Starlink : Markets and Marketing

[OTV Booster]

So Starlink sats are being deployed.... not just a few to test but now 300! and 120/month planned.
Also the military are successfully communicating through these sats, not only in a simple test, but now in practice battlefield trials.
Also SX are talking as if they can roll out some connectivity to N USA and S Canada, late this year.
Therefore they must have cracked this nut.
The military seems most convincing to me, for phased array success. For a fast jet travelling some 600mph, (possibly turning ?) to connect to satellite (s???) moving above at some 17,500mph and the system to work, means the signal direction is changing! QED.
OK the current system could be very expensive! But with 120 SATS a month heading for orbit, it would be a surprise if they plan to ditch this lot due to incomplete phased array work!
It remains possible, that the consumer receiver version is still (too) high cost, but even so I suggest the argument above indicates they have mastered the main tec hurdles.
If further improvements are needed for performance and cost - which I assume is likely, these will not stop customer roll-outs this autumn/winter!
It is another significant technological step for the world, that SpaceX has taken.
(Separately inter satellite links appear to have been shelved, as SX is talking about local ground stations. If the laser link hardware is not on these sats, that will have to wait for a future version.)

Speaking to the interface between technology and marketing: if SX is over the tech hump and if they think they have a handle on eventual costs, and if they have a handle on how long this would take, it makes perfect sense to build early user terminals with expensive components and sell at a loss.

As a private company there would be no paperwork showing the loss and no shareholders to get upset. It would speed up adoption and begin the revenue flow. No matter what the loss per unit, as long as the subsidy isn’t crippling, they show success. And nothing breeds success like success.

No way we can do more than guesstimate and conject on all those if’s.

Phil

[ZachF]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

[RocketGoBoom]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

I am attending a Raymond James investment conference on Wednesday in Orlando where Viasat is presenting.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/viasat-present-two-upcoming-financial-130000533.html

I will be showing these numbers around to see what others think or if they are even aware of the competitive advantage that Starlink has over Viasat.

From listening to Viasat's earnings conference call (I read the transcript), Viasat's CEO is acting like the only difference between Viasat and Starlink is latency.

Viasat and EchoStar (HughesNet) are trying to imply to Wall Street that GEO = lots more capacity while LEO = lower latency. In reality, Starlink will have lower latency and something like 60x more capacity also, even at only 12,000 satellites.

I am not joking when I say 60x more capacity.
SpaceX at 12,000 satellites x 20 Gbps = 240 Tbps
42,000 satellites X 20 Gbps = 840 Tbps.
Viasat's 3 new satellites in GEO (plus older satellites) will bring them to 3.5 Tbps.
At 42,000 satellites, capacity advantage Starlink by a factor of 240x in capacity. 840 Tbps to 3.5 Tbps.

Frankly, I don't see how Viasat and Echostar survive. SpaceX will be able to offer ridiculously better monthly plans in terms of speed, latency, data caps (or no cap at all) and price.

HughesNet is even worse than Viasat. Their new (doesn't launch for years) Jupiter 3 satellite is only 500 Gbps in GEO.

[ZachF]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

I am attending a Raymond James investment conference on Wednesday in Orlando where Viasat is presenting.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/viasat-present-two-upcoming-financial-130000533.html

I will be showing these numbers around to see what others think or if they are even aware of the competitive advantage that Starlink has over Viasat.

From listening to Viasat's earnings conference call (I read the transcript), Viasat's CEO is acting like the only difference between Viasat and Starlink is latency.

Viasat and EchoStar (HughesNet) are trying to imply to Wall Street that GEO = lots more capacity while LEO = lower latency. In reality, Starlink will have lower latency and something like 60x more capacity also, even at only 12,000 satellites.

I am not joking when I say 60x more capacity.
SpaceX at 12,000 satellites x 20 Gbps = 240 Tbps
42,000 satellites X 20 Gbps = 840 Tbps.
Viasat's 3 new satellites in GEO (plus older satellites) will bring them to 3.5 Tbps.
At 42,000 satellites, capacity advantage Starlink by a factor of 240x in capacity. 840 Tbps to 3.5 Tbps.

Frankly, I don't see how Viasat and Echostar survive. SpaceX will be able to offer ridiculously better monthly plans in terms of speed, latency, data caps (or no cap at all) and price.

HughesNet is even worse than Viasat. Their new (doesn't launch for years) Jupiter 3 satellite is only 500 Gbps in GEO.

One thing to remember though when comparing GEO vs LEO constellations is that the GEO sats will probably be able to achieve higher capacity factors, perhaps ~2x. This perhaps makes OneWeb worse than Viasat, and making them need New Glenn to achieve competitiveness.

Another thing, is that I would be very surprised if Starlink sats did not grow in capability by the time the ~30k constellation is deployed. I am of the opinion that once they hit the 30k number they will grow the size and capability of their satellites.

[jpo234]

I think this might belong here: Geely invests $326 million to build satellites for autonomous cars

[Robotbeat]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

The implicit (& incorrect) assumption you’re making here is that the shorter lived satellites won’t be replaced by higher bandwidth versions.

Starlink will either have higher bandwidth replacements, or the lifespan will be extended significantly. (Probably true for OW too.)

[Semmel]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

The implicit (& incorrect) assumption you’re making here is that the shorter lived satellites won’t be replaced by higher bandwidth versions.

Starlink will either have higher bandwidth replacements, or the lifespan will be extended significantly. (Probably true for OW too.)

I see what you did there. The difference is scary enough for Viasat and OneWeb already. By the time the second generation Starlink sats are up, Viasat might be dead and OneWeb close enough. That is, if SpaceX really can offer the same service for 1/10th the cost.

[ZachF]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

The implicit (& incorrect) assumption you’re making here is that the shorter lived satellites won’t be replaced by higher bandwidth versions.

Starlink will either have higher bandwidth replacements, or the lifespan will be extended significantly. (Probably true for OW too.)

I am not making that implicit assumption. I posted that I expect starlink sats to grow in capability literally two posts before yours. RIF

[RocketGoBoom]

One thing to remember though when comparing GEO vs LEO constellations is that the GEO sats will probably be able to achieve higher capacity factors, perhaps ~2x. This perhaps makes OneWeb worse than Viasat, and making them need New Glenn to achieve competitiveness.

Another thing, is that I would be very surprised if Starlink sats did not grow in capability by the time the ~30k constellation is deployed. I am of the opinion that once they hit the 30k number they will grow the size and capability of their satellites.

I am not so sure about that. Viasat 3 (gen 3, with three different satellites, 1,000 Gbps each), are being positioned in 3 different areas of the planet. North/South America (plus ocean), Europe/Africa (plus ocean), Asia/Australia (plus ocean).

(see slide 12 of 14)
http://investors.viasat.com/static-files/4f704375-416a-43d6-aac6-7d35a79b3462

Viasat is planning to cover the major intercontinental air transit routes, so they are designing Viasat 3 to cover the same low density ocean areas that LEO constellations will cover. That results in lower overall capacity factors, similar to Starlink/OneWeb satellites time being spent over the oceans, servicing only ships and airplanes.

All three Viasat satellites are planned for being launched by the end of 2022.
Assuming 2 Starlink launches per month over that same time frame, continuing with 60 satellites X 20 Gbps each ...

End of 2022:

Starlink = ~ 87,000 Gbps capacity in orbit
OneWeb = ~ 4,800 Gbps capacity in orbit
Viasat = ~ 3,500 Gbps capacity in orbit
HughesNet = ~ 1,000 Gbps capacity in orbit

Eutelsat, SES, Telesat and others are all at similarly low amounts of capacity, high cost per Gbps.

In order to sell all of that capacity, Elon is going to need to price Starlink well below the typical satellite internet offering price.
Viasat (ave $82/mo) and HughesNet (ave $90/mo) charge about $50 to $150 per month for lousy slow service with data caps, several different plans.

Elon needs to be competing again cable companies to utilize most of that capacity. The current GEO satellite internet market doesn't have enough customers, even if Starlink takes 100% of their customers (which will likely happen over time).

I think we will see Starlink pricing at $50/mo for basic plans to $80/mo for premium plans. That would be competitive with cable broadband and it would completely destroy the current satellite internet competition.

[Robotbeat]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

The implicit (& incorrect) assumption you’re making here is that the shorter lived satellites won’t be replaced by higher bandwidth versions.

Starlink will either have higher bandwidth replacements, or the lifespan will be extended significantly. (Probably true for OW too.)

I am not making that implicit assumption. I posted that I expect starlink sats to grow in capability literally two posts before yours. RIF

Your comparison leaves that out, however.

[RocketGoBoom]

In short, $/GBps installed:
$2,300,000 Viasat 2
$700,000 Viasat 3
$300,000 OneWeb phase 1
$25,000 Starlink
$10,000 Starlink w/Starship

Here are these numbers adjusted for satellite life (15y for VS2/3, 7y for OW, 5y for SL)

$/GBps/year:
$153,333 Viasat 2
$46,666 Viasat 3
$42,857 OneWeb
$5,000 Starlink
$2,000 Starlink w/Starship

I attended the Raymond James investment conference today in Orlando where Viasat's CEO was presenting. There was a 30 minutes presentation, then another 30 minutes for breakout where we could drill down on specific questions. During the initial presentation, the Raymond James analyst, Ric Prentiss, was saying one of the top questions he receives is related to LEO competition. The CEO did have a good answer for OneWeb competition. He seemed to dismiss OneWeb's strategy as higher cost than Viasat's.

Viasat's argument is that utilization of the nameplate capacity in orbit is relatively low for LEO constellations. Much of the time, the satellites are over useless area of the ocean or even useless area of land where nobody lives. Whereas the GEO strategy they can aim their beams specifically at high customer demand areas. So GEO utilization is much higher per Gbps of nameplate capacity. During the breakout Q&A session, I specifically brought out your numbers and ran through them with him. He agreed mostly with your numbers and showed me similar charts he has on his laptop, but they break it down in $$$ per Tbps, not Gbps. Overall he agreed with your numbers, but said that utilization percentage while in orbit brings Viasat back to being cost competitive with Starlink.

He is estimating that LEO utilization will be between 10% to 20% of nameplate capacity in orbit, which also affects cost per Tbps. SpaceX may launch 80 Tbps by the end of 2022, but only 8 to 16 Tbps will actually be usable capacity based on where the customers are. That all makes sense and is perfectly understandable.

The CEO of Viasat also belives there is no chance that SpaceX launches 42,000 satellites. He thinks they will have problems proving that it is safe enough to launch more than 3,000 to 4,000 without the collusion risk rising above 1 in 1,000 which is what the FCC is requiring. That seemed a bit of wishful thinking to me. Even based on what he said, it seems like he is frustrated that the SpaceX strategy is just to run circles around the FCC and launch launch launch before anyone can tell SpaceX to slow down and be safe in orbit.

We drilled into the numbers on customers. About 1/3 of Viasat rural internet satellite customers are out of contract and vulnerable to competition. 586,000 customers in the USA, so roughly 175,000 to 200,000 customers Viasat could lose, then more over time as they roll over of their 2 year contracts. $82/mo average each.

We also discussed EchoStar / HughesNet and their Jupiter 3 satellite. The cost metrics for EchoStar are about 40% more expensive than Viasat's. I agreed with all of his numbers. Also, they are only doing one satellite with 500 Gbps compared to Viasat doing three satellites with 1,000 Gbps each. EchoStar is basically screwed and won't be financially competitive with Viasat or Starlink.

The CEO also made the point that Viasat has 1/3 of their business with the US govt, much of which is custom designed solutions with long term contracts. So Viasat has options for their capacity that EchoStar does not have. EchoStar is mostly a pure play on the satellite internet market and EchoStar is in the worst position competitively. EchoStar also has the most North American customers for Starlink to poach, about 2x more than Viasat.

[envy887]

Overall he agreed with your numbers, but said that utilization percentage while in orbit brings Viasat back to being cost competitive with Starlink.

He is estimating that LEO utilization will be between 10% to 20% of nameplate capacity in orbit, which also affects cost per Tbps. SpaceX may launch 80 Tbps by the end of 2022, but only 8 to 16 Tbps will actually be usable capacity based on where the customers are. That all makes sense and is perfectly understandable.

Great post.

I question the capacity calcs though, especially once intersatellite links are available. Each user can see ~2% of the constellation. This means that it only takes ~10 users to hit 20%, if each has prodigious bandwidth needs and the constellation can stack enough spot beams on them.

Practically speaking, there aren't many users that need multiple terabits per second in a single location. But a single airliner or cruise ship with hundreds of passengers could easily run into the tens of gigabits the middle of nowhere. So could a small island nation, and there are 300+ islands worldwide with populations over 100k people each, and many, many more with 1k to 10k people.

With good penetration into only a dozen or so widely separated markets of a few thousand or tens of thousands of users each, Starlink could easily hit 25% utilization or more. With the marine and airliner markets, and widely spread DoD applications, they might crack 40%.

[RocketGoBoom]

Practically speaking, there aren't many users that need multiple terabits per second in a single location. But a single airliner or cruise ship with hundreds of passengers could easily run into the tens of gigabits the middle of nowhere. So could a small island nation, and there are 300+ islands worldwide with populations over 100k people each, and many, many more with 1k to 10k people.

With good penetration into only a dozen or so widely separated markets of a few thousand or tens of thousands of users each, Starlink could easily hit 25% utilization or more. With the marine and airliner markets, and widely spread DoD applications, they might crack 40%.

We went into that. I thought his worst case estimate of 10% utilization was wishful thinking, because that is what he needs to still be cost competitive with Starlink. And that was without laser communications between satellites. If SpaceX gets that working, that changes all of the cost metrics and dramatically improves Starlink's capacity and latency. I think the more realistic utilization percentage is closer to 20% of nameplate capacity.

Based on how they are planning the three Viasat gen 3 satellite positions, they are also planning to use some of their capacity to cover the oceans, remote islands, intercontinental airline routes, etc. His point was that from GEO they can be more selective about where the beams are aimed in the oceans. Viasat doesn't have to waste their capacity aiming at the the Southern Ocean or large parts of the Pacific Ocean. There is nothing there. They can specifically cover the Hawaii area and common air routes between N. America and Europe or N. America and Asia.

The Viasat CEO's point was that there are massive areas of land that will likely be totally off limits to Starlink. Russia, China, etc. Huge population, totally useless capacity while Starlink is over that area. I sort of disagreed with him on that point. The telecom companies of China can buy Starlink capacity, put the Starlink antenna on their roof, then do their censorship on their side in the data centers. Viasat CEO pointed out that telecom backhaul prices are extremely cheap and the lowest margin part of the business. Telecoms buying capacity from each other, they don't pay much and won't pay SpaceX much for it either. So yes, the capacity may be consumed, but Starlink won't make much money off it in those scenarios.

The money, the high margin revenue, is in selling direct to your customer and owning the customer relationship.

[thirtyone]

Relevant to the discussion - there is a systems design group that has been publishing some pretty interesting analyses on space-based systems: http://systemarchitect.mit.edu/publications.php

They previously had a very interesting paper that analyzed Telesat, OneWeb, and Starlink, which I posted some time ago in one of the Starlink threads:
http://www.mit.edu/~portillo/files/Comparison-LEO-IAC-2018-slides.pdf

And recently published a paper that looked at Starlink and Viasat:
http://systemarchitect.mit.edu/docs/guerster19a.pdf

The paper is a bit old, and they do, quite reasonably, question the cost basis of Starlink, because no one has ever come even close to their claimed cost per performance in the history of commsats. But recent numbers seem to confirm that the cost of a Starlink satellite should be quite bit lower than even their lower bound estimate. OneWeb's sats (less tech than Starlink, though) also cost at the lower bound of their estimates, so I think that paper may have greatly underestimated the cost savings from mass producing LEO sats.


I have not fully read through the more recent papers yet, but it seems like it'd be relevant for the current discussion. Also of potential interest to other parts of this forum are a few papers the viability on suborbital tourism systems.

[NaN]

The Viasat CEO's point was that there are massive areas of land that will likely be totally off limits to Starlink. Russia, China, etc. Huge population, totally useless capacity while Starlink is over that area. I sort of disagreed with him on that point. The telecom companies of China can buy Starlink capacity, put the Starlink antenna on their roof, then do their censorship on their side in the data centers. Viasat CEO pointed out that telecom backhaul prices are extremely cheap and the lowest margin part of the business. Telecoms buying capacity from each other, they don't pay much and won't pay SpaceX much for it either. So yes, the capacity may be consumed, but Starlink won't make much money off it in those scenarios.

The money, the high margin revenue, is in selling direct to your customer and owning the customer relationship.

Thank you for asking these questions and posting these responses. I think the Viasat CEO makes convincing points that their cost per usable capacity will be much closer to Starlink than the numbers for 'nameplate' capacity would lead you to believe.

Even based on what he said, it seems like he is frustrated that the SpaceX strategy is just to run circles around the FCC and launch launch launch before anyone can tell SpaceX to slow down and be safe in orbit.

Is that his wording or yours? Nobody is running circles around the FCC; SpaceX is still early into filling out their initial shell and have systems for automated collision avoidance, as they have correctly determined that you can't have humans in the loop for every event with such large numbers of satellites.
It may relate to the scalability aspect - it seems much easier for an LEO system to expand its capacity to meet demand then it would be for GEO system. So a GEO system would aim for very high utilization of "nameplate" capacity, and once they've reached that capacity then they're done capped out for that generation. The LEO systems by contrast need to be able to survive on a much smaller percentage of nameplate capacity, but have an easier time scaling out to meet increased demand. That may be one reason Viasat would criticize the prospect of such large numbers of satellites being permitted.

[RedLineTrain]

Very meaty posts, RocketGoBoom.  Thank you very much for sharing.

The CEO of Viasat also belives there is no chance that SpaceX launches 42,000 satellites. He thinks they will have problems proving that it is safe enough to launch more than 3,000 to 4,000 without the collusion risk rising above 1 in 1,000 which is what the FCC is requiring. That seemed a bit of wishful thinking to me. Even based on what he said, it seems like he is frustrated that the SpaceX strategy is just to run circles around the FCC and launch launch launch before anyone can tell SpaceX to slow down and be safe in orbit.

Hasn't that ship already sailed?  The FCC already appears to have authorized 12,000 satellites.

Ka/Ku
1,584 sats at 550 km (initial deployment at 53 degrees)
1,600 sats at 1,110 km (53.8 degrees)
400 sats at 1,130 km (74 degrees)
375 sats at 1,325 km (81 degrees)
450 sats at 1,325 km (70 degrees)

VLEO
2,547 sats at 345.6 km (53 degrees)
2,478 sats at 340.8 km (48 degrees)
2,493 sats at 335.9 km (42 degrees)

[RocketGoBoom]

Even based on what he said, it seems like he is frustrated that the SpaceX strategy is just to run circles around the FCC and launch launch launch before anyone can tell SpaceX to slow down and be safe in orbit.

Is that his wording or yours? Nobody is running circles around the FCC; SpaceX is still early into filling out their initial shell and have systems for automated collision avoidance, as they have correctly determined that you can't have humans in the loop for every event with such large numbers of satellites.

It may relate to the scalability aspect - it seems much easier for an LEO system to expand its capacity to meet demand then it would be for GEO system. So a GEO system would aim for very high utilization of "nameplate" capacity, and once they've reached that capacity then they're done capped out for that generation. The LEO systems by contrast need to be able to survive on a much smaller percentage of nameplate capacity, but have an easier time scaling out to meet increased demand. That may be one reason Viasat would criticize the prospect of such large numbers of satellites being permitted.

Going from my memory, I think that I accurately paraphrased what the Viasat CEO (Mark Dankberg) said to me. I don't think anything is stopping SpaceX legally from going beyond 3,000 to 4,000 satellites in orbit. Mark's point was that he thinks that the collusion risk of 1 in 1,000 will be more difficult in reality than SpaceX has proven to the FCC. Mark's opinion is that SpaceX did a very cursory FCC risk assessment that won't hold up to reality.

I do think that Viasat, which seems best positioned among the legacy GEO satellite operators (in my opinion), is concerned about the competition and orgy of capacity that Starlink is launching into orbit. Mark Dankberg was repeatedly just trying to make the point that Viasat is cost competitive with Starlink and has lower costs (based on utilization rates) than OneWeb.

SpaceX can obviously more easily add additional capacity to Starlink than anyone else based on control of manufacturing of satellites and control of schedule on launches.

We also discussed Viasat 4, the following generation of their design after the current three gen 3 satellites (Viasat 3). Mark said the Viasat 4 design will have 7 Tbps of capacity compared to 1 Tbps in each Viasat 3 satellite. They are aiming for the third Viasat 3 satellite to be in orbit by the end of 2022 and then the next generation design Viasat 4 (7 Tbps) to launch in 2025. So that seems like a clear disadvantage to me for GEO providers when there is a 3 year gap before capacity can be expanded. Meanwhile, SpaceX can just keep launching on a regular pace and when the next version 2.0 is ready (with lasers) just slide those into the schedule whenever. Advantage SpaceX.

Another point Mark made. Viasat has purchased 3 launches. One on Falcon Heavy, one on ULA Vulcan and one on Ariane 6. He said those three were all cost competitive with each other. Minor differences. Falcon Heavy's only advantage is that it can get the Viasat 3 satellite closer to it's final orbit so there is less time spent raising orbit. However, when Viasat put down a deposit on Falcon Heavy, he said SpaceX promised him that they are not planning to compete in Viasat's markets with Starlink. (he laughed when he said that) He indicated that he won't be buying any more Falcon Heavy launches after this final one that they have already paid a deposit on. Going forward only ULA Vulcan or Ariane 6 for Viasat launches.

[RocketGoBoom]

The CEO of Viasat also belives there is no chance that SpaceX launches 42,000 satellites. He thinks they will have problems proving that it is safe enough to launch more than 3,000 to 4,000 without the collusion risk rising above 1 in 1,000 which is what the FCC is requiring. That seemed a bit of wishful thinking to me. Even based on what he said, it seems like he is frustrated that the SpaceX strategy is just to run circles around the FCC and launch launch launch before anyone can tell SpaceX to slow down and be safe in orbit.

Hasn't that ship already sailed?  The FCC already appears to have authorized 12,000 satellites.

Ka/Ku
1,584 sats at 550 km (initial deployment at 53 degrees)
1,600 sats at 1,110 km (53.8 degrees)
400 sats at 1,130 km (74 degrees)
375 sats at 1,325 km (81 degrees)
450 sats at 1,325 km (70 degrees)

VLEO
2,547 sats at 345.6 km (53 degrees)
2,478 sats at 340.8 km (48 degrees)
2,493 sats at 335.9 km (42 degrees)

I think you are correct, it has sailed and SpaceX has permission to launch 12,000 satellites. SpaceX will continue to receive launch licenses for those 12,000. I believe Mark's point was merely that SpaceX is being sloppy in their estimates of the collusion risk and they should not go above 3,000 to 4,000 satellites without proving a lot more than they have so far.

Mark Dankberg found the concept of 42,000 LEO satellites to be laughable and very unlikely to happen. Maybe is a perceived risk of collusion. Maybe he doesn't see the market for so much capacity. 42,000 satellites x 20 Gbps = 840 Tbps. Even if only 10% to 20% can be utilized, that is between 84 Tbps (10% utilization) and 168 Tbps (20% utilization). And that assumes that SpaceX stays at 20 Gbps per satellite, which is unlikely. At some point the capacity per satellite improves. But imagine that. Starlink would have between 84-168 Tbps of capacity competing globally against Viasat at 10 Tbps (with gen 4 sat) and EchoStar at under 1 Tbps. I am assuming other GEO legacy operators like SES, Eutelsat, Intelsat are also in the same ranges as Viasat or worse.

Starlink with 42,000 LEO satellites would have more capacity than every other private company and government combined, with lots more capacity to spare. So it is difficult for existing players in the GEO satellite game to wrap their brains around that as realistic.

In terms of spectrum, Viasat's CEO said that SpaceX is fine in the USA for their Ka and Ku band spectrum. But elsewhere around the world, under ITU rules, SpaceX's spectrum will be subordinate to OneWeb. I don't believe that is final, but that is his opinion. Any other constellation from China or Amazon Kuiper will be subordinate to OneWeb and SpaceX.

Mark Dankberg seemed to indicate that SpaceX is rushing to launch so much capacity, that investors in other constellations might be hesitant to fund more competition.

After talking with Mark Dankberg, my thoughts are ... if SpaceX has a clear cost advantage over OneWeb (which appears to be very accurate), then what is the business case for funding a 3rd or 4th constellation which will have inferior spectrum rights and higher cost per Tbps? Can any business case be made for Amazon Kuiper when they are so far behind already? The only thing OneWeb has going for them is superior spectrum rights (outside of the USA) and OneWeb is roughly tied with SpaceX for first mover advantage.

In summary, I came away from the discussion still believing that both EchoStar HughesNet  (stock symbol: SATS) and Viasat (stock symbol: VSAT) are facing new competition from Starlink and will both lose rural internet satellite customers to Starlink starting in late 2020 and continuing into 2021. I am still short both stocks, but I am a more confident that EchoStar HughesNet is in the worst position overall competitively. EchoStar also has more North American customers currently that are vulnerable to being poached by Starlink. The markets will wake up to this gradually with every Starlink launch and the round of articles which raise awareness to the coming changes. Just my opinion.

[TGebs15]

After talking with Mark Dankberg, my thoughts are ... if SpaceX has a clear cost advantage over OneWeb (which appears to be very accurate), then what is the business case for funding a 3rd or 4th constellation which will have inferior spectrum rights and higher cost per Tbps? Can any business case be made for Amazon Kuiper when they are so far behind already? The only thing OneWeb has going for them is superior spectrum rights (outside of the USA) and OneWeb is roughly tied with SpaceX for first mover advantage.

Amazon Kuiper could still be viable even with these disadvantages because Amazon could utilize the service themselves. Amazon Web Services could potentially negate the need for outside customers, so it's tough to rule out Amazon in the constellation business solely based on missing the consumer internet market.

[envy887]

Another point Mark made. Viasat has purchased 3 launches. One on Falcon Heavy, one on ULA Vulcan and one on Ariane 6. He said those three were all cost competitive with each other. Minor differences. Falcon Heavy's only advantage is that it can get the Viasat 3 satellite closer to it's final orbit so there is less time spent raising orbit. However, when Viasat put down a deposit on Falcon Heavy, he said SpaceX promised him that they are not planning to compete in Viasat's markets with Starlink. (he laughed when he said that) He indicated that he won't be buying any more Falcon Heavy launches after this final one that they have already paid a deposit on. Going forward only ULA Vulcan or Ariane 6 for Viasat launches.

According to Viasat's website, they booked an Atlas for Viasat-3. Did he actually say they booked a Vulcan? Or that Atlas V was competitive with FH, which sounds rather dubious?

https://www.viasat.com/news/viasat-selects-united-launch-alliances-proven-atlas-v-rocket-commercial-satellite-launch

Viasat doesn't have to waste their capacity aiming at the the Southern Ocean or large parts of the Pacific Ocean. There is nothing there. They can specifically cover the Hawaii area and common air routes between N. America and Europe or N. America and Asia.

The Viasat CEO's point was that there are massive areas of land that will likely be totally off limits to Starlink. Russia, China, etc. Huge population, totally useless capacity while Starlink is over that area. I sort of disagreed with him on that point. The telecom companies of China can buy Starlink capacity

There aren't too many places you can draw a 1200 km circle and have nothing at all. And if there's an airliner or ship out there expecting coverage, wouldn't Viasat have to use an entire one of their 72 spot beams on it?

The US is definitely the target market, but there are many other areas that have high GDP per capita and inadequate wired coverage.