alt Hacker NewsIts commercial viability (not program success) depends on Starlink launch, sure. But also: that depends on Starlink's viability and value.
Selling sub-fiber Internet access into a globe increasingly covered in fiber is a silly long-term value proposition.
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Is it? I think you might think differently if you challenge yourself to calculate the total addressable market for Starlink.
Starlink has about 13 million subscribers today and makes around 500$/year net on average per subscriber. It's still growing fast and will get faster and more reliable. You will also be able to use from your phone quite soon. It can very realistically get to 100 million subscribers which is going to generate 50 billion/year of profit. They have 0 competition in that space. Even if they make half of that it's still a 1 trillion dollar company right there.
You are saying "sub-fiber" but Starlink will likely be faster for long round trips once enough new gen satellites are deployed.
That comes before the whole datacenters in space conversation.
>Selling sub-fiber Internet access into a globe increasingly covered in fiber is a silly long-term value proposition.
Wow, that's so amazing estaerum, you've figured out how to get photonic-bandgap (hollow core) fiber to transoceanic airlines and ships, as well as drones, and satellites in orbit!? Would you mind sharing any hints on this great breakthrough you've made?
...or did you just sorta somehow completely ignore the whole "terminals can be mobile" aspect of Starlink, as well as latency of free space optical vs conventional fiber?
Starlink is just the civil version of Starshield. As long as the US Army needs unrestricted internet access across the globe Starlink will continue to exist.