failure of the US ISP market to encourage
buildouts.
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US, around 2 million use satellite internet. It’s the
internet of last resort. And while Starlink will
release a few million rural users from the tyranny
of Hughesnet and Viasat, it’s not going to help us
with our cable monopolies.
A research note from Cowen says that at full
capacity, the Starlink constellation will support
485,000 data streams. Multiply by, say, 100 for
oversubscription, and you get around 50 million
people—but that’s globally. The US is only 2% of
the area of the globe. An anonymous but
convincing space-tech blogger points out that
only about 3% of Starlink’s satellites will be over
the US at any given time and estimates a
maximum capacity of about a million US
subscribers.
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in the world, in places where it’s actually
impossible to build good wired broadband. I’d be
excited to see what a Starlink connection per
village does in much of the developing world.
Take a village of 100 families, each of whom pays
$1 per month to share a terminal connected to a
Wi-Fi router... Now we’re talking.
The wireless internet promised by T-Mobile and
Verizon could help tens of millions more
Americans than Starlink, except that T-Mobile
and Verizon have miserably failed at
communicating and promoting it. Verizon’s 5G
Home rollout is incomprehensible. It’s
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@saschasegan
