SpaceX's Starlink Internet Service Is Priced At $99 A Month. Are You Ready For A Dot Space Domain Name?

 

    Source: UnSplash

Satellite internet service has been around for a while. Lately, there has been a frenzy for satellite internet service. A number of high tech luminaries like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have jumped into the fray of satellite internet service.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has now launched 955 Starlink satellites, of which 895 are in orbit. His company has started a beta test of the broadband internet service provided by those satellites in the northern U.S. and southern Canada. 

His rival Jeff Bezos is building up a system comprising 3,236 satellites called the Kuiper System and it will deliver high-throughput, low-latency broadband service to millions of underserved customers. Other than vowing to invest $10 billion into the program, Amazon has yet to launch any satellites. 

How Big Is The Market?

There are all kinds of rosy forecasts for satellite internet service. Is it possible for SpaceX to sign up a few million customers in a few years that can result in billions of dollars of revenue? Probably. Companies like SpaceX will be able to provide internet service anywhere in the world with satellites.

With nearly half of Earth’s population currently without access to broadband internet, the potential market for internet broadband service can be huge. But beyond the rural areas, there are a number of opportunities for satellite internet service that has the potential to generate more revenue. For example, connected vehicles and self-driving cars, remote education for children living in rural areas with no access to school, and Mobile Data Center, etc. 

Reaching Out To The Stars

But there are challenges and risks. Both SpaceX and Amazon are leveraging the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. These are small satellites weighing under 500Kg that operate between 500 and 2000 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. 

The low orbit enables the satellites to receive and transmit data quickly. As a result, the latency is significantly reduced. But it also limits the coverage for a satellite to a small area. To ensure wide-scale coverage over a pre-defined geographical area, the LEO satellites have to continuously hand off communication signals and traffic across a constellation of satellites. It sounds simple but it is no small feat. 

Competitive Advantages

It is probably premature to compare satellite internet service against 5G and other broadband services. With 5G, the latency is about 30 ms. Based on the preliminary data from Starlink for their beta program, the latency for the Starlink satellite internet service is about 20 to 40 ms as they work on enhancing the system. For applications that are sensitive to latency, satellite internet service will likely meet the requirements.

Can SpaceX and Amazon do it cheaper and faster than the other satellite internet service providers? Here is a comparison based on the preliminary data from Starlink. Please see the table below. 

From a price & performance perspective, Starlink is competitive versus the existing satellite internet service providers especially when it comes to latency considering that it is still at an infancy stage. 

Conclusion

From an end-user perspective, while I care about network speed, reliability is far more important to me. It is no fun when I lost my internet connection in the middle of a conference call. With the satellite internet, it can provide a backup network in the event of a disaster where the network structure is damaged or inoperable. It’ll help to maintain critical and life-saving communication services when we need them most.

As with any new technology, there are going to be risks and challenges with internet service based on the LEO satellite technology. The infrastructure will take a few more years to build out. Once it is completed, we will able to tell if it has delivered what is promised.