[LINK] Elon Musk: Starlink whipping the competition

[Philip N Argy]

Another issue is whether we have or are about to reach saturation point with LEO satellites.  Already astronomers are complaining about their interference with terrestrial based observations.
Philip

-----Original Message-----
From: Link <link-bounces at anu.edu.au> On Behalf Of Tom Worthington
Sent: Thursday, 12 December 2024 07:49
To: link at anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] Elon Musk: Starlink whipping the competition

On 10/12/24 16:44, Stephen Loosley wrote:
> Elon Musk: Starlink whipping the competition
> By David Braue on Dec 10 
> 2024https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2024/elon-musk-s-starlink-whipping-the-competition.html?ref=newsletter&deliveryName=DM24627
> 
> NBN Co:  Sky Muster was not very impressive compared to Starlink ...

The NBN plan was to use fiber & copper in cities, fixed wireless in 
regions, & satellite in remote areas.

Sky Muster is a big old geostationary satellite, while Starlink is a 
whole lot of little low orbit ones. The services were designed at 
different times for different purposes.

It is not clear how long Starlink will be able to keep their lead. As 
with Tesla, having shown there is a market for a product, others may 
move in and provide an alternative.

As Dr Craig Benson, Co-founder and Director of Skykraft pointed out in a 
recent talk at the Canberra Innovation Network, SpaceX is happy to 
launch satellites for other companies. Someone could come up with a way 
to make satellites cheaper, or better, than Starlink.

One unanswered question is what is the sweet-spot for bandwidth. 
Starlink offers 25 to 220 Mbps through an antenna about the size of a 
laptop. But customers might be happy to pay less for less bandwidth. 
Perhaps a terminal about the size of a mobile phone with enough 
bandwidth for voice calls, internet, video conferencing and TV. This 
could be teamed with a solar panel for a permanent installation.


-- 
Tom Worthington http://www.tomw.net.au