> It is widely believed that a huge chunk of Starlink’s revenue, if not ~all of it, will come from leasing faster-than-currently-available low latency links to HFT companies for nyc-lon and such. This is why their first orbital planes being launched are for the north atlantic and CONUS.
True? I'd heard that the initial target market was passenger planes over the ocean, cruise ships, and similar maritime and aerial activity that has to use geosynchronous satellites at present.
Covid-19 has thrown a spanner into the works of that plan, for a while. I'm sure people with money won't be turned away.
Longer term, remembering that Musk hails from South Africa, I thought the plan was to bring internet to failed states or barely functional areas in Africa (outback Namibia/Zimbabwe/Tanzania etc) and possibly also the Americas and the Middle East).
The long term plan is to sell service to anyone who will buy it, to fund Starship for Mars. The ship and plane market can't be served by the current constellation because it doesn't have links between satellites. This also excludes the high frequency trading market (proving that SpaceX is not relying on traders to make their revenue goals). The initial market is rural areas of the US, and then other countries as they expand their ground station footprint.
Oh, sure, the latency will be lower - it's just that without these satellites it was simply not possible to get continuous coverage on long over ocean flights, so something is better than nothing.
While for airplanes I think the latency might not be that problematic (I think VoIP in plane package full of people would not be very welcome) you indeed want low latency connection on a cruise ship.
True? I'd heard that the initial target market was passenger planes over the ocean, cruise ships, and similar maritime and aerial activity that has to use geosynchronous satellites at present.
Covid-19 has thrown a spanner into the works of that plan, for a while. I'm sure people with money won't be turned away.
Longer term, remembering that Musk hails from South Africa, I thought the plan was to bring internet to failed states or barely functional areas in Africa (outback Namibia/Zimbabwe/Tanzania etc) and possibly also the Americas and the Middle East).