When you objectively analyze things like the split of legacy satellite services for USA vs ROW, the regulatory *sugar* show of ROW for a LEO (and a US company), inevitable competition, and the fundamental logic of who can actually afford FSS, it’s actually quite apparent. I appreciate not all those details are readily obvious to everyone, but that does not mean that are not so.
Except that simply doing population math doesn’t all all reflect reality. Again, not even considering competition, it’s a function of prosperity (= high), density (= low), existing options (= shitty), and regulatory approval (= US friendly and without competing interests). Look at the world population distribution and find a non-US country anywhere near the top of the list that checks those boxes for Starlink.
Sure. Could happen. But maybe not. While that could of course just be posturing from The Indian Man, one would be remiss to not at least consider Bharti’s influence…
Current FSS subscriptions is in fact the best metric from which to build a Starlink user model. As repeatedly pointed out, near as makes no difference there’s nobody choosing to go dark while they’re waiting for good internet. Everyone in the US who 1) wants and 2) can afford internet is already paying for it. So when it comes to consumer level subscriptions, Starlink is, again near as makes no difference, explicitly in the game of stealing customers from the competition. That of course includes folks with shitty terrestrial solutions (so, on top of the 10M FSS bucket) but that larger potential base is also countered by having to compete with evolving terrestrial and space solutions.
Airlines, military, and cruises are not a slam dunk. Cruises certainly are the easiest to close, and certainly commercial level customers are generally A Good Thing, but it’s not like the couple hundred cruise ships around the world are going to represent significant revenue so we can move on…
While the US military could represent a much larger chunk of revenue there are plenty of security issues to work out. Given the speed at which The Man works and is willing to change “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, don’t expect anything huge in any short amount of time.
Airlines might seem like a strong opportunity (nobody has said “my gogo is plenty good”), but of course strapping tens/hundreds of bored people to one sat link is also a perfect storm of steaming congestion, so there’s plenty of work to do on service level, customer pricing, etc. Airlines are absolutely a race to the bottom dollar, and so any added budgetary line item needs to be wholly accounted for [in the black] by the bean counters. And let’s face it, “better internet service than the other guys” is something few are looking for when they book a flight, so there’s a lot of work to do on the customer side too. People are either loyal to their airline or they’re loyal to Expedia. The ability to steam the new season of tiger king from 30000 ft isn’t going to change that.
All that is why,IMO cell backhaul is likely the biggest commercial opportunity for Starlink. Rather than a new or materially revolutionary service, It’s an expansion of an existing and otherwise ubiquitous service, it can be funded by proven marketing strategies (“can you hear me now?”), and it enables Starlink to be a partner with the connectivity players rather than a direct competitor.
Finally, Do not underestimate human nature when it comes to products vs services. Starlink is not like a Tesla 2.0. With Tesla, there’s a tangible set of differentiators in the product. Internet service is much more abstract—people don’t care where it comes from, just that it works and is cheap. As competition evolves (GEO operators, LEO operators, and most importantly, terrestrial solutions) it’s simply going to come down to cost. To wit, to the average human, $75for 75meg comcast >> $100 for 500meg Starlink.
