Dopey Starlink. The major difference here is that with Starlink, the terminal cost is in many cases higher than the sales price. With Direct to Cell. There are no "subsidy costs" directly to the D2C provider.
Same blundering lack of thinking as Globalstar.
With the terminal cost higher than the sales price, that means they plan to make money by their monthly $150 charge for just having the service available.
They have a nearly unused network with vast capacity. Stack it high and give it away is the way to fill the system.
Sell the terminals for 10 times the cost, or double the cost or whatever it takes to sell all they can make. If people can't afford the cost, sign them up for a free terminal and a monthly financing fee. Free satellite service will make swarms of people want to buy the equipment. NO MONTHLY CHARGE.
Make money from selling the equipment, not from monthly connection fees or usage. When the system gets busy, increase the usage charge and reduce the equipment price.
Elon has copied all my ideas so he might as well copy this one too.*
For example = after initially offering to fight Putin for Ukraine, Elon finally copy/pasted what I'd written from the beginning on what to do = voting and independent little countries and don't worry about Crimea staying Russian as it had been since before my English great great grandfather John Arms made the mistake of trying to conquer Russia in Crimea in 1856 and paying with his life following injuries.
It's amazing how people go on and on and on doing really stupid stuff hoping it'll work this time.
How come quarter of a century has gone by and still nobody is doing it right?
Mqurice
* copied ideas...
EarCell [tm] and nerve sensors under the skin for direct nerve output to electronic Cyberspace device. The nerves I want to monitor are voice nerves in neck rather than upstream at brain as per Neuralink.
Hyperloop 1000 km per hour vacuum tunnels powered with maglev/flight and photovoltaics on top with electronic controls across Asia/Europe.
Electric cars = back in 1986 it looked like ICE was running out of steam, but ICE engineers stayed competitive for another 40 years and still are, even with heavy electric subsidies and fanaticism. Battery swaps in 7 seconds are needed to cut weight, cost, delays, allow slow charging at off-peak prices, improve efficiency.
Cybermoney = I've been on the case since 1980 and funded Elon via Qualcomm and PayPal. Bitcoin is inefficient, insecure, difficult, slow, expensive... Initially I thought PayPal was going to do it right with email but no. Eudora had the chance to do it right but frittered it away in the biggest mistake ever = they didn't understand they had the keys to Cyberspace = identity. In BP Oil in 1983 my colleagues disparagingly called me Mr Bring Back the Gold Standard but they didn't understand what I was saying.
Boring Company = 25 years ago I wanted lots of little car sized tunnels under the Waitemata harbour to reduce congestion and increase degrees of freedom. A little tunnel is vastly cheaper, easier and faster to make than a multilane giant one. An accident or problem in one doesn't block the rest.
Photovoltaics across Australia's desert - BP was in photovoltaics 30 years ago but became uncompetitive. Electricity for electric cars, deionisation of water, irrigation, bauxite smelting, shade for crops [and no doubt pests] in the desert under 1 or 2 metre diameter umbrellas of photovoltaics, hydrogen to make heavy crudes into lovely fuels. |
