So we can assume that the 
>> market there is saturated now mostly.
>>
>> There remain those countries where Starlink isn't officially 
>> available yet. Some of these get roaming service, and I'm aware of at 
>> least one of these where spectral capacity is uncomfortably near 
>> (BTW: USAID was going to pay for a fibre cable there so China 
>> wouldn't, but I guess Elon doesn't want USAID to pay for the cable so 
>> China can own it. While they're waiting for it, Starlink gets seen 
>> there as being unable to meet demand. It makes no sense to me. 
>> Incidentally, the country has one of the largest sovereign waters in 
>> the world and China is just waiting for the opportunity to get a 
>> naval base there I guess - on the far side of Guam. Bye America!).
>>
>> Other countries where you can't get Starlink yet might contribute 
>> another few million users - India in particular. But with Starlink 
>> not being able to support particularly high user densities anywhere 
>> because of the spectral constraints, we're unlikely to see billions 
>> of customers there either.
>>
>> On 6/02/2025 4:53 am, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink 
>> wrote:
>>> "He wants to take food off the table of people—hard-working people."
>>> EXCERPT:
>>>
>>>     Two new independent estimates of revenue from SpaceX's Starlink
>>>     Internet service suggest it is rapidly growing, having nearly
>>>     tripled in just two years.
>>>
>>>     An updated projection from the analysts at Quilty Space estimates
>>>     that the service produced $7.8 billion in revenue in 2024, with
>>>     about 60 percent of that coming from consumers who subscribe to
>>>     the service. Similarly, the media publication Payload estimated
>>>     that Starlink generated $8.2 billion in revenue last year.
>>>
>>>     These estimates indicate that Starlink produced a few hundred
>>>     million dollars in free cash flow for SpaceX in 2024. However,
>>>     with revenues expected to leap in 2025 to above $12 billion,
>>>     Quilty Space estimates that free cash flow will grow to about $2
>>>     billion. SpaceX is privately held, so its financial numbers are
>>>     not public.
>>>
>>>     *Growing subscribers*
>>>     *
>>>     *By launching thousands of satellites and developing an Internet
>>>     service based in low-Earth orbit—where the proximity of satellites
>>>     to the ground provides significantly faster and lower latency
>>>     service than satellites in geostationary space—SpaceX has already
>>>     exceeded space-based communication networks developed earlier.
>>>
>>>     At the end of last year, Starlink had 4.6 million subscribers.
>>>     Quilty's director of research Caleb Henry noted that the previous
>>>     incumbent players, Hughes and ViaSat, had a combined 2.2 million
>>>     subscribers at their peak about half a decade ago, largely in
>>>     North America, with some in South America and a smattering in
>>>     Europe. Starlink is expected to add another 3 million subscribers
>>>     this year alone.
>>>
>>>     SpaceX has other significant lines of business, including
>>>     government customers, particularly the US Department of Defense,
>>>     as well as maritime (75,000 vessels equipped with Starlink as well
>>>     as 300 cruise ships) and aviation segments.
>>>
>>>     "The key takeaway I want everybody to walk away with is, if SpaceX
>>>     was building the Starlink system to pay for a Mars colony, we've
>>>     got evidence that the company will generate the type of free cash
>>>     flows from the business that could pay for said endeavor," said
>>>     Chris Quilty, co-chief executive and president of Quilty Space...
>>>
>>> [...]
>>> https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/starlink-profit-growing-rapidly-as-it-faces-a-moment-of-promise-and-peril/ 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
>>> living as The Truth is True
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Starlink mailing list
>>> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
>>> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************

Re: [Starlink] Starlink profit growing rapidly as it faces a moment of promise and peril (Ars Technica)

[Ulrich Speidel]

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On 7/02/2025 4:29 am, Dave Taht wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 6, 2025 at 12:47 AM Ulrich Speidel via Starlink
> <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>> Now the interesting thing here is that with 5 million subscribers paying about US$1200 a year, you'd get about 6 billion from bog standard dishy end users alone. So that $8.2b is credible.
>>
>> Note this is revenue, not profit. To get there, pointing at the other posts today, Starlink had to build a constellation of about 7,000 satellites. Even if we looked just at these 7,000 and assumed incorrectly that they all got to enjoy a full service life of maybe 5 years,
> As best as I remember from something a few years ago, the fuel
> usage was far, far below expectations, something like 3% over 3 years.
> So aside from the lowest orbits perhaps, starlink does not need to retire
> a satellite in under 5 years, except for upgrades.
Indeed. As I've mentioned, the main reason why satellites get de-orbited 
is technological obsolescence (few beams, no ISLs, low EIRP, ...).
>
>> we'd be looking at 1,400 of them needing to get replaced each year going forward.
> They are presently launching 22 sats every other day. call it 4000/yr.
Yep. So this means that a bigger chunk of the current revenue goes 
towards growth rather than a somewhat unrelated Mars programme, I guess.
>
> So assuming the same launch cadence, call it 21k sats in orbit before
> they can grow no more.
>
>> Assuming here 1000 kg per satellite going forward (just ballpark) and US$1000/kg launch cost. So that's a US$1M replacement cost per satellite (not even looking at the hardware), and that's got to come out of those $8.2b.
> This seems to assume each launch is 22m. I have no idea what the
> second stage costs at this point...
Yep, I left that out deliberately.
>
>> So I guess profit might be closer to the $6b mark at best in that scenario, and probably nowhere near that so far due to the fact that SpaceX are launching at well beyond replacement rate, the launch costs of anything older than Starship are higher, and the V3's will be closer to 2000 kg than 1000 kg. So that mightn't leave quite that much change out of the $8.2b to throw at other projects. But it's certainly looking like a sustainable business.
> Actually connecting to the internet costs money too, and each ground
> station is probably 1m+, and there are all sorts of other costs in
> manufacturing and network support.
I left that out, too.

> What happens next at the NTIA is anyone´s guess.
Indeed.
>> It then depends on revenue growth, and that in turn depends on:
>>
>> capacity available to sell and
>> markets to sell into.
> Some very large countries like India, are dragging their feet.
Indeed they do. Now India have been quite innovative in their urban 
areas in terms of connectivity, but quite whether the rural areas will 
be able to afford a great amount of Starlink subscriptions is the big 
question. Concentrated populations aren't as much of a customer 
potential - either there's already better local connectivity available, 
or you hit spectral capacity quickly.
> I do
> wonder what will happen in onterio, where they just uncanceled a
> 100m starlink contract (
> https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/ontario-cancels-starlink-contract-latest-canadian-tariffs-protest-2025-02-03/)
>
> and are trying to put 2.5B into another sat system. Once the furor
> dies down over there, I have no idea what will happen.
I think you'll see a lot of people thinking about a Plan B at the 
moment. That's what you do when your former best friend suddenly becomes 
the source of a lot of problems.
>
> In general I expect most future growth for starlink to be in rural
> throughout the world, and their initial estimates were for 30m users
> worldwide, which I think is quite achievable in 5-7 years.
Now there's "rich rural" and "poor rural". Much of "rich rural" around 
the world already has Starlink, and "poor rural" won't be able to afford 
Starlink unless it's heavily discounted. So perhaps not such a great 
source of cashflow either.
> That´s a really great list. However, in terms of square footage quite small.
That's the whole point: These are where you have concentrated 
underserved populations, but Starlink can't serve them. That leaves only 
the rural underserved - and quite how many there are that can actually 
contribute significantly to Starlink cashflow is what I'm asking myself.
> 30m is more than enough for a highly profitable entity.

Yep, I mean they'd be profitable now if they ceased growing right away 
and just maintained status quo. But will 30m users generate enough cash 
flow to go to Mars?

-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz 
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
****************************************************************



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