Starlink : Markets and Marketing

[pb2000]

You can do wayyy more than 3.2Tbps now with DWDM --  modern line systems use C+L band and are capable of well over 32Tbps. The Ciena WaveServer does 12.8Tbps in 2RU. New submarine cables are doing >20Tbps per fiber pair.

Thanks. I've been out of the industry (retired) for awhile. What's the spacing between amplifiers now? For a 20 Tbps/pair cable with 24 pair, what is the expense of an amplifier? My (possibly outdated) mental model would be that the amplifier is more expensive than a satellite. Yes, it's an apples-to-bananas comparison, but it might give us a feel for the complexities.

Are we talking about 100 Ghz/lambda? if so, it looks like you are getting more than one bit/hz. Is that being done with higher-order modulations or with multiple polarizations or both? or something else?

While not the bleeding edge gear virtuallynathan is talking about, mere mortals can now buy by 96 channel DWDM mux's, amplifiers and SFPs at fs.com . It blows me away how cheap this kind of gear has gotten.

[Asteroza]

My uninformed speculation is that T-mobile will start rolling out terrestrial 5G/LTE cellular infrastructure in remote locations using Starlink backhaul instead of terrestrial backhaul.

Yeah, I think that backhaul will turn out to be a very nice market for SpaceX.  However, I'm betting that Verizon will be offering a private-labelled picocell solution that uses Starlink.

I looked a little bit at the economics of a pure backhaul solution and they're... not a slam-dunk.  It doesn't make much sense to roll out nano- or pico-cells in the middle of nowhere for general service, so you still need a big tower, with a lease on its footprint, and an adequate power supply.  About all you're really saving on is the microwave relays.

That's a non-trivial savings, but it's not like a cell deployment suddenly costs half of what it did before.  The relays aren't that expensive, but the towers are.  But there aren't that many places where towers are so sparse that you need to erect another one just for the relay.  Most of the time, remote areas get enabled with a single new tower that talks to a relay on an existing tower.  So satellite backhaul only makes sense if you leapfrog way out ahead of your current deployment footprint.

Two things that might be very interesting to SpaceX:

1) 5G has a much more seamless handoff between the mobile carriage and wifi, with the wifi stuff able to authenticate to use the rest of the 5G backhaul infrastructure.  That means that very small but colocated populations can be served with a picocell very efficiently, no tower involved.  More important for Verizon, they can offer a seamless, end-to-end service where no other ISP has to be involved.  That's quite a bit bigger deal than just backhaul.

2) Based on a superior picocell architecture, that lets you break into a lot of national markets where the government frowns on competitive carriers but where the cost of rolling out the infrastructure to cover every village is prohibitively high.  India would be a fine example.  So SpaceX will likely consider Verizon to be a nice proxy guinea pig for some of the more authoritarian national telcos.

Private label picocell package is a rather interesting thought. Upgrading the router combo to supply a UT user with cellphone coverage, private label federated wifi, and hardline ethernet to remote customers would be a very nice deal.

There are cable TV companies doing VoIP, federated WiFi with user wifi and ethernet, and cable TV in a single router to consumers as part of triple plays over a DOCSIS router cable modem. Phone/cellular companies offering combo routers with femotcells currently exist as a gapfiller solution in areas of poor LTE coverage but decent DSL or fiber access. A carrier supplied LTE femtocell router with Starlink backhaul, carrier federated wifi and user wifi and user ethernet, combined as a packaged set with TV streaming service that outputs from the router, would be an interesting consumer oriented package. If the precondition is 4G LTE with VoLTE (VoLTE being functionally just data VoIP), and the recent big VoLTE deployments as 3G is retired (including MVNO VoLTE support with roaming that has rolled out in Android 13), that makes deployments much easier. There's also some synergies with LTE RAN's that use datacenter baseband setups. Though lord help us if some white label Starlink/femotcell combo operators start doing excessive 5G network slicing at the femtocell, though I do wonder if they'll squeeze in LoRaWAN support.

[jimvela]

Perhaps T-mobile is going after the satellite TV providers, where they package an all-in-one service that has IP connectivity via Starlink, then provide picocell coverage to the home, "TV", voice, and other services. 

That could be and interesting package for remote locations, and it would suit SpaceX/Starlink interests rather well also.

e.g. what Asteroza said above :-)

[rubicondsrv]

Perhaps T-mobile is going after the satellite TV providers, where they package an all-in-one service that has IP connectivity via Starlink, then provide picocell coverage to the home, "TV", voice, and other services. 

That could be and interesting package for remote locations, and it would suit SpaceX/Starlink interests rather well also.

e.g. what Asteroza said above :-)

that would be somewhat useful, I have poor cell coverage in addition to horrid internet service.  sometimes the cell service quits completely, most of the time it just doesn't work in all of the house. that is on a ruggidized flip phone on the best network in the area, most smart phone users get even worse service here.

I don't think i would go for a microcell since I like having poor cell coverage, but I can see a market. 

[su27k]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

[JayWee]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

100%. I would suspect 5G Modem in Dishy, offload traffic when 5G is available. Maybe also backhual and spectrum agreements.

Isn't VoWIFI easier than 5g basestation?

What about some investment by T-M? Would that fit 2 CEOs?

[Alvian@IDN]

Noted that there's an ongoing 50% reductions in subscription (& equipment) price across many parts of non-US countries

[Mandella]

Noted that there's an ongoing 50% reductions in subscription price across many parts of non-US countries

Is that being accompanied by a bandwidth cap such as in France?

[Asteroza]

100%. I would suspect 5G Modem in Dishy, offload traffic when 5G is available. Maybe also backhual and spectrum agreements.

Isn't VoWIFI easier than 5g basestation?

What about some investment by T-M? Would that fit 2 CEOs?

VoWiFi doesn't need a carrier's permission though, as that is generic internet IP transport to the carrier gateway that is sufficiently low latency. That doesn't justify carrier involvement on the face of it.

VoLTE however does need carrier cooperation (spectrum and RAN core access), but 4G VoLTE exists now. So do 4G femtocells.

It could be as simple as pushing openRAN edge software containers to the router, using openRAN stuff like Facebook's opensource MAGMA implementation of openRAN.

Hrm, but I wonder about 5G on unlicensed ISM spectrum I remember reading about...
What's going on in the 5G unlicensed spectrum world, specifically simultaneous ISM band wifi and ISM band 5G?

[Alvian@IDN]

Noted that there's an ongoing 50% reductions in subscription price across many parts of non-US countries

Is that being accompanied by a bandwidth cap such as in France?

So far it didn't

[jackvancouver]

Noted that there's an ongoing 50% reductions in subscription price across many parts of non-US countries

Is that being accompanied by a bandwidth cap such as in France?

So far it didn't

This is actually giving me legit anxiety and stress in Canada. Because there are no alternatives should they go the route of introducing data caps.

In the original message from France, they said the terms of service changes take effect in October.

[Zed_Noir]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

Something more interesting later is for a spin off Starlink to acquired T-Mobile and rebranding it as X-Mobile. The current T-Mobile cap ex is about $13.7B, while SpaceX (including Starlink) have a current cap ex of $129B that is growing.

[Nomadd]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

Something more interesting later is for a spin off Starlink to acquired T-Mobile and rebranding it as X-Mobile. The current T-Mobile cap ex is about $13.7B, while SpaceX (including Starlink) have a current cap ex of $129B that is growing.

I doubt if SpaceX would want to acquire $70 billion of T-Mobile debt.

[TheRadicalModerate]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

100%. I would suspect 5G Modem in Dishy, offload traffic when 5G is available. Maybe also backhual and spectrum agreements.

You don't really need a 5G modem in Dishy.  AIUI, the IMS changes in 5G make it really easy to to hand off between 5G and wifi, using the IMS infrastructure to authenticate without separately setting up the wifi connection.

I wonder what the limits are on the wifi mesh that SpaceX provides for Starlink.  If you had remote neighborhoods that were fairly compact, it might be cheaper for T-Mobile to install mesh than it would to put in a small tower with adequate 5G coverage.

[wannamoonbase]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

Something more interesting later is for a spin off Starlink to acquired T-Mobile and rebranding it as X-Mobile. The current T-Mobile cap ex is about $13.7B, while SpaceX (including Starlink) have a current cap ex of $129B that is growing.

I doubt if SpaceX would want to acquire $70 billion of T-Mobile debt.

The eventual market cap of Starlink (if/when they IPO) could dwarf T-Mobile or wireless carriers.

[rubicondsrv]

I wonder what the limits are on the wifi mesh that SpaceX provides for Starlink.  If you had remote neighborhoods that were fairly compact, it might be cheaper for T-Mobile to install mesh than it would to put in a small tower with adequate 5G coverage.

that is an interesting use case, I am unsure how many places in the states are both remote and compact however/
there are some small towns on railroad lines that would fit, but they might have a dozen or two residents.   

[JayWee]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

Something more interesting later is for a spin off Starlink to acquired T-Mobile and rebranding it as X-Mobile. The current T-Mobile cap ex is about $13.7B, while SpaceX (including Starlink) have a current cap ex of $129B that is growing.

I doubt if SpaceX would want to acquire $70 billion of T-Mobile debt.

The eventual market cap of Starlink (if/when they IPO) could dwarf T-Mobile or wireless carriers.

Don't forget T-Mobile is a global company owned by the Deutsche Telekom.

[wannamoonbase]

Backhaul would be a pretty boring thing to live unveil by two CEOs together, I'd say a backhaul agreement would only worth a PR piece like this: https://www.verizon.com/about/news/5g-leo-verizon-project-kuiper-team

So I'm hoping for something more interesting...

Something more interesting later is for a spin off Starlink to acquired T-Mobile and rebranding it as X-Mobile. The current T-Mobile cap ex is about $13.7B, while SpaceX (including Starlink) have a current cap ex of $129B that is growing.

I doubt if SpaceX would want to acquire $70 billion of T-Mobile debt.

The eventual market cap of Starlink (if/when they IPO) could dwarf T-Mobile or wireless carriers.

Don't forget T-Mobile is a global company owned by the Deutsche Telekom.

I know, and Starlink will still be larger, and more profitable.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Separate thread started for T-mobile event and follow-up:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=57037.0

[su27k]

(Japanese) Defense Ministry considering adopting Starlink communications system for SDF

The Defense Ministry is considering adopting the Starlink high-speed internet communications system, informed sources have said.

The ministry hopes to equip Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels engaged in long-term voyages with the system offered by U.S. aerospace company Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to boost their telecommunications capabilities.

It aims to resolve the issue of manpower shortages in the MSDF by enabling crew members to communicate with their families using Starlink and hopefully reduce their stress while on voyages.