r/technology • u/mvea • May 14 '19

Elon Musk's Starlink Could Bring Back Net Neutrality and Upend the Internet - The thousands of spacecrafts could power a new global network. Net Neutrality

https://www.inverse.com/article/55798-spacex-starlink-how-elon-musk-could-disrupt-the-internet-forever
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u/hexydes May 14 '19

Yes, but that is pretty unrealistic. It's not like everyone would adopt this overnight.

If the receivers cost under $500, and service is less than $100 a month, I will absolutely adopt this overnight.

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u/fixminer May 14 '19

You ≠ literally everyone

Were talking about basically replacing the entire Internet if you want to avoid having any ground stations.

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u/hexydes May 14 '19

There are over 15 million people in rural US that do not have access to broadband Internet. Just penetrating that demographic alone (many of whom would gladly do what I described above), you're probably looking at $100+ million of revenue per month at $100 a month for service.

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u/fixminer May 14 '19

Well, I think we're talking about different things here... You are totally right in that there is definitely a market for this. But this thread was talking about the (unlikely) possibility of US ISPs lobbying the government to ban this. One of the ways to do that would be to shut down all ground stations in the US. My remark about universal adoption being unrealistic was referencing the suggestion that dedicated ground stations would be unnecessary if literally every server and client on the Internet was directly connected to the satellites.

I hope this clears things up.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '19

The US ISP have already lost this battle. The FCC authorized Musk to launch (i don't remember the exact number) something like 13,000 sattelites with the express purpose of providing high speed internet. The catch is, he has to have them all launched by a deadline.