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Yeah, even if they've cut the launch costs by a factor of ten, they've still launched something like 200 flights just for internal use -- around two thirds of total flights this year. And as a LEO constellation that is (at least in part) an ongoing cost to replace satellites over time. And that's presumably all getting paid for (plus the satellites themselves, the ground stations, and operations) by a bunch of users paying around $1400/yr. I haven't recently run numbers on that, but it feels at least ambitious without a deep-pocketed anchor customer willing to guarantee the bills get paid (which they may quietly have, so I'm not betting against them).
And performance degrades (something folks funding them for rural bandwidth care about!) as they start oversubscribing areas.
That customer is supposed to be high-frequency traders once they get the inter-satellite laser-link running -- light in a vacuum is enough faster than light in glass that it's attractive for comms between (for instance) NYC and London.
I think the latest version of the satellites is capable of this, but there aren't enough in the constellation supporting it yet? Haven't heard recently.
The most obvious anchor customer is the DOD, IMO. But neither side there is going to shout about it. Low-latency, worldwide comms, resistant to anti-satellite weapons by sheer numbers. Directional antennas are more robust against jamming and detection, too.
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So, Bing's AI response to "Starlink Customers" was
Although I see a more recent PCMag article says 2.7m customers. Assuming they are all paying the same $120 a month I am, that puts them closing in on $4B in revenue per year. If I did my math right (2.7m * 12 * $120 = $3,888m).
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Airlines (United and Hawaiian air have deals), Starlink is $10k per month per airframe, and cruise lines at $5k per month. Combined with other corporate operators (biz jets, oil platforms, etc) all of whom are frigging starved for reliable high speed internet in-transit and on remote locations, frankly Starlink is going to be printing money in exponentially increasing volumes.
Starlink is almost certainly a 100b plus company standalone. You almost wonder if they will be spun out to go public at some point.
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It also has substantial value in crisis contexts, in the 'natural disaster just cracked the ground-based infrastructure, can anyone tell me what's going on' sort of system.
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