[Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[the keyboard of geoff goodfellow]

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   - 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.
   - “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.

[...]
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html

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

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Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Inemesit Affia]

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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?

Amazon said thier target is $400

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 6:05 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink
<starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

>
>    - 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.
>    - “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.
>
> [...]
>
> https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html
>
> --
> 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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Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Ulrich Speidel]

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The differential pricing is a pretty obvious attempt to manage user 
density in the cells as they add capacity in the sky. Growing pains.

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:

  * "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!)
  * "urban" if in rural areas that attract a lot of lifestylers and in
    which no fibre is on offer
  * "rural" if in urban areas devoid of sufficient numbers of geeks
  * "rural" if truly out in the sticks

But they keep changing that in quite a nimble fashion and rural and 
urban pricing seems to have started to converge somewhat.

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.

On 14/09/2023 5:52 am, Inemesit Affia via Starlink wrote:
> 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?
>
> Amazon said thier target is $400
>
> On Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 6:05 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via 
> Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
>
>       * 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.
>       * “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.
>
>     [...]
>     https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html
>     <https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html>
>
>     -- 
>     Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com
>     living as The Truth is True
>
-- 

****************************************************************
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] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Larry Press]

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It's a complex, dynamic pricing problem -- available capacity is constantly changing, but consumers would not tolerate, say, service price changes every month. Maybe they reassess price when performance in an area falls below or rises above thresholds.
________________________________
From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of Ulrich Speidel via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 2:36 PM
To: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Subject: Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability


The differential pricing is a pretty obvious attempt to manage user density in the cells as they add capacity in the sky. Growing pains.

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:

  *   "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!)
  *   "urban" if in rural areas that attract a lot of lifestylers and in which no fibre is on offer
  *   "rural" if in urban areas devoid of sufficient numbers of geeks
  *   "rural" if truly out in the sticks

But they keep changing that in quite a nimble fashion and rural and urban pricing seems to have started to converge somewhat.

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.

On 14/09/2023 5:52 am, Inemesit Affia via Starlink wrote:
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?

Amazon said thier target is $400

On Wed, Sep 13, 2023, 6:05 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>> wrote:

  *   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.
  *   “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.

[...]
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html__;!!P7nkOOY!osuQQ0FQdZZftAEXnjygZovc84W7lLPmmSCf0IvHZcK-nhF1gjfzMw7dzWb0jOZgRInjI5CtmG3bsqM1kqIieBOKhw$>

--
Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com<mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com>
living as The Truth is True

--

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

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz<mailto:u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz>
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/*ulrich/__;fg!!P7nkOOY!osuQQ0FQdZZftAEXnjygZovc84W7lLPmmSCf0IvHZcK-nhF1gjfzMw7dzWb0jOZgRInjI5CtmG3bsqM1kqLADW2e1g$>
****************************************************************





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Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Larry Press]

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The US price is $599, but the price varies from country to country. They sell for as low as $117.84:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1tuhyh6kbyDQ2D418ug_AgS1ZM_8MDDznrjWzDthU61w/htmlview#gid=0

Elon Musk said the prices would be uniform throughout the world originally, but affordability-based pricing was inevitable:
https://circleid.com/posts/20220906-spacex-introduces-affordability-based-starlink-pricing

________________________________
From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 10:04 AM
To: Starlink <Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Subject: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability


  *   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.
  *   “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.

[...]
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html__;!!P7nkOOY!tLx-DvlYoMFEHWILTwTEjXe919tmu22sMGNWBFtdz6JNM-QmAZP3fqcLbdBQImtVy_xFmWzeu8qJjeEIwfZlMVyyiQ$>

--
Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com<mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com>
living as The Truth is True


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Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Marc Blanchet]

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My take is that the comment from the VP was “generic”: ie. overall, the profit from selling the terminals was negative but now it is positive, on total. Local prices, discounts, … are taken into account in the comment I guess.

Marc.

> Le 13 sept. 2023 à 17:28, Larry Press via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> a écrit :
> 
> The US price is $599, but the price varies from country to country. They sell for as low as $117.84:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1tuhyh6kbyDQ2D418ug_AgS1ZM_8MDDznrjWzDthU61w/htmlview#gid=0
> 
> Elon Musk said the prices would be uniform throughout the world originally, but affordability-based pricing was inevitable:
> https://circleid.com/posts/20220906-spacex-introduces-affordability-based-starlink-pricing
> 
> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net>> on behalf of the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 10:04 AM
> To: Starlink <Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>>
> Subject: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability
>  
> SpaceX is no longer absorbing the cost of the Starlink antennas that it sells with its satellite internet service, a company executive said on Wednesday.
> “We were subsidizing terminals but we’ve been iterating on our terminal production so much that we’re no longer subsidizing terminals, which is a good place to be,” Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX vice president of Starlink and commercial sales, said during a panel at the World Satellite Business Week conference.
> [...]
> https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html__;!!P7nkOOY!tLx-DvlYoMFEHWILTwTEjXe919tmu22sMGNWBFtdz6JNM-QmAZP3fqcLbdBQImtVy_xFmWzeu8qJjeEIwfZlMVyyiQ$>
> 
> -- 
> Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com>
> living as The Truth is True
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Starlink mailing list
> Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net <mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink


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Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

[Larry Press]

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Maybe. The article says  "SpaceX sells consumer Starlink antennas, also known as user terminals, for $599 each."

They might also be considering profit from the more expensive non-consumer terminals.

________________________________
From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of Marc Blanchet via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 2:32 PM
To: Starlink <Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
Subject: Re: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability

My take is that the comment from the VP was “generic”: ie. overall, the profit from selling the terminals was negative but now it is positive, on total. Local prices, discounts, … are taken into account in the comment I guess.

Marc.

Le 13 sept. 2023 à 17:28, Larry Press via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net> a écrit :

The US price is $599, but the price varies from country to country. They sell for as low as $117.84:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1tuhyh6kbyDQ2D418ug_AgS1ZM_8MDDznrjWzDthU61w/htmlview#gid=0<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1tuhyh6kbyDQ2D418ug_AgS1ZM_8MDDznrjWzDthU61w/htmlview*gid=0__;Iw!!P7nkOOY!oOD--sSuHrmf_73Crf5At7ibwEnUvvr_BnBga3LKLsW9IbjdwLkVjzepTlfzFgwYB7SI9t05gRzrhKVpPEMVYWDfhg$>

Elon Musk said the prices would be uniform throughout the world originally, but affordability-based pricing was inevitable:
https://circleid.com/posts/20220906-spacex-introduces-affordability-based-starlink-pricing<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://circleid.com/posts/20220906-spacex-introduces-affordability-based-starlink-pricing__;!!P7nkOOY!oOD--sSuHrmf_73Crf5At7ibwEnUvvr_BnBga3LKLsW9IbjdwLkVjzepTlfzFgwYB7SI9t05gRzrhKVpPEOMAQk52Q$>

________________________________
From: Starlink <starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:starlink-bounces@lists.bufferbloat.net>> on behalf of the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Starlink <starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>>
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2023 10:04 AM
To: Starlink <Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>>
Subject: [Starlink] SpaceX no longer taking losses to produce Starlink satellite antennas, a key step to improving profitability


  *   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.
  *   “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.

[...]
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/13/spacex-no-longer-taking-losses-to-produce-starlink-satellite-antennas.html__;!!P7nkOOY!tLx-DvlYoMFEHWILTwTEjXe919tmu22sMGNWBFtdz6JNM-QmAZP3fqcLbdBQImtVy_xFmWzeu8qJjeEIwfZlMVyyiQ$>

--
Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com<mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com>
living as The Truth is True

_______________________________________________
Starlink mailing list
Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:Starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net>
https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/starlink__;!!P7nkOOY!oOD--sSuHrmf_73Crf5At7ibwEnUvvr_BnBga3LKLsW9IbjdwLkVjzepTlfzFgwYB7SI9t05gRzrhKVpPEMbsGctcQ$>


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The Gerth Archives and the University Library are pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition. “Alternate Takes.”  The exhibition is in the Library Gallery LIB 1940. It is open M-F 10-4 for all students, faculty, staff and the community. In-person curated tours/instruction are available to classes. Students may visit on their own time.

An opening reception will be held in LIB 1940 on October 5, 2023 from 4pm to 7pm.

To schedule class visits or tours, please use this link https://csudh.libwizard.com/f/archive_inst<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcsudh.libwizard.com%2Ff%2Farchive_inst&data=05%7C01%7Clpress%40csudh.edu%7Cb89c3e11eaaf4c382d2608dbb474b0c4%7C1a66a72773894727a8cbf249ac8e7ff8%7C0%7C0%7C638302185834229001%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=NbU5KNQztkietklk3X3dndzJQEbdGoYFg2EcTML%2BH7c%3D&reserved=0>.

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