Did you know the Chinese landed a ship on the far side of the moon? They also have their own version of a starship. Starlink is not a monopoly.
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How do I subscribe to Chinese Starlink ?
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Do you think it’s more difficult than say…Starlink getting approval from China to access their market?
Rhetorical question. China doesn’t need to compete with Starlink.
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You can’t. You also can’t subscribe to Starlink in China either.
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The X-odus is also being fueled by the updated Terms of Service that take effect 11/15. By continuing to use X, users agree to allow their content to be used to train AI models.
There’s no longer an ability to opt out, unless you move to the EU.
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The betting markets, such as Polymarket, were actually pretty close. They had been projecting a Trump victory for weeks.
Now we read that
FBI raids Polymarket CEO’s home, seizing phone, electronics
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-raids-polymarket-ceos-home-seizing-phone-electronics-ny-post-reports-2024-11-13/
Federal law enforcement agents raided the downtown New York home of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan on Wednesday, seizing his phone and electronics, according to a story in the New York Post.
The early-morning raid of Coplan’s SoHo apartment followed last week’s presidential election, in which bettors on Polymarket, an offshore, crypto-fueled election gambling website, had for weeks put Donald Trump’s odds drastically higher than those of Vice President Kamala Harris, in sharp divergence from opinion polls.
Coplan, Polymarket’s 26-year-old founder, was roused from his bed at 6 a.m. by FBI agents demanding he give them his electronic devices, the New York Post reported.
The FBI and Department of Justice did not respond to requests for comment on the raid.
DB2
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$100 million Starlink deal
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$6667 per connection.
I hope that’s more than the installation costs
Mike
But note, the deal was for remote areas in Ontario. I don’t think you’ve done your due diligence on this topic. Terrestrial networks will remain the primary providers of broadband for the foreseeable future. That’s because satellites are limited in how much traffic they can handle. Global populations tend to be concentrated in cities and these folks will continue to use land towers for broadband for both better performance and price. The laws of physics favor land towers for higher capacity and shorter latency.
In addition, the competition is only beginning. Apple has spent a billion dollars for 20% of Globalstar and is already using that company’s satellite network for emergency texting with plans for additional functionality. Meanwhile both ATT and Verizon have made deals with AST SpaceMobile to provide internet services for rural areas.
Starlink will likely do fine, but I doubt it will dominate the market like Microsoft did operating systems. Satellites will not replace ground towers any more than batteries are replacing grid electricity.
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Next generation Starlink satellites coming with 10x bandwidth, low latency and global coverage.
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Current Starlink under optimal conditions is about 10-fold slower with much longer latency than the average performance of current 5G networks. Starlink is also much more expensive.
This means that next generation Starlink may become comparable
to 5G in performance, though not in cost. However, 6G is anticipated to be 50x faster than 5G and much shorter latency. Land networks will always be ahead in performance per dollar. That is because of physics.
Ask any engineer or physicist, distance matters when transmitting energy/information. No satellite is going to be closer to a user on the ground than a ground tower.
Starlink is only competitive with land networks in locations where towers or fiber are not economical to build. Starlink is great for airplanes, ships at sea, and places with low population density and difficult terrain. It is not competitive in urban areas. You aren’t going to get a 100 billion subscribers if you can’t compete in urban areas.
I suspect that Ontario will only use Starlink until a company starts putting in a couple of towers and offering 5G at half the price.
One final point is that you need to remember what Musk did in 2023:
Countries are going to be very reluctant to become overly dependent on a single foreign company for internet use. Certainly not China and probably not India or Europe. That is too much power for one company or owner to hold.
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Starlink’s is already approved in 104 countries.
It will compete against local wireless and ISP providers. It does not need to dominate but just provide an alternative to the consumer.
In the US, TMobile, Verizon wireless and AT&T are worried. Starlink does not need towers.
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If it’s going to get to 500 million subs, it will need to dominate.
It’s not a binary scenario, where Starlink is either going to have a half a billion subs or zero. They provide a commercially valuable service, and will have a fair number of subscribers. But for the reasons that btresist outlined above, it’s not likely to materially displace land-based service for most people.
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Yeah, remember when the satellite services were going to run cable tv companies out of business? Turns out they couldn’t even keep themselves in business.
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MY! Some now will be suggesting we need an US Attorney General to weed out DOJ & FBI of anti-Trump folks. 
Maybe…
Polymarket declined to comment on those allegations but a spokesperson said the FBI raid was “obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election.”
The Captain
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Towers are cheaper and more efficient than satellites. That’s why a lot more towers are being built than satellites launched. I suspect the major broadband networks are more worried about each other than Starlink.
Starlink subscriptions at 6M is just a rounding error compared to current and projected worldwide 5G use.
Can you provide any rationale for why you believe anyone within range of a 5G tower would want to switch to a slower and more expensive Starlink? Did you switch to Starlink?
Here is a global map showing the global growth of 5G from 2019-2023. Incredibly most of India gained 5G access in the past year. Most global territory could use satellite service, but not most of the world’s population.
The inflection point will come when the next gen low orbit Starlink satellites. These will provide a 10X increase in bandwidth, direct to cell, offer four times the network capacity per satellite. SpaceX plans to launch 30,000 satellites.
It remains to be see if this promise is fulfilled but the interesting to note the reactions from AT&T and Verizon
Another large revenue stream that will grow
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Given a choice between a “more expensive/intermittent satellite connection” and a “less expensive 24/7 cell phone connection”, cell phone wins in most of the world. Satellite works ONLY when there is no alternative. Remember DISH?
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