Starlink: Future of the Internet

Salutations, Olio aficionados! 👋

Happy Hump Day and welcome to the 64th edition of Weekly Olio - your trusty source for giggles, wisdom, and a dash of intrigue courtesy of our tantalizing thought piece (yes, buckle up for Publisher's Parmesan). 🧀

The Quote󠀢 💭

The Tweet 🐦

While a lot of us travel to Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe to see the wonderful churches built by greats, there are a lot of new churches (built in the last 20 years ) that are equally awe-inspiring. With Eastern Europe taking the lead, this thread is a collection of the some of the most stunning churches built in the modern era. If you get a chance to visit any of these countries, these monuments would be well worth a visit.

The Infographic 💹

India's stock market just overtook Hong Kong's stock market for the first time; India's stock market is now worth $4.33 Trillion making it the 4th largest in the world behind just the US ($51T), China ($8.4T), and Japan ($6.4T).

The Short Read 📝

why lowercase letters save data - by endtimes.dev

The blog is run by Nathaniel, a web developer who believes that the internet has had negative impacts on the planet, society, and mental health. He loves creating highly optimized websites that minimize the harmful effects of the internet.

The article explains how swapping uppercase letters for lowercase in text can save data due to more effective compression. Despite both types of letters using 1 byte each, text compression algorithms like 'deflate' work better with a smaller variety of characters, less frequent use of uncommon characters, and more repetition.

The Long Read 📜

Hello. Happy Anniversary Macintosh! - by Steven Sinofsky

Steven Jay Sinofsky is an American businessman and software engineer. He served as president of the Windows Division at Microsoft from July 2009 until his resignation on November 13, 2012.

The article by Steven Sinofsky is a personal account of his experience as a young software engineer at Apple in 1984 when the Macintosh was launched. He describes how he was involved in developing some of the software features for the Mac, such as the Finder, the Clipboard, and the Scrapbook. He also shares some of the challenges, frustrations, and joys of working on a revolutionary product with a visionary leader, Steve Jobs. The article is a tribute to the Macintosh and its legacy, as well as a reflection on the lessons learned from that era.

Publisher’s Parmesan 🧀

Starlink: Future of the Internet

Starlink is a network of satellites created by SpaceX to provide fast internet coverage worldwide. These satellites are located about 342 miles above the Earth's surface in low Earth orbit (LEO). Since its launch in 2019, Starlink has gained popularity and now has over 2 million customers in more than 60 countries. It is praised for connecting remote areas and providing internet access during natural disasters and conflicts. However, some people criticize SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for getting involved in geopolitics, and scientists are concerned about the impact of thousands of satellites on astronomy.

3...2...1...Liftoff!

These are the words that marked the beginning of one of SpaceX's many launches. The space industry has been taken by storm by Elon Musk's SpaceX, and one of their most ambitious projects is the Starlink project. This project aims to provide global, high-speed internet coverage using thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, known as low Earth orbit.

It's not just crucial for the company's aspirations of making humanity multi-planetary and exploring other planets like Mars, but it's also seen as an economic engine for the company. It's been reported that SpaceX generated $1.4 billion in revenue from Starlink in 2022 alone, and the projections for the future are even more impressive. In fact, by the end of 2023, Starlink could represent upwards of 40% of SpaceX's overall business, which would mean generating somewhere over $3 billion.

Since the launch of its first batch of Starlink satellites in 2019, adoption of the service has exploded. With over 2 million active customers in more than 60 countries and on all seven continents, Starlink has become an essential player in connecting remote parts of the world with reliable internet. It's even played a vital role in areas hit by natural disasters and during times of war, such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, Starlink's growing influence is not without controversy. Some believe that Musk is meddling in geopolitics and enabling Vladimir Putin as an aggressor. Others in the scientific community are concerned about the interference that the projected full constellation of several tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit could cause both optical observation and radio observation.

Despite these concerns, SpaceX is determined to expand Starlink's service even further.

Behind Starlink’s growth

With around 5,000 active satellites currently orbiting, it's clear that Starlink is revolutionizing the satellite service industry.

What's more, Starlink's rapid growth is uncharacteristic in terms of its magnitude. Unlike other satellite service providers, who have taken 10 years or more to ramp up to anywhere between 500,000 to a little bit over a million subscribers, Starlink's race to 2 million subscribers has taken only two years!

Industry experts estimate that the global market for consumer satellite services, including TV, radio, and broadband internet, was worth over $92 billion in 2022, and Starlink is perfectly positioned to capture a big piece of this market going forward.

What sets Starlink apart from other satellite providers is its flexibility. By design, LEO satellite constellations like Starlink are more flexible than geostationary satellite networks, allowing them to introduce capacity at an unrelenting pace and onboard more and more subscribers by continually launching new satellites.

It's not just the consumer market that Starlink is catering to, though. The company has expanded to serve enterprise markets, including the maritime and aviation industries, and has captured commitments for over 4,000 vessels as of the third quarter of 2023.

And if that wasn't enough, SpaceX has also announced plans to offer cellular satellite connectivity to unmodified smartphones in partnership with several global telecom partners, including T-Mobile in the U.S. This means that when you exit coverage areas on rural highways, national parks, or areas of poor cellular coverage, you'll be able to automatically roam onto a space-based network extension of T-Mobile's network.

So, what's the secret behind Starlink's rapid growth? Its independence. Starlink is vertically integrated, making its own satellites, launching them, and crafting its own service. This means that it's almost completely disintermediated in terms of suppliers and distribution channels.

To connect to Starlink satellites, all you need is a small antenna or terminal, which is fairly inexpensive and portable. However, making its equipment user-friendly has not come cheap for SpaceX. Early on, the company faced steep costs to manufacture its consumer antenna. But thanks to its commitment to innovation, SpaceX has cut the manufacturing cost of its antenna to under $600 and now charges residential customers $599 to buy them.

Starlink and geopolitics

The use of Starlink in the Russia-Ukraine war has been a game-changer, thanks to its ease of use and deployment. It has become an indispensable tool for both the military and civilians, providing a pathway for communication and connectivity even in the most difficult of situations.

Starlink's importance in Ukraine cannot be overstated. It is the backbone of military communications, providing a pathway for the military to communicate with each other and to provide command and control direction to their forces. It has also become a lifeline for civilians, allowing them to stay connected to the outside world.

But what makes Starlink truly remarkable is its resilience and agility. With thousands of satellites in orbit at any given time, it is incredibly difficult to jam or target them all. And as Russia has sought to jam Starlink, SpaceX has been able to make software updates on the fly to mitigate the effect of that jamming and to keep people connected.

However, questions about Starlink's and Elon Musk's influence on the war have come to a head. SpaceX has expressed reservations about how its technology is being used by Ukraine offensively, specifically to coordinate drone strikes. And when Ukrainian military officials requested Starlink service in Crimea to launch a sneak drone attack on a Russian naval fleet, Elon Musk refused, fearing it could provoke a nuclear war.

Nonetheless, the Department of Defense has signed a contract with SpaceX for its use of Starlink in Ukraine, and SpaceX has won a Department of Defense contract worth up to $70 million to make a military-specific version of Starlink called Starshield.

Seeing the influence Musk's Starlink may have on geopolitical matters has prompted some countries to invest in their own satellite networks. The European Union and China are building out their own low Earth orbit satellite internet networks, while Taiwan has expressed interest in a proprietary satellite network to help shield the country from a potential assault from China.

The story of Starlink in the Ukraine war is not just about technology. It is about the power and influence that technology can bring to bear on the world stage.

Scientific concerns

SpaceX has some ambitious plans to launch up to 42,000 Starlink satellites into orbit. And they're not alone - competitors like Amazon, Eutelsat OneWeb, and Telesat have similar plans. But the concern of the astronomical community is growing each day, particularly due to the sheer number of satellites. Imagine going from just 2,200 satellites in orbit a few years ago to something that could be 40,000 or even 100,000 satellites!

As these satellites are illuminated by the sun most of the time during the night, they are visible to the naked eye and interfere with astronomical observations. Even the Hubble Space Telescope, a vital research tool for astronomers, has been affected. While SpaceX has been responsive to concerns from the scientific community and made design changes to reduce their satellite's brightness, more needs to be done.

The solution lies in knowing the precise position of every satellite in the sky at any time from any observer. This information can help create a service that observers can use to plan their observations in a way that avoids interference from these satellites. But that's not all - satellites also pose a threat to radio astronomy, and we need to negotiate with companies to switch off transmissions when the satellite is over large radio observatories.

Moreover, the massive number of anticipated satellites has led to fears of a proliferation of debris, which could eventually render large parts of Earth's orbit unusable. There's also the potential risk to people on Earth as satellites are de-orbited. If Starlink satellites don't fully burn up in the atmosphere before falling back to Earth as designed, the FAA expects one person on the planet to be killed or injured every two years as a result of Starlink satellite debris.

While SpaceX has disputed the FAA report, saying that it relied on a flawed analysis, the company's track record shows that Starlink satellites completely burn up when they enter the Earth's atmosphere. However, the environmental impact of the chemical composition of these satellites when they return to Earth is still unknown and needs to be fully studied before we continue to populate low Earth orbit with such a large number of satellites.

Future

Many experts believe that the pace of growth that Starlink has shown will be difficult to maintain going forward, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, there's a certain degree of demand saturation happening where the subscribers who are most desperate for a better internet service have likely already moved over to Starlink. To combat this, Starlink has had to reduce the cost of its user terminals in localized, targeted campaigns.

Secondly, SpaceX's other major undertaking, Starship, is facing delays which could impact Starlink's growth trajectory. Starship is a much larger and more powerful rocket than the current method that SpaceX uses to get its Starlink satellites into orbit, and SpaceX needs Starship flying regularly to be able to meet the overall growth trajectory.

To add to the mix, Amazon's Project Kuiper is expected to be a big challenger in the consumer satellite internet market. They launched the first of their satellite prototypes in October and plan to begin beta testing their network with customers by the end of 2024.

It's clear that the future of satellite internet systems is bright. It provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and mobility, and that is extremely powerful not just for national security, but to connect disadvantaged populations, and rural populations that don't have that kind of connectivity today. Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting developments in the world of satellite internet!

Olio Jobs 💼

• Asva Venture | Remote India - Investment Analyst

• Time Doctor | Remote - Revenue Operations Specialist

• Liftoff | Remote - Content Writer & Strategist

• Firstleaf | Remote US - Retention Marketing Manager

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