Amazon's Satellite Entry

[Ken E.]

Coming to you soon from Jeff Bezos and company.

https://cordcuttersnews.com/amazons...for-its-affordable-new-home-internet-service/

 

[tiltrider1]

Competition is a good thing. I expect starlink will lower their prices to stay competitive.

 

[Bmarler]

Competition is a good thing. I expect starlink will lower their prices to stay competitive.

I hope so, but won’t hold my breath. It’ll take more than one competitor to bring prices down, and that’s going to take a while.

 

[Mako]

Competition is good for everyone, even Starlink. Plus Kuiper is great IMO because we have a couple hundred million in revenue coming from them, keeps us employed... baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Downside to all this progress is by mid-century that belt in orbit will be a debris field. We already had a small piece of shrapnel hit the manipulator arm on the ISS.

 

[CaptTom]

The other thing about the proliferation of LEO networks is how easy it would be to take them out. Given the rise of conflict and authoritarianism, even in the West, this becomes a much more likely scenario. I wouldn't bet on any of these systems to survive any kind of conflict.

On the flip side, my (monopoly) cable company keeps raising rates with no improvement in service. Their internet-only service is now approaching the price point of satellite providers. Here, it's a race between cellular companies building out their 5G capacity and my cable company's rate increases. If the cable company "wins" that race, I'll be signing up for Starlink. If the cell companies get here first with 5G, that'll be my next step. I anticipate having to make this decision in 3-6 months, possibly sooner.

So, yeah, I'm all for competition.

 

[Bmarler]

I’m all for competition too, but Elon will be very slow to reduce prices. Their pricing seems like it’s whatever the traffic will bear. It’ll go up with each new introduction of equipment or incremental change, but probably never go down. Amazon will see that price schedule and come in at a similar rate. It’ll take another entry or two to make an impact on pricing.