Elon Musk sets his sights on another industry, telecommunications.
Elon Musk became the richest person in the world this month by depleting the global automotive industry and overcoming aerospace pressures with reusable rockets. Now he takes a look at another owner-controlled business: telecommunications.
Tha Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. have launched more than 1,000 satellites for their Starlink internet service and are signing up for early customers in the US, UK and Canada. SpaceX has told investors that Starlink is fishing for a piece of $ 1 trillion marketplace made up of in-flight internet, marine services, demand in China and India – and domestic buyers such as Brian Rendel.
Rendel became a Starlink tester in November after struggling for years with slow internet speeds at his 160-acre farm overlooking Lake Superior in Upper Michigan’s Peninsula. After paying about $ 500 for the equipment, FedEx arrived with a flat dish and antenna. For $ 99 per month, Rendel now gets speeds of 100 megabytes per second for downloads and 15 to 20 for uploads – much faster, he says, than its previous internet provider .
“This is a game changer,” said Rendel, a mental health consultant, who is now able to easily watch movies and hold meetings with messengers over Zoom. “It makes me feel part of a civilization again.”
For months, SpaceX has been launching Starlink satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets in 60 glasses at the same time, and the 17th Starlink was launched on January 20. It is now around 960 satellites operating in orbit, reflecting the age of mega-constellations. which has raised concerns about visual pollution for astronauts.
But the Starlink range in Earth’s lower orbit, closer to the planet than traditional satellites, is enough to allow SpaceX to roll out service to a wide range of North America and the UK As SpaceX putting up more satellites, the coverage area will grow, expanding the potential customer base – and revenue stream – beyond today’s original levels.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
“The big concern is that people are happy with Starlink’s service and economy against alternatives,” said Luigi Peluso, managing director with Alvarez & Marsal, which pursues the aerospace and defense industries. “SpaceX has proven the operational capability of their solution.”
Last year, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said Starlink is a business that SpaceX – one of the most valuable enterprise-backed companies in the U.S. – tends to spin out and giving public. That eliminates the possibility of another Musk venture offering shares after last year’s sensual market gains by Tesla Inc.
Starlink will face plenty of competition. While fiber optic cable is widely considered too expensive to lay in remote areas and many rural areas, cellular connections are expected to make great strides with 5G and then 6G. At the same time, several innovative efforts to extend cellular to non-service areas are being developed by other well-to-do companies such as Facebook Inc.
“There will always be early Starlink adopters who think anything from Elon Musk is cool,” said John Byrne, a telecom analyst at GlobalData. “But it’s hard to see the satellite route keeping up with the developments coming with cellular.”
SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, California, is best known for launching rockets for global satellite operators, the U.S. military, and NASA. Last year, SpaceX made history by becoming the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station.
Starlink is marking SpaceX ‘s first squirrel to a truly consumer – friendly product. Maintaining strong service while growing customer base is something that SpaceX has never tried before.
“Like any network, Starlink is going to enjoy rave reviews as long as it’s not used enough,” said industry analyst Jim Patterson. “However, he will be challenged with the same density issues as his peers as they grow the foundation.”
Then again, SpaceX says the service will improve as it builds out more infrastructure.
“As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our network software, data speeds, latency and uptime will all improve significantly,” said Kate Tice, senior engineer at SpaceX, in a live stream of the Starlink mission in November.
Fan Fervor
Starlink is preparing for a major 2021, hiring software engineers, messenger support managers, a sales director, and a rural launch manager.
The fan momentum that has made Tesla cars so attractive to consumers and retail investors is expanding to Starlink. Facebook groups, Reddit threads and Twitter are filled with reports from early customers sharing images of their download speeds. You Tube has videos of people “unboxing” their Starlink dish and going through the initial setup.
Ross Youngblood lives in Oregon and works remotely as an engineer for a tech company in San Jose. He has a Tesla Model X and follows All Things Musk very closely. He received a Starlink before Thanksgiving Day.
“I installed it and it started working,” Youngblood said. “This is going to be very upsetting, and I don’t think enough people are paying attention.”
Lots of other customers are waiting in the wings. In December, the Federal Communications Commission awarded SpaceX $ 885.5 million in subsidies as part of a broader effort to bring broadband to more than 10 million Americans in rural areas. SpaceX will target 35 states, including Alabama, Idaho, Montana and Washington.
‘Aging infrastructure’
“We can’t continue to throw money at an aging infrastructure,” said Russ Elliot, director of the Washington State Broadband Office. “With Starlink, you can be anywhere. The cost of building in deep rural or expensive areas is now less of an issue with this technology as an option.”
Early in the pandemic of coronavirus, Elliot joined SpaceX with members of the Hoh Tribe in western Washington. The Native American community had struggled for years to bring high-speed internet to their remote home, which spans about 1,000 acres and has 23 homes. Children struggled to access remote learning, and internet connections were so slow that downloading would take homework all day.
“SpaceX came up and just took us into the 21st century,” Melvinjohn Ashue, a member of the Hoh Tribe, said in a short video made by the Washington State Department of Commerce.
In a phone interview, Ashue said the first thing he did once was a link to Starlink to download a feature film: Jurassic Park. Most reserved homes now have Starlink, making it possible for families to access not only online school but tele-health meetings and online meetings.
“Internet access is a resource. It’s no longer a luxury,” said Maria Lopez, the tribal’s vice-chair. Lopez said Starlink was easy to connect. The weakest part was climbing up a ladder to place the dish on top.
“Every now and then it moves,” she said. “But it will recover quickly.”
– With the help of Sanjit Das.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from syndicated food.)