Reply to post: Re: Think

Re: Think

...the signal strength and density of the birds means ground kit will be small and highly portable - meaning enforcement will be like pushing water uphill with a rake.

Not necessarily. So the EU has a bunch of telecommunications regulations that include things like lawful intercept and usage logging. If Starlink can't/won't comply with those regulations and legislation, then the EU could just say the import, sale & use of Starlink terminals is illegal.

And the small & highly portable terminals will be competing with 5G, both at a price point for handsets, and service rates. Where Starlink and their competitors may have an advantage is parts of the world that don't have fixed line or mobile coverage, but then that coverage tends to follow the money.

Starlink also provides worldwide phone service at a pennies per minute rate

Really? Where are their rates published? And why would people be paying pennies per minute when they could Skype or use any of many VoIP services for free?

But that's also old-world thinking, ie charging for phone calls rather than being disruptive and not. Plus it means Starlink needs to invest in voice interconnect services, which means earth stations. And also falls squarely into complying with any legislation around phone calls, ie intercept capability & logging. Or in a cost-senstitve sense, having to buy & maintain mediation & billing engines to charge pennies per minute to the right customers.

But a lot of this is currently vaporware, ie the specs for the sats, terminals and protocols aren't published AFAIK. One potential issue is the number of transceivers & capacity per satellite, which gives an idea of potential contention & how practical they'd be for 'high speed broadband'. That's always been a challenge for satellite Internet services. IMHO, they're great for broadcast/multicast, but less so for unicast. Then again, it could end up being used for telemetry for Tesla's cars & solar/power systems & be a way to do intercompany cross-charging shenanigans.