Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[Nibb31]

10 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

Do you KNOW how much the mobile networks in France costed to build Nibb?  (Clearly not, or you wouldn't make that argument)

There were an estimated 50.1 million mobile phone users in France on 2016.  Each of them pays over 250 Euros a year for mobile phone coverage (10/month is not realistic for the majority of mobile users, you know that- those are only special deals- most users pay over 20 Euros/month for unlimited data in France- in fact Free Mobile is releasing an unlimited 3G LTE plan for 20/month in France and that's considered astonishing, and probably not scaleable for the entire country...)

I doubt that 50 million users pay 250€/year in France. A large number of them pay much less than that. In my household, we have 4 subscriptions. I pay 2€/month for the kids (Free Mobile no data). My wife and I pay 9€/month for unlimited calls and 3GB of data, which is more than enough for most people when you have wifi at home. So that's a total of 66€/year per person.

Yes, telecom prices are exceptionally cheap here, but my point is specifically that in other countries, mobile operators have a huge margin to reduce pricing if they need to compete against satellite operators, and they will. You can't assume that constellation networks will replace mobile coverage everywhere.

SpaceX is going to have to fight head-on against a very strong industry that is strongly implanted in strongly regulated national markets. As I said, they won't go down without a fight, and although it might end up turning a profit, I don't believe that the SpaceX constellation will be the cash cow that will pay for Mars colonies.

 

 

 

 

[Elthy]

Would a mobile phone be able to communicate directly with the satellites? Wouldnt that require a large, energy hungry antenna?

[Nibb31]

50 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Would a mobile phone be able to communicate directly with the satellites? Wouldnt that require a large, energy hungry antenna?

You would need new terminal equipment, and yes it would probably need to be more powerful than your current phone. A typical 3G phone can talk to a radio tower several kilometers away. This will need to transmit to a satellite several hundred kilometers away.

[Green Baron]

Actual Iridium/Thuraya/Globalstar/Inmarsat phones can probably serve as a guideline.

The internet-companies prepare services (terrestrial/cable and orbit/satellite) as well. It could happen, that due to growing competition, gains from such a service might be lower than expected. Regardless of the business model for such a network (serve end-customer, rent bandwidth, ...).

btw., i pay 45euro/month for a 20GB/month satellite internet connection ... so, as far as i'm concerned, SpaceX, just do it, things can only get better.

 

Edited November 20, 2016 by Green Baron

[Northstar1989]

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I doubt that 50 million users pay 250€/year in France. A large number of them pay much less than that. In my household, we have 4 subscriptions. I pay 2€/month for the kids (Free Mobile no data). My wife and I pay 9€/month for unlimited calls and 3GB of data, which is more than enough for most people when you have wifi at home. So that's a total of 66€/year per person.

You're talking reduced price for reduced service.  By that logic you could have NO phone service and pay NOTHING for it.  The standard we were discussing was specifically unlimited data mobile networks- I'm disturbed by your constant straw-man arguments.

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Yes, telecom prices are exceptionally cheap here, but my point is specifically that in other countries, mobile operators have a huge margin to reduce pricing if they need to compete against satellite operators, and they will. You can't assume that constellation networks will replace mobile coverage everywhere.

There was a HUGE margin for profit built into the calculations I made before, when I assumed only 12% of revenue goes to actually paying fir the network.

I was already discussing the floor of pricing beyond which mobile operators cannot drop and still be able to pay to pay back the costs of building their networks.

Enough with your diversionary tactics and straw-man arguments.  You can't beat me on the numbers, so you change the topic to something irrelrvant you csn attack or ignore the numbers entirely.

6 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

SpaceX is going to have to fight head-on against a very strong industry that is strongly implanted in strongly regulated national markets. As I said, they won't go down without a fight, and although it might end up turning a profit, I don't believe that the SpaceX constellation will be the cash cow that will pay for Mars colonies.

Clearly- but the same holds true of literally any inmovation that turns over an established market.  It didn't stop the automobile from replacing the horse, and it won't stop satellite communications from replacing ground-based networks.

The economics are STRONGLY on SpaceX's side here- a satellute network of this scale is MUCH, MUCH cheaper to build than a comparable ground-based network- ESPECIALLY with reusable launch stages...

I don't expect it will be a cash cow that pays for Musk's Mars ambitions, but it will revolutionize telecoms in the developing world here on Earth, which is still important- and all while turning a tidy profit which will ultimately make Mars just a little bit more attainable in the long run...

 

Regards,

Northstar

Edited November 20, 2016 by Northstar1989

[YNM]

1 hour ago, Northstar1989 said:

You're talking reduced price for reduced service.  By that logic you could have NO phone service and pay NOTHING for it.  The standard we were discussing was specifically unlimited data mobile networks- I'm disturbed by your constant straw-man arguments.

Here in the backwaters it costs equivalent to ~30 EUR for ~6 GB of data packet (which then it refuses to add more data packet). Unlimited wi-fi subscription with 1 Mbps maximum tare transfer rate (actual transfer rate peaks at 300 kbps, which they slow down after ten-ish GB of data packet usage) costs equivalent to ~36 EUR.

It's cheap, and they works. Unless you're talking server-class (or internet cafe-class) connections, which of course goes ten times that at a few times the transfer rate, not to mention optical cables.

--------

The market is indeed saturated. Underwater cables are just as easy to install (compared to launching the whole ISS mass constellation of satellites) and they are faster. Then data in these cables can be transferred over to the the radio masts. You would have to use the same thing for satellite-based operations. Why go nuclear if you have geothermals or hydroelectric power ?

EDIT : Although I have to confess I live in the main island in the big cities. Stories are certainly not that bright yet in the other islands, but all provider are catching the fish now, even the puny ones.

Anyway, this is waay off the topic. My apology to the mods.

Edited November 20, 2016 by YNM

[tater]

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

 So that's a total of 66€/year per person.

I pay that about much a MONTH, for less data.

It must be incredibly subsidized... 

[kunok]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

I pay that about much a MONTH, for less data.

It must be incredibly subsidized... 

Or is just better regulated and have better competency. And a population density higher, that helps a lot too

EDIT: That's why USA market can't be extrapolated to the rest of the world

Edited November 20, 2016 by kunok

[Temeter]

27 minutes ago, tater said:

I pay that about much a MONTH, for less data.

It must be incredibly subsidized... 

While those numbers sound incredibly low to me, at least traditional ISP's in the US are an attrocity in terms of pricing and service. Might be similar for phones.

[tater]

Yeah, a quick google showed lower prices in the EU, but not an order of magnitude lower. The US has an infrastructure issue WRT broadband in homes. The cost of delivering such service everywhere is huge since the pop density is so low in rural areas, and the distances so huge.

Edited November 20, 2016 by tater

[kunok]

In spain you have an universal regulated (is not subsidized AFIK only regulated) 1mb/s with a 5 Gb fast limit currently for 24€ (it goes to 128kbs or something like that if you download more than 5Gb) for home internet since 2011 http://www.movistar.es/particulares/internet/ficha/movistar-suba-1mb , that's the worse you can get, and is a universal service for every unpopulated isolated place in spain, not the regular one. And we are one of the worst, if not the worst, in the EU in prices and quality.

A company offers a cellular connection 20GB/month and unlimited calls for 30€ is very popular here http://www.yoigo.com/tarifas/tarifas-de-contrato/la-sinfin/ and even if you use the full 20GB you get the slow connection rate. I have friends that only use this, they stoped to have internet in home. In the other hand I use a simple 400MG/month for only 5€ because I don't need more and was the cheapest one.

Edited November 20, 2016 by kunok

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

On internet constellation: how will you connect to the sats?  Omni antennas or tracking?  Centralized or rooftop?  

It seems like tracking would be far to prone to failure, but omnis would have to be expensive and powerful.  What do you guys think?

 

[Kryten]

It will be some kind of phase-array 'tracking' antennae without actual moving parts.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

4 hours ago, Kryten said:

It will be some kind of phase-array 'tracking' antennae without actual moving parts.

I just looked up phase-array antennas, it's really interesting how they work! 

[Northstar1989]

11 hours ago, YNM said:

Here in the backwaters it costs equivalent to ~30 EUR for ~6 GB of data packet (which then it refuses to add more data packet). Unlimited wi-fi subscription with 1 Mbps maximum tare transfer rate (actual transfer rate peaks at 300 kbps, which they slow down after ten-ish GB of data packet usage) costs equivalent to ~36 EUR.

It's cheap, and they works. Unless you're talking server-class (or internet cafe-class) connections, which of course goes ten times that at a few times the transfer rate, not to mention optical cables.

Did you pay any attention to the numbers I put forward earlier?  I used a baseline of 20 Euros/month for service and showed that it indicated a much higher infrastructure cost relative to service area than the SpaceX satellite constellation plan.

If imfrastructure costs were just 1 Euro a month per person, and the rest were all profit, Musk's satellite constellation would still be a much cheaper option than ground-based infrastructure for just the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia, and Europe- and that's completely ignoring the developing nations of the world...

 

Regards,

Northstar

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, Northstar1989 said:

Did you pay any attention to the numbers I put forward earlier?  I used a baseline of 20 Euros/month for service and showed that it indicated a much higher infrastructure cost relative to service area than the SpaceX satellite constellation plan.

There is a lot more in your 20€/month subscription than just network infrastructure. You need more than just a network to run a service.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Nibb31

[Nefrums]

I think this looks very cheep for building a mobile network.

I work for a Swedish network company, and we sell HW for mobile networks for around 15B$/year at 28% market share.

Thou I don't see how a few thousand satellites would be able to handle the amount of data transmitted over mobile networks.

Edit:

The more I think about it this looks more for internet of things than for regular mobile users.  Good latency and limited amount of data.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Nefrums

[Green Baron]

 

I think it's unrealistic to make money with it, even with rented bandwidth for the IoT.

This is probably just a claimstake before someone else (google, facebook, bezos, ...) comes up with the idea, so they can say "Hey, we were the first to propose this !"

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Green Baron

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, Nefrums said:

The more I think about it this looks more for internet of things than for regular mobile users.  Good latency and limited amount of data.

I think the terminals are going to need too much power for IoT applications, or even for pocket-sized mobile devices. Remember the closest sat will be 1000km away. I think it will be fixed subscriber boxes with something like a DVB-T antenna.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Nibb31

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

 

I think it's unrealistic to make money with it, even with rented bandwidth for the IoT.

This is probably just a claimstake before someone else (google, facebook, bezos, ...) comes up with the idea, so they can say "Hey, we were the first to propose this !"

 

If you could do mobile networking in low population areas its sounds very economical, its cost the phone company money but they have to do it because of quality of service and requirements. Not sure if this will work you would probably need an special antenna. 

[Nibb31]

By definition, low population areas only cover a small population, which makes it a niche market. If there are any drawbacks to it (price, terminal size, capabilities, data limits, etc...) it will remain in the niche, just like Iridium.

As long as we don't have that marketing data, it's impossible to predict whether it will succeed or fail. Musk has a tradition of disregarding marketing realities. He has his own reality distortion field. In some cases it works, in most others it doesn't. Neither Tesla, not SolarCity have ever reported any profits. SpaceX was profitable for the first time in 2015, but depending how much it gets sidetracked by Musk's Mars hobby, and the impact AMOS-6 had on the schedule, that might not repeat in 2016.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Nibb31

[kunok]

An iridium "dumbphone" ain't little (for a dumbphone) and is more than 1000€, with a very limited bandwidth https://www.amazon.es/Iridium-Teléfono-satélite-Tarjeta-GRATUITA/dp/B00IJHGSIO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479733338&sr=8-1&keywords=iridium+telefono . The theoretical spaceX's one won't be cheap at all, and if its an smartphone would be very very expensive, and very very big.

 

For the terminals part: What gain are we really discussing to an omnidirectional antenna? What power will it need? How big will be the batteries?

For the satellites part: What are the maximum connections expected for every satellite? Every satellite have an useful area of what? Earth's area /4400? That's 116909km^2 for every satellite,  more than the area of Portugal with has 10 millions of persons.

 

@Nibb31 it can't be too similar to an DBV-T antenna, after all, the DBV-T is only a receptor and very directional one, the source of signal is fixed in space.

An omnidirecionall antenna will be pretty big, or you will need a tracking device (a mechanical one or a phase array). The more I think the less sense it makes to me. Not for a distant future, but too early.

Other problem with space networks is that almost every step you make to make the space communications affordable can be used too for the earth based one for cheaper. I really expect that space communications will decline

[Kryten]

4 hours ago, Green Baron said:

This is probably just a claimstake before someone else (google, facebook, bezos, ...) comes up with the idea, so they can say "Hey, we were the first to propose this !"

The idea was proposed by Teledesic over twenty years ago, and they won't have been the first. SpaceX have made actual FCC applications and are building test sats, they're not just sitting on ideas and patents.

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

If you could do mobile networking in low population areas its sounds very economical, its cost the phone company money but they have to do it because of quality of service and requirements. Not sure if this will work you would probably need an special antenna. 

If you could, that's the point. I live in a rural area, there is only very rudimentary mobile service here and no cable internet. That's why i have that expensive satellite connection because any other solution is much worse.

Sure, the towns have 3G, in the centers even 4G as well as dsl. But there is the problem of getting the data out into some sort of backbone. The fibre glass cable ends on the other side of the island, in the capital, so those in the towns here might have a nominal 10 or more mbit/s cable connection, but in the average it is much lower.

As Nibb said, it's a niche product, it'll be most welcome for a few remote areas, but i'd say nothing for a mass business to earn billions. The newest satellite service, 22Mbit/s, no limit, free calls cost 72,-/month, i read. The density of potential customers is very low, even in the underdeveloped parts like the west side of an atlantic island there are only a few dwellings with a satellite dish.

If they are cheaper then the 45,- i pay right now and have proven that it works, then i'll consider to change. But i don't think they get a cable user to unplug his stuff. Edit: end-user business is strenuous ... :-)

22 minutes ago, Kryten said:

The idea was proposed by Teledesic over twenty years ago, and they won't have been the first. SpaceX have made actual FCC applications and are building test sats, they're not just sitting on ideas and patents.

Yeah, so i read. Nevertheless it is what i would do, secure the frequencies and get over the bureaucratic stuff first before i start to spend money ... but that's a guess.

Reality check: Falcon 9 must get to flight again. Hopefully soon(tm)

 

Edited November 21, 2016 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

By definition, low population areas only cover a small population, which makes it a niche market. If there are any drawbacks to it (price, terminal size, capabilities, data limits, etc...) it will remain in the niche, just like Iridium.

As long as we don't have that marketing data, it's impossible to predict whether it will succeed or fail. Musk has a tradition of disregarding marketing realities. He has his own reality distortion field. In some cases it works, in most others it doesn't. Neither Tesla, not SolarCity have ever reported any profits. SpaceX was profitable for the first time in 2015, but depending how much it gets sidetracked by Musk's Mars hobby, and the impact AMOS-6 had on the schedule, that might not repeat in 2016.

You still have to cover it, even roads in unpoplated areas, regulations also demand high coverage for an mobile operator. 
This is an segment the phone companies would be happy to outsource so if you could integrate the satellite receiver in an normal phone it would be economical. 

If it don't work you have internet connection and the traditional satellite users, and the ones who would use it if it was cheaper,
Military is an obvious one, they would love an system like this. Norway is messing around with an new emergency network can not use the cell network as it might be down in an area with flood or storm and after an catastrophe everybody calling tend to crash it. Note that they could use the mobile network for everyday use unlike militarily emergency is not restricted.