Re: [Starlink] 69,000 Users

[Mike Puchol <mike@starlink.sx>]

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500k customers is ~$600m in gross revenue per year. Assuming no operating costs, takes, etc., $10bn takes ~16 years to pay back. They need to add way more customers onto that investment.

In traditional land-based telcos, it is frequent to split the backbone and customer sides, having a “TowerCo” with all the expensive infrastructure, that has a payback period of 25 years, and “CustomerCo” where payback needs to be 12-18 months. In Starlink’s case, unless they cannot increase satellite lifespan, and/or make them very cheap, the payback period is fixed at 5 years. For gateways and ground infrastructure, you can stretch it to compensate, but you cannot justify, say, a 50 year payback.

IMHO the direct to customer side will end up being residual, high price for those who really need it, and their revenue will come from backhauling mobile and FTTH operators, airlines, cruises, and the military.

Best,

Mike
On Jun 30, 2021, 7:48 AM +0200, Dave Taht <dave.taht@gmail.com>, wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 10:24 PM David Lang <david@lang.hm> wrote:
> >
> > I think that was 69k simultanious users
> >
> > dishy production cost is currently down to ~$1k/unit (I've heard that it was
> > ~$3k/unit for the first ones)
>
> Keep hoping they will add good, nay, great!! queue management.
> Software costs nothing in qty.
>
> > But the long term upside if they can pull it off is a license to print money,
> > I've seen speculation that it's on the order of 30B/year when fully built
>
> I think that's kind of doable.
>
> It's too bad all those users are behind a CGN and cannot talk to each
> other, routing calls at least from one village to another would stay
> on the same sat.
>
> >
> > David Lang
> >
> > On Tue, 29 Jun 2021, Daniel AJ Sokolov wrote:
> >
> > > Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2021 19:00:32 -0700
> > > From: Daniel AJ Sokolov <daniel@sokolov.eu.org>
> > > To: starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
> > > Subject: [Starlink] 69,000 Users
> > >
> > > Starlink currently has 69,000 User, according to what Elon Musk said
> > > today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
> > >
> > > In a year, he wants to have 500,000 users.
> > >
> > > He expects having to invest 25 to 30 billion US-Dollars to fully build
> > > Starlink.
> > >
> > > Each Dishy costs Starlink about double the current purchase price.
> > > However, they want to reduce the production cost to "a few hundred
> > > dollars" - which is why they are working on their own factory in Texas.
> > >
> > > FYI
> > > Daniel
> > >
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