
SpaceX to offer Starlink public beta in six months, Musk says - Dangeranger
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/04/spacex-to-offer-starlink-public-beta-in-six-months-musk-says/
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Traster
I find the bit about them getting permission to use the satellites at a lower
altitude very strange. If the lower altitude means less debris and better
service, then why did they have them at the higher altitude in the first
place? My gut tells me there must be some reason that isn't quite as clear cut
as it seems, but I have no idea what.

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nickff
SpaceX has greatly decreased launch costs, which are a substantial portion of
satellite fleet total cost of ownership. That, along with modern, cheaper
electronics (due to the rise of cellphones) has changed the cost structure, so
that SpaceX thinks a large fleet of short-lived satellites providing a high-
bandwidth connection is a viable business. They are not the only ones doing
it, but they seem to be in the lead.

For comparison, the higher-orbit satellite networks put up in the 90s used
satellites that cost 2 orders of magnitude more than SpaceX's, and had launch
costs that were similarly much higher. Those networks had much higher latency
and lower bandwidth, and they all lost money.

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Traster
Right but all of those things were true when they got permission. It's not
like cell phones have just been invented. Or are you saying that the original
altitudes were just a standard set of altitudes everyone uses, and now spaceX
wants to go lower?

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nickff
SpaceX decreased their target satellite lifetimes, and increased their target
constellation size. It looks like they made the changes to reflect a change in
the projected demand, which they seem to believe is larger than they initially
believed, with greater bandwidth requirements and stricter latency
requirements.

