Starlink’s Growing Pains

Saturday, 5 October 2024, 1:01 pm
Article: Bill Bennett

Congestion in frame as Starlink hits 4m subscriber milestone

Starlink passed the 4 million customer milestone at the end of September. SpaceX’s low earth orbit satellite broadband network added a million customers or 33 percent in around 4 months. In December 2022 the service had one million subscribers.

There are now 6,426 satellites. And reports from the US say the company is on track to earn revenues of US$6.6 billion this year.

By any standards this is fast growth. But fast growth tends to bring problems. In the case of Starlink the number of satellites in orbit is growing fast, but not fast enough to eliminate pockets of congestion, especially in the US.

Shared bandwidth

Like other broadband technologies based on radio, Starlink subscribers share available bandwidth. When many connect at the same time, the channels run into congestion problems which degrades or even halts the service.

Congestion is a bigger problem with satellite broadband than fixed wireless broadband because they generally have less bandwidth and greater latency. It’s generally easier and cheaper for FWB carriers to fix local congestion issues than it is for a LEO carrier to launch more satellites.

Things are not likely to improve when Starlink starts selling cell tower in the sky services either later this year or early next year.

Demand management

Earthbound carriers can guard against congestion by limiting the number of subscribers connected to a tower until there is extra capacity. Starlink could do the same and has done in the past, but now seems reluctant to turn down new business.

Another approach is to introduce data caps - but this doesn’t always work well. Starlink tried that in the past with little success.

Starlink already charges US customers in more congested areas a higher subscription than people living in uncontested areas. Now it is adding what it calls a congestion charge. In crowded areas customers are being hit with an additional one-time $100 fee if they activate or change their account.

Starlink best option for the most remote locations

There’s no question Starlink provides an excellent broadband service for people who are not on the fibre network or close to the best FWB towers.

The $159 standard service is expensive compared with other forms of broadband. There are mixed reviews from New Zealanders on the $79 ‘residential lite’ plan, but it has the virtual of taking affordable broadband into places that are otherwise not served.

Yet no matter how many satellites SpaceX launches there will always be capacity problems in some parts of the world. If everyone used it, the service would be a disaster.

New Zealand’s first known smishing attack

Police have arrested the teenager behind New Zealand’s first smishing scam.

The crime uses a device known as an SMS blaster that acts like a cell tower. Nearby phones see the blaster as a legitimate cell tower and connect. Once they are connected the device can send official-looking text messages directing people to fraudulent websites to pay fake fines or make other transactions.

In this case the messages appeared to come from a bank. People directed to the site were asked for personal data including customer IDs and passwords.

Police National Organised Crime Group director detective superintendent Greg Williams told news outlets this was the first time an SMS Blaster has been found operating in New Zealand. He says the blaster sent thousands of scam text messages, including about 700 in a single night.

New Zealand ranks as also-ran in GSMA digital transformation report

A GSMA report looking at digital transformation in Asia-Pacific nations ranks New Zealand at five out of the 18 countries surveyed. We are behind Singapore, Australia, South Korea and Japan (in that order) and in front of the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia.

The survey considered five categories: infrastructure, innovation, data governance, security and people. New Zealand ranked highly in data governance and people, but the report marked New Zealand as ‘poor’ for innovation.

Worldwide telecom capex falls 10 Percent

Telcos around the world are pulling back from opening on 5G and fixed broadband equipment. A report from the Dell’Oro Group says worldwide telecom capex is down 10 percent when compared with last year. Demand is weak in the biggest markets: China, India and the US.

Among other causes, Dell’Oro vice-president Stefan Pongratz notes that telcos struggle to make money from investment in new technologies.

It is a tough time for the international industry with worldwide carrier revenues forecast to grow just one percent per year for the next three years. Meanwhile the telecom capex is expected to continue its decline.

Microsoft signs Whakarongorau Aotearoa as cloud anchor tenant

Microsoft says it has signed telehealth service provider Whakarongorau Aotearoa as the anchor tenant for its New Zealand
cloud region. The deal will see the organisation’s telehealth system move to Microsoft’s cloud when it opens later this year.

In other news...

Samsung NZ to shed staff as Korean tech giant stumbles with AI
Writing at Internet.co.nz Juha Saarinen gets confirmation that the New Zealand branch of the mobile phone (and network equipment) giant is laying off staff because it has fallen behind its rival with AI hardware.

Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Shipments of AI PCs to Account for 43% of All PCs in 2025

PlayStation Network offline in global outage
At RNZ, Pretoria Gordon filed this story while the PlayStation Network was offline. She notes there were 13,000 reports of the network outage across New Zealand, which no doubt would have shown up on Wednesday’s ISP helpdesk records.

Poll: Do Kiwis believe Kim Dotcom should be extradited to the US?
As Azaria Howell reports for the NZ Herald, the hard-to-love founder of MegaUpload doesn’t get much sympathy from the New Zealand public.

The Download Weekly is supported by Chorus New Zealand.

© Scoop Media

Bill Bennett

Freelance journalist.

Auckland-based Bill Bennett writes technology and business stories that are directly relevant to New Zealand readers.

His emphasis is on telecommunications, but he also covers other aspects of technology and business. You can find his features in the New Zealand Herald and hear him regularly on RNZ Nine to Noon and the NZ Tech Podcast.

Bennett's The Download Weekly newsletter is published every Friday. You can sign up for it here. If you want to support his work, you can make a donation to his PressPatron account.

Contact Bill Bennett

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