China's Space Program Thread II

[tankphobia]

i don't really see the business case for Starlinks. I think this is a military program masquerading as civilian one.

But for Guowang and G60, I think there might be actual civilian usage case here, since all the OEMs now are looking for access to LEO constellation.

Starlink plan is currently at 139/month for base tier + 600 setup fee. Other than the initial pricing it is extremely reasonable for what amounts to fiber class speeds across much of the world. If spaceX is breaking even at that price point I can foresee that global south with limited infrastructure will skip expensive fiber internet and move towards space based internet if costs continue to fall. Huge market potential.

 

[taxiya]

Do Chinese SOEs only hire the best of the best engineers? does it mean that the private only able to hire the extremely good engineers but not the best of the best ? I just wondering ..... or is there any other consideration for the Chinese SOEs to hire engineers? (e.g ethnicity, gender, age, etc)

It is really up to the individual to choose. I once read some internet posts asking for recommendations of employment. The general consideration is working condition, job security and payment. Working condition includes, office area, lab/office/factory equipments, working hours and working culture. Job security means the company doesn't easily disappear or being easily fired. I think SOEs at least in the aero and space industry are way better than "private" companies in working environment and job security, maybe and only maybe "private" companies can offer higher salary.

My personal thought is that if you have an invention or the inventor invited you to build a new business as a partner or founder, you will go for "private" hoping to be one of Elon Musk, otherwise you go SOE to climb the ladder, at least you got well paid instead of risking to be a failed hero. How many people are in the first group? You see the answer. The bottom line is most people will choose big company that has a lot of work to do instead of a risky startup company whose future is uncertain. After all, there is only one Elon Musk, SpaceX' engineers being there are for the same consideration as if going to Boeing or NASA labs.

You should be worried about "private" companies having other consideration like gender and age instead of SOE because "private" companies are more free in not following principles or even skirting the laws. Ethnicity is not a thing in China than in the west because ethnicity is only a thing in the registration not something different in how we look, speak and behave.

 

[taxiya]

Starlink have already announced that they are now profitable. As they scale up and bring costs down, profits will increase even further.

Did Starlink just say so or presented some cost breakdown, profit over a time period, what time period would it be? Remember LEO sats have very short life span and need to be replaced regularly. Starlink hasn't enterred the time frame of such regular replacement, how could they tell they are already profitable if the major operational cost hasn't happened yet?

 

[tphuang]

Starlink plan is currently at 139/month for base tier + 600 setup fee. Other than the initial pricing it is extremely reasonable for what amounts to fiber class speeds across much of the world. If spaceX is breaking even at that price point I can foresee that global south with limited infrastructure will skip expensive fiber internet and move towards space based internet if costs continue to fall. Huge market potential.

are they really breaking even or are they getting subsidized big time by fat DoD contracts?

How many people around the world can afford $139/month for internet?

It actually makes sense for Chinese cell phone providers to get constellations because this allows their phones to access high speed internet across the world, in places where cell phone providers can't afford to spend a lot of money on 5G network. It gives them a leg up over Apple and Samsung

 

[taxiya]

Starlink plan is currently at 139/month for base tier + 600 setup fee. Other than the initial pricing it is extremely reasonable for what amounts to fiber class speeds across much of the world. If spaceX is breaking even at that price point I can foresee that global south with limited infrastructure will skip expensive fiber internet and move towards space based internet if costs continue to fall. Huge market potential.

Do you know the speed difference between the equally priced fiber and a starlink dish? Fiber has much higher bandwidth than coper wire which is much higher than satellite link. This is physics, there is no trick to cut the price without cut the performance.

I work in the industry, I read report both from my own company and external marketing consultant company, Satelite internet service is a niche market, in some area the only choice, but it is never going to compete with cable based network. This is not about Starlink, it is about the technology limit.

 

[tphuang]

Did Starlink just say so or presented some cost breakdown, profit over a time period, what time period would it be? Remember LEO sats have very short life span and need to be replaced regularly. Starlink hasn't enterred the time frame of such regular replacement, how could they tell they are already profitable if the major operational cost hasn't happened yet?

I think more importantly for us is whether or not it makes China to have multiple LEO constellations. And depending on what the Chinese phone makers, automakers have planned, it could make a lot of sense.

And it's important to be global, because in large parts of world that buy Xiaomi, Transsion phones, telecom speed could be really slow still

Do you know the speed difference between the equally priced fiber and a starlink dish? Fiber has much higher bandwidth than coper wire which is much higher than satellite link. This is physics, there is no trick to cut the price without cut the performance.

I work in the industry, I read report both from my own company and external marketing consultant company, Satelite internet service is a niche market, in some area the only choice, but it is never going to compete with cable based network. This is not about Starlink, it is about the technology limit.

This i agree with. kind of unreasonable to expect satellite internet at same price point to offer faster speed than fiber.

Let's not make starlink out to be some magical system

if fiber is too expensive in a place like America, that's due to beaucracy and high labor cost and internet companies making too much money.

 

[taxiya]

I think more importantly for us is whether or not it makes China to have multiple LEO constellations. And depending on what the Chinese phone makers, automakers have planned, it could make a lot of sense.

And it's important to be global, because in large parts of world that buy Xiaomi, Transsion phones, telecom speed could be really slow still

I think your concern is about "multiple". I however see only one large constellation with large number of sats. Remember most Chinese general purpose (not viechle only) LEO constellation follow 3GPP standard. They are like Ericsson and Huawei 4G networks all can serve the same UE so long as operators agree to roaming. Many telecom companies in Europe are sharing basestations which are owned by another entity, and the bastations can be from different vendors. This is exactly the same thing of "multiple constellations".

This can not be said about Starlink or Oneweb etc. since they began a long time ago before 3GPP even began the standarization work.

 

[gelgoog]

China has much more 5G installations than the US. So the issue of Internet coverage outside the main cities is probably much less acute than in the US.

 

[tankphobia]

Do you know the speed difference between the equally priced fiber and a starlink dish? Fiber has much higher bandwidth than coper wire which is much higher than satellite link. This is physics, there is no trick to cut the price without cut the performance.

I work in the industry, I read report both from my own company and external marketing consultant company, Satelite internet service is a niche market, in some area the only choice, but it is never going to compete with cable based network. This is not about Starlink, it is about the technology limit.

Yes that is true, of course fiber can never be truly replaced by satellite internet. But here's the thing, laying down fiber optic cables is a fairly expensive process that requires a substantial population density to make sense, that is not the case outside cities in most of the world.

In rural farms and mountain villages, the 20-150 Mbps internet is a vast improvement over the previously available satellite internet and does not really cost all that much more.

On the other hand, even if starlink is heavily subsidized by the government, so what? GPS is the same and it provided massive benefits to the civilian population. I do not doubt that a similar system from China providing somewhat reasonably priced, reliable internet to rural Global south will be massive.

 

[2=GT]

Long March 2C successfully launched Einstein Probe from Xichang Satellite Launch Center

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1744626478413922374