Yesterday, Musk inadvertently revealed a secret, the number of users that Starlink can support is actually very limited.
Musk said when advertising to Starlink on Twitter, he said that this year's "pot lid" (user terminal equipment) production has increased significantly, and users who place orders should not have to wait too long to get equipment and services.
However, Musk immediately began "intimidating" marketing, saying that Starlink can only support a limited number of users in a region, so it is best to order as soon as possible if you want to use it. What's going on?
At present, Starlink has launched about 1,900 satellites, providing services in 25 countries and regions, and the number of users has reached 145,000 in early January this year.
At a service fee of $99/month, SpaceX currently has $174 million a year in revenue, plus another $499 per "pot lid", which is not enough to recover the cost of satellite production, launch and maintenance, but it still looks considerable.
The famous Iridium in 2018 the number of users has exceeded 1 million, but its rate is unusually low, compared to the star network can be said to be the difference between turtles and cheetahs, so the star network users more than 1 million should not have any difficulty, it is estimated that it should be profitable at that time.
However, Musk just announced a news, saying that Star Network has added a $500 monthly package for high-end users, and the device cost is $2500, which can provide download rates of 200Mbps to 500Mbps, which has far exceeded the average Internet rate in many countries.
It's really a marketing wizard, and strange ideas come out in an endless stream, just to maximize the benefits.
However, the bandwidth of a single satellite is limited after all, so to achieve the Internet rate promised by Musk, the number of users that can be developed must also be limited, which may be the reason why Musk wants everyone to order as soon as possible.
Due to user experience requirements, SpaceX may limit the number of users in a region.
Some people may say, look, what is the future of the starlink network, the number of users is large, the average bandwidth will be reduced, the launch of more satellites will soon fill the orbit, easy to collide, produce space junk, resulting in everyone suffering.
But I think there's another way, like launching 4,000 satellites now, evenly distributed in Earth's orbit.
Can you launch 40,000 satellites, but the orbit is still 4,000 orbits, but each orbit places 10 satellites, to space and then expand, a few meters apart, so that it is still the original orbit, the bandwidth can be increased by 10 times, and will not affect the use of more people on the ground, is not known whether the satellite signal will have an impact on each other.
In any case, the satellite Internet is the most important way to convey information in the future, after all, space commercialization is spreading, and it is only a matter of time before human civilization goes to space. The future of the space city, the moon base and even the Internet of Mars, of course, must use the satellite Internet, in this sense, Musk is far ahead.
Science and technology are developed, and the methods are thought out, depending on who can take the lead in finding and implementing them.