Elon Musk’s Starlink Gets Even More Expensive

Broadband

from the don't-believe-the-hype dept

We’ve noted for a while now how Elon Musk’s Starlink low-orbit satellite broadband service isn’t going to be the miraculous revolution many people think. For one thing, the service can currently only provide service to a maximum of around 800,000 subscribers globally. For context, around 20-40 million people in the U.S. lack broadband, and 83 million live under a broadband monopoly (usually Comcast).

Another issue: for millions of Americans the real issue is broadband affordability (see this OTI report on the subject). Starlink already wasn’t cheap, launching at a price point of $100 a month, with a $500 first month down payment for hardware. The company is now bumping the monthly price to $110 per month, and users will now have to shell out $600 for the same hardware:

“SpaceX’s internet-from-space program Starlink is increasing prices for both the purchase of Starlink kits and for the monthly service, according to a new email sent out to customers this afternoon reviewed by The Verge. The company says the “sole purpose of these adjustments is to keep pace with rising inflation.”

The service currently has around 250,000 active users worldwide. Roughly 500,000 people have pre-ordered, many of whom have been waiting for more than a year for service. Those users were already pissed off because Starlink customer service (or even a basic email update on shipping status) is basically non-existent.

Now, not only are new customers having to pay more for service, customers who already pre-ordered are being told they have to pay $550 for the hardware (instead of the $500 originally stated), and they’re understandably not particularly happy about it at forums like Reddit:

Went to bed early last night not feeling the best. Woke up this morning feeling better and checked my phone. EMAIL FROM STARLINK. YES! THE WAIT MUST BE OVER!

Nope. Still waiting… but here’s a $50 price increase for the dish and a $11 per month increase. What a kick in the nuts.

To be clear, Starlink is a nifty service if you can get it. Reviews so far have been decidedly average, though for many rural users gigabit service with low latency is going to be a huge upgrade from nothing, crappy DSL, or pricey, slow, and capped traditional satellite broadband.

Starlink’s obstacles are several fold. Musk has already made it clear that the service won’t have the capacity to disrupt existing duopolies, and may be tricky to keep financially viable even with a focus on underserved areas. Obtaining the scale needed to be profitable also requires fixing Dragon engine production woes and ramping up satellite production despite ongoing supply chain issues.

Even if everything goes perfectly smoothly, and the company launches its full array of 42,000 low orbit satellites, the maximum global reach is still estimated to be only around 6 million subscribers — which would still only be a drop in the bucket for demand in the U.S. alone. The uncertainty of whether Starlink will even survive means the FCC likely should stop subsidizing the billionaire-backed effort.

The other issue: as more users flood to the network, the inherent physics of limited satellite capacity means the company will likely start implementing restrictions on usage, whether that’s the throttling of HD video, or the imposition of usage caps and overage fees, driving up already high prices further.

And this is all before you even touch on the fact that scientific researchers say the Starlink constellation is creating significant light pollution that harms scientific research and cannot be mitigated (Musk stated in 2020 Starlink would “not cause any impact whatsoever in astronomical discoveries.”).

So again, while Starlink is a great niche option if you can actually get and afford it, anybody acting as if it’s going to disrupt a broken U.S. telecom market isn’t living in reality. It’s taking a year for many people to get it, it’s not affordable for a large swath of the people who need it most, and even at maximum potential it will struggle to have any meaningful impact on the US broadband market.

It’s a nifty niche product with a lot of obstacles to overcome to succeed and survive. Most broadband policy experts I talk to still think it makes better sense to spend the majority of investment cash on deploying “future proof” fiber to more places, and plugging any remaining holes with fifth-generation (5G) technology.

Filed Under: astronomers, broadband, competition, elon musk, internet access, satellite, satellites, space, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

Regulators Are Ignoring How Low Orbit Satellite Broadband Is Trashing The Night Sky

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the blinded-by-science dept

As previously noted, Space X, Amazon, and others are pushing harder than ever into the low-orbit satellite broadband game. The industry, pockmarked by a long road of failures, involves firing thousands of smaller, cheaper, lower orbit satellite constellations into space to help supplement existing broadband services. The lower orbit means that LO satellite service will offer lower-latency broadband than traditional satellite offerings, which for 15 years or so have been widely maligned as expensive, slow, “laggy,” with annoying monthly caps.

And while these services should absolutely help bring some additional options to rural Americans, nautical ventures, and those out of range of traditional service, folks shouldn’t get their hopes up in terms of broader disruption of the uncompetitive U.S. telecom market. The physics involved in satellite transmission means there will always be limited capacity and odd throttling and network management restrictions, meaning it won’t really make much headway in highly monopolized major metro areas. In short, the tech is absolutely a positive advancement, but it’s not going to be the game changer many think.

And there’s another growing problem with low orbit satellite technology. As we launch thousands of these micro-satellite constellations into space, the LO satellites are annoying professional and amateur astronomers, who say they’re interfering with space observation and important scientific data collection (especially at wide-field observatories). During the recent monitoring of the NEOWISE comet, for example, photographer Daniel Lopez showed what Starlink “photobombing” looks like in practice for those trying to track these sort of events in the night sky:

Not great. And it’s going to get notably worse. Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation, for example, will eventually consist of 3,236 satellites, more than the 2,600 satellites currently in orbit. Space X’s Starlink project, in contrast, could ultimately consist of as many as 12,000 satellites all told. In some instances this is an even worse problem for slightly higher altitude LO satellites. And keep in mind this is just the testing phase… we haven’t even gotten close to broader commercial deployment yet.

While Space X says it’s taking steps to minimize the glare and “photo bombing” capabilities of these satellites (such as anti-reflective coating on the most problematic parts of the satellites), regulators at the FCC and elsewhere appear to be asleep at the wheel in terms of the broader impact on science and astronomy:

“We don?t yet have any kind of industrywide guidelines,? said Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. ?We don?t have an industry body that?s producing good corporate citizenship on the part of all of these enthusiastic companies that want to launch, and we don?t have any regulatory setup in place that?s providing clear guidelines back to the industry.?

She added, ?To me, honestly, it feels like putting a bunch of planes up and then not having air traffic control.”

No guidelines. Not just patchy or undeveloped guidelines. But none.

It won’t get mentioned by the Times, but part of the problem are regulators who base their decisions on ideology and not data. In telecom, folks on the “deregulate everything and free market magic springs forth from the sidewalk” side of the policy aisle have long tried to paint emerging broadband alternatives as near-mystical panaceas to justify deregulation. As in, “we don’t need regulation of telecom monopolies or consumer protection because this new technology X will create competition and fix everything.” It never works because the U.S. telecom industry is painfully monopolized and broken, yet that never seems to matter.

This performative policy happened most notably years back with broadband over powerline (BPL), which former FCC boss turned cable’s top lobbyist Mike Powell hyped as the “great broadband hope.” Powell routinely hyped the tech to justify his massive deregulation of telecom in the aughts, but willfully ignored the fact the technology was an interference prone mess causing massive problems for radio transmissions nearby. BPL failed, and you only need to look at U.S. broadband prices, rankings, or Comcast’s customer support to see how this worked out for everybody.

Low orbit satellite is far more useful and solid than BPL ever was, but I’m expecting to see it used in much the same way by the Pai FCC. As in: Pai’s crew will quickly rubber stamp Amazon and Space X’s ambition, hopeful that the added competition will help them retroactively justify their complete demolition of U.S. telecom consumer protections at the telecom lobby’s behest. As in, we didn’t need pesky oversight of monopolies because free market competition saved the day. But by Musk’s own admission Starlink won’t truly disrupt U.S. telecom because it can’t serve dense urban or suburban markets, meaning companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast won’t be meaningfully disrupted, and reality and aspirational policy once again won’t line up.

When your top priorities are the maximizing of corporate revenues or the retroactive justification of bad policy based exclusively on ideology, the end result usually tends to lack… nuance. And in this case, this regulatory myopia could in many ways have unintended harm that goes well beyond the telecom sector and into the night sky itself.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, leo, low earth orbit, night sky, pollution, satellite broadband, satellites

Space X's Starlink Won't Be The Broadband Disruption Play Many People Think

Broadband

from the don't-get-your-hopes-up dept

After initially obtaining an FCC license for up to 1 million Starlink satellite broadband customers in the United States, Space X last week quadrupled that estimate, and is now hopeful that 5 million Americans will sign up for service. To be clear: Space X’s service won’t be taking on traditional broadband providers in major metro areas. Instead, the company will be using thousands of low orbit satellites (with lower latency than traditional satellite broadband) to deliver marginally decent service to under-served rural Americans, assuming it winds up being profitable longer term.

In a country where an estimated 42 million can’t get any broadband at all (during a raging pandemic, no less), any little improvement helps. By and large, most major outlets have framed Starlink as a massive disruption of the broadband industry:

“Starlink is the company?s ambitious plan to build an interconnected network of about 12,000 small satellites, to beam high-speed internet anywhere in the world. To date, SpaceX has launched more than 500 Starlink satellites. In addition to getting the satellites in orbit, SpaceX will need to build a vast system of ground stations and affordable user terminals if it is going to connect consumers directly to its network.”

But those thinking that Starlink is going to truly disrupt the broadband industry at large probably shouldn’t be holding their breath. Even the industry-cozy FCC has expressed skepticism about Musk’s latency claims. And Musk himself has made it clear the service won’t be a big threat to incumbent broadband providers because there just won’t be enough capacity available to offer the service in major metro areas. No limit of marketing hype will be able to defeat the law of physics:

“The challenge for anything that is space-based is that the size of the cell is gigantic… it’s not good for high-density situations,” Musk said. “We’ll have some small number of customers in LA. But we can’t do a lot of customers in LA because the bandwidth per cell is simply not high enough.”

Again, that’s not to say Starlink won’t be a positive advancement for rural broadband users, but it’s mostly a play aimed at a niche market American companies have, time and time again, deemed to costly to serve after some initial flirtation. In time, Space X may as well. Given there have been so many failed attempts to disrupt the heavily monopolized residential US telecom sector (especially in low orbit satellite), it makes sense to wait for a fully commercial launch — and to see what pricing and weird usage restrictions are applied — before getting too excited about Starlink’s potential for meaningful innovation.

It’s also worth noting that existing telecom monopolists just love using emerging technologies as justification for regulatory apathy (read: we don’t need oversight because the sector is just so darn competitive). As we saw with failed broadband over powerline (BPL) technology or wireless tech like WiMax, that usually involves radically over-hyping emerging competitors as mystical panaceas in a bid to suggest that reasonable adult oversight of the sector is no longer needed. That’s certainly the tactic being used for 5G (another technology that won’t be as disruptive as claimed for a laundry list of reasons), and I’d wager that Space X and Amazon’s low orbit satellite experiments will soon be abused in the policy arena by AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon in much the same way — even if the actual impact on incumbent businesses will likely be negligible.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, elon musk, leo, low earth orbit, satellites, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink

After The 'Octopus Incident' White House Threatened To Stop 'Menacing Logos' From Spy Satellites

Too Much Free Time

from the what's-so-menacing-about-talledega-nights? dept

Back in late 2013, we wrote about the insanity of the “logo” placed on a spy satellite by the National Reconnaissance Organization, which consisted — literally — of an octopus enveloping the globe, and the tag line “Nothing is Beyond Our Reach.” Incredibly, the Director of National Intelligence tweeted out this image, just months after the Snowden revelations, and no one seemed to think the public might find it… creepy as fuck. Our good friends at Muckrock decided to dig in with some FOIA requests about all of this and wrote up the following amazing story about the aftermath of the fallout of that decision and posted an excellent story about it which, of all things, includes trying to translate quotes from “Talledega Nights” into Latin to avoid scrutiny. That article, by JPat Brown is reposted, with permission, below.

Records released to William Pierce show that the fallout from the National Reconnaissance Office’s infamous “world-eating octopus” logo was enough for the White House to threaten veto power over future logos on spy satellites. Despite this warning to steer clear of controversy, the designers for the NROL-76 logo tried their best to sneak in a “Talladega Nights” reference – even resorting to Latin to get around copyright.

In early May of 2016, someone within the NRO asked if the mission patch for the NROL-76 mission had been approved.

As launch wasn’t due for a year, the question was oddly premature, and someone on the team voiced their curiosity.

A later email from August 2016 explains the concern – following the embarrassment over the NRO-39’s octopus logo (which records released to Runa Sandvik show was an engineering in-joke that backfired to a comical degree), the NRO wasn’t even sure if it could approve its own logos without the White House’s final say.

As far as they were told, the NRO could still have “ultimate authority” over logos ? so long as they avoided “menacing designs.” Which means “yes” to fluffy animals ?

and “no” to creepy cephalopods and whatever’s redacted here.

Fortunately, the theme for this design was “Lewis and Clark,” which the NRO thought was fairly family-friendly, especially when compared to, say, a dragon with American flag wings.

But we’ll let you be the judge.

If that slogan strikes you as oddly familiar, then congratulations on your excellent cinematic tastes; “If you ain’t first, you’re last” is indeed the catch-phrase of Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell’s character from “Talladega Nights.”

The design notes make this explicit, as well as explain that it was chosen as a slogan because one team member “loves NASCAR” and “wanted to go fast.”

From the beginning, the person that appears to be the NRO team leader tried to drop a few hints that they weren’t all that confident a “Talladega Nights” reference was going to (literally) fly ?

before finally giving it the formal nix on copyright grounds.

Undaunted, one team member proposed a sneaky compromise – just Google Translate it into Latin and nobody will notice.

This team member claims the “Latin approach” has worked before, though a quick search shows that it didn’t work out quite as well as they made it sound. And there were a few other minor considerations …

Ultimately, the team leader vetoed all Latin phrases as “hard to understand and remember,” using the NRO’s own motto as an example. A list of pre-approved slogans (including a few redacted ones) was sent to the team, and with a topical joke about the 2016 presidential elections, the matter was put to a vote.

The lesser-known Ricky Bobby quote “Explore – Discover – Know” won out ?

and you can see it here on the finalized logo.

Read the full release embedded below or on the request page.

Filed Under: latin, nro, octopus, patches, satellites, surveillance, talledega nights

DailyDirt: Racing Into Space Again…

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

After the Cold War ended, the space race enthusiasm evaporated as the funding for ambitious projects to explore space dried up. Launching dozens of satellites into space to form communications networks was (and still is) a risky business — with a lot of upfront costs and a lot of equipment that’s nearly obsolete by the time it reaches orbit. But it’s becoming a bit cheaper to get stuff into space, and maybe we’re seeing a bit more of a commercial space race. Check out a few of these space-bound projects.

• NASA recently tested its Space Launch System (SLS) engine that will send an uncrewed Orion capsule beyond the orbit of the moon in 2018 (assuming no delays). Someday, NASA’s SLS could take people to Mars, but there are still some engineering challenges to solve before that actually happens.
• Tom Markusic, the founder of the small satellite venture, Firefly Space Systems, wants to clean up the artificial space junk in geo-stationary orbit and recycle it for future moon and mars missions. Markusic proposes using solar electric propulsion-powered space tugs to push old satellites to potential staging bases for human colonies on mars.
• Vector Space Systems is a space vehicle startup just getting off the ground, aiming to put small satellites into low earth orbit — at a price of 45 kilograms for a $2-3 million. The company plans to have commercial launches ready in 2018, targeting very small satellites that normally go up as secondary payloads on larger launch systems. Smaller payloads with their own dedicated launches won’t be subject to the delays or requirements of other payloads, and Vector’s launch vehicle claims that its missions could be ready to go within a relatively short 3-month window.
• Russia’s new space port at Vostochny has had some delays, but it seems to be up and running. However, the mis-management of this cosmodrome has caught the attention of president Putin who warned that some of the senior managers involved in an embezzlement scheme could go to jail for a few years. The description of the first launch with a visit from Putin sounds a bit like a scene from Return of the Jedi.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: cosmodrome, iridium, mars, satellites, sls, space, space exploration, space launch system, space port, tom markusic
Companies: firefly space systems, nasa, vector space systems

DailyDirt: That's No Moon, And It's Not A Space Station, Either

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Earth’s moon is the most well-known planetary satellite because we see it almost every night. But the Earth has a few more natural satellites that aren’t technically moons. There are a bunch of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that are in resonance with the Earth around the Sun. Several quasi-satellites and trojans dance around our planet in space — and these objects could be potential landing sites for probes someday (or for asteroid mining operations). They’re just not moons (or dwarf moons or whatever you want to nickname them), but maybe they’ll be space stations.

• The Earth has natural satellites other than the moon — such as 3753 Cruithne. This quasi-orbital satellite has a “horseshoe” orbit that orbits the Sun in about a year, but takes 800 years to complete its messy trajectory around the Earth. [url]
• 3753 Cruithne can’t be seen with the naked eye because it’s too small and distant. You’ll need at least a 12.5″ telescope to see it, and even more powerful telescopes to see some of Earth’s other natural satellites like 2010 TK7, 2006 RH120 (well, not anymore) and J002E3 (which might not be a natural satellite, but debris from Apollo 12). [url]
• The first known Earth Trojan asteroid is named 2010 TK7. It has an orbit around a Lagrange point (the Sun-Earth L4 Lagrangian point), and it never gets closer to us than 12.4 million miles. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: 2010 tk7, 3753 cruithne, apollo 12, astronomy, earth trojans, lunar, moon, near earth objects, neos, quasi-satellites, satellites, space

DailyDirt: Government Space Programs On Shoestring Budgets

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A renewed interest in space technology is growing with re-usable rockets and more private companies getting into the space business. Rocket science is generally a pretty expensive and risky venture because there are just so many things that could go wrong. Still, there are a few space agencies accomplishing significant space missions on relatively small budgets, and we should probably expect amateur space programs to get better and better as the costs to get to space come down.

• In Ghana, the All Nations University College (ANUC) is developing a fledgling space program with plans to send a cubesat into orbit by 2018. The University of Natural Resources and Energy in Ghana is planning to launch a weather satellite in September 2016, and the Ghana Space Science and Technology Institute (GSSTI) has other ambitious plans to send a satellite into space by 2020, too. While Ghana’s economy is still mostly dependent on agriculture, these space programs could help farmers and the government plan better and help to preserve the nation’s environment. [url]
• Russia is working with countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran on joint space programs for peaceful exploration. Roscosmos (the Russian Federal Space Agency) is helping these countries train their own cosmonauts and build satellites, presumably in exchange for funding that the Russian space agency might need to continue building its own independent space station by 2023. [url]
• India’s Mars Orbiter Mission was an impressive success in 2014 — achieved with a fraction of the budget of other Mars missions. India put an artificial satellite named Mangalyaan in orbit around Mars for just $74 million — less than the cost to make the fictional movie Gravity (and less than India receives in foreign aid from the UK). The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is only the 4th space agency behind the US, Russia and the EU to have completed a successful Mars space mission, and the entire mission took less than a year to execute from approval to launch. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: all nations university college, ghana space science and technology institute, indian space research organization, isro, mangalyaan, mars, mars orbiter mission, roscosmos, satellites, space, space exploration

DailyDirt: Space, The Final Next Frontier…

Bleeding Edge

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The space right above our planet’s atmosphere is cluttered with human technology and space junk, and it’s getting more crowded up there all the time. Sure, the vastness of the universe is practically infinite, but there are only a few Lagrange points, and artificial satellites have started to run into traffic problems — including intentional satellite destruction that might not be quite innocuous. Wars over outer space might become a real thing in the not so distant future, if it’s not happening already.

• About 1,300 active satellites are orbiting right now, and there doesn’t seem to be much agreement on a new code of conduct for spacefaring nations. Anti-satellite weaponry has been around for about as long as artificial satellites have existed, and billions will be spent over the next few years to maintain and further develop military space programs. [url]
• The US is creating a centralized operations center for monitoring space threats such as spy and military satellites. This project will also aggregate satellite data to try to better monitor situations on the ground (or on the water) as well. Thankfully, no one is training astronauts in zero-G hand-to-hand combat…. [url]
• Is it possible to launch a satellite as an individual? Not just some weather balloon junk, but a cubesat or something that will actually orbit a few times… Yes, but it’ll cost you over $100,000 to hitch a ride on a Soyuz mission. Korean artist, Hojun Song, successfully launched a 1-kg cubesat called OSSI-1 — so if you have the resources, it can be done. And presumably, your satellite will have to be completely harmless, so you don’t start an international incident. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: cubesats, hojun song, lagrange point, leo, ossi-1, satellites, soyuz, space, space junk, war, weapons

DailyDirt: Satellites Looking Down On Us

Wireless

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It used to be only the people wearing tinfoil hats that were worried about satellites flying above us all the time. However, satellite technology is getting cheaper and easier to access, and more satellites are looking down at us than are looking at the stars. No one should be worried about a bunch of Helicarriers targeting everyone just yet, but we’re making progress towards a sky filled with some pretty advanced technology.

• China is building yet another GPS network called Beidou. The US has GPS. Russia has GLONASS. The EU has Galileo. Do we really need another one? [url]
• Nanosatellites could provide an always-on connection for ground sensors, making disaster relief efforts more efficient and providing tons of useful data. Terran Orbital wants tiny satellites orbiting at 600 km above us to provide reliable (not necessarily fast) wireless connections to all kinds of devices. [url]
• Satellite imagery can be used for a bunch of business intelligence services. Retail parking lots can be monitored during prime purchasing seasons. Mining operations and construction projects could be tracked to ensure foreign companies are making the progress they say they’re making. (And drones will be spying on everyone!) [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: beidou, cubesat, galileo, glonass, gps, nanosatellites, satellite imagery, satellites
Companies: terran orbital

DailyDirt: Asteroids Are Not Just An 80s Video Game

Too Much Free Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Dwarf planets and other rocky space objects have been in the news recently, thanks to the New Horizons spacecraft flying by Pluto. Rocky space objects much closer to the Earth are getting some attention, too, especially after the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded over Russia in 2013. No one saw that one coming, and a bigger rock would have done a lot more damage. Near-Earth space objects are literally all around us, so check out the links below if you have any instinct for self-preservation interest in naturally-occurring space rocks.

• Planetary Resources recently launched its A3R satellite from the International Space Station, and it plans to demonstrate its ability to detect valuable space resources for future space mining operations. Prospecting resource-rich asteroids could take a while to find suitable near-Earth space rocks, and there are lots of asteroids out there. [url]
• The Earth has one moon, right? But we also have at least one resonant asteroid (2014 OL₃₃₉). This asteroid has an orbit that coincides with our planet’s orbit. It won’t collide with us, and there are a few other asteroids that appear to be quasi-satellites for our planet, too. Asteroids like these could be easier to visit than the moon, and they might become desirable rest stops on the way to other places in our solar system. [url]
• Asteroid hunting software developed by NASA and Planetary Resources combines several algorithms submitted to the Asteroid Data Hunter challenge. Anyone can help identify dangerous asteroids that are headed our way, even though it might not be enough to prevent an impact. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: 2014 ol339, a3r satellite, asteroid data hunter, asteroid mining, asteroids, chelyabinsk meteor, iss, moon, resonant asteroid, satellites, space, space objects
Companies: nasa, planetary resources