What do you hope for with Amazon Leo ??

[CPD]

This is possibly aimed at current starlink users ........ is it lower pricing / coverage / stability ??

I understand that we can look forward to late 2026 at some 'indusstrial' applications with 2027 being a realistic date for consumers. From what I can see, after Starlink's pricing instability and eographic limitations, Leo could bring nothing but advantages and good news for us boaters ...... or am I missing something ??

 

[Goldie]

This is possibly aimed at current starlink users ........ is it lower pricing / coverage / stability ??

I understand that we can look forward to late 2026 at some 'indusstrial' applications with 2027 being a realistic date for consumers. From what I can see, after Starlink's pricing instability and eographic limitations, Leo could bring nothing but advantages and good news for us boaters ...... or am I missing something ??

I’d like to see ‘true’ roaming. At the moment, roaming outside country of registration is limited to 2 months and after that, I believe that you have to ‘sell’ it to yourself and re-register in the new country; not great for cruising. Oh yes, and not changing the Ts & Cs every 5 minutes .

I’ve never had any issues with coverage or stability but any competition on pricing would be good .

 

[CPD]

I’d like to see ‘true’ roaming. At the moment, roaming outside country of registration is limited to 2 months and after that, I believe that you have to ‘sell’ it to yourself and re-register in the new country; not great for cruising. Oh yes, and not changing the Ts & Cs every 5 minutes .

I’ve never had any issues with coverage or stability but any competition on pricing would be good .

Goldie, has stability and coverage (when not cruising) been ass good as/better/worse than 'at home' ??

 

[Goldie]

Goldie, has stability and coverage (when not cruising) been ass good as/better/worse than 'at home' ??

My use since buying Starlink has been around Iberia, Biscay, W. France and now home in SW UK (including the Scillies). We’ve never had a drop out and speeds have never been less than 110Mbps and at anchor up the R. Fal, surrounded by trees and high ground, we recorded 320Mbps; all on an independent, third party speed checker. By comparison, my home broadband delivers a paltry 20Mbps and due to my location I have no options for anything better unless I bring my Starlink off the boat!

 

[lustyd]

At the moment, roaming outside country of registration is limited to 2 months

Unlikely this will be better as it’s fairly clear why the rules are what they are.
Assuming they actually paunch a service, clarity on rules and stability of contract are my wishes. I genuinely don’t see them launching a service this decade though, possibly ever.

 

[ylop]

any competition on pricing would be good .

I think competition on pricing, T&C’s creep and which evil corporation or owner we give our money to has to be a good thing. Personally I don’t need Starlink speed, but would like ubiquitous signal, low form factor and power consumption. I’ve not followed their progress for a while but AST was actually looking like it was maybe doing something different that might leave the others wanting if it pulled it off.

 

[mjcp]

SL user here - local broadband ~20 down and 0.5 up! (BT-OR refuse to admit there might be a line issue), so we have it for residential and a 2nd for the boat.

I welcome the possibility of competition, though with the recent price changes (cheaper for me, went from £75/mo to £35mo for the home dish - that's comparable to a fixed line and broadband sub), that may have less impact once Leo is available.

My main positive from another entrant to the market is the option to ditch one billionaire for a slightly more palatable one.

M

 

[st599]

LEO is quite a bit lower than StarLink, so reduced latency and direct access in to AWS.

But as Starlink are finding, getting territorial access agreements is hard.

 

[SimonX]

But as Starlink are finding, getting territorial access agreements is hard.

How much of that is down to the CEO?

 

[lustyd]

LEO is quite a bit lower than StarLink, so reduced latency and direct access in to AWS.

But as Starlink are finding, getting territorial access agreements is hard.

Starlink 550km, Leo 590km (if they ever launch enough for a service). Leo is not uppercase as in LEO, it's just a name.

This puts Leo latency higher than Starlink, especially since they'll start with fewer ground stations. Starlink also have a huge headstart on inter-satelite laser comms, which I imagine is hard to say the least and was not in gen1 satelites.

My hope is that Amazon will be able to negotiate internationally a little better and won't annoy governments by doing it anyway like Starlink did. That said, Amazon the shop is notably missing from many territories, so perhaps not. One can only assume a government would be asking Amazon to put distribution, warehousing and shopping as well as AWS data centres to create jobs as part of the deal. With Starlink there's nothing to ask for really, so may be a quicker negotiation. "promise Musk stays home" might be enough for some!

 

[CPD]

Unlikely this will be better as it’s fairly clear why the rules are what they are.
Assuming they actually paunch a service, clarity on rules and stability of contract are my wishes. I genuinely don’t see them launching a service this decade though, possibly ever.

Lustyd, would you mind explaining why the rules are what they are ?. Many thanks ..........

 

[lustyd]

Lustyd, would you mind explaining why the rules are what they are ?. Many thanks ..........

There are three issues that must be dealt with (that I can think of):
1. global reach is technically possible, but needs permission to operate in each location. This means that in some locations the service cannot be sold and others it must not operate. In the regions it cannot be sold, it can operate but needs a way to prevent sales from elsewhere simply operating in that region indefinitely. Two month rule appears to satisfy that need. Starlink have done the legwork here and found ways to allow operation which others can and most likely will copy. Unless others get permission then they pretty much have to do things this way.
2. Pricing becomes a bigger issue than you'd imagine. In theory just set a global price in USD and translate, right? Nope! France is a great example where they regulate broadband pricing, meaning that French Starlink undercut everywhere else for a long time. There must be a way to stop people buying in France and perpetually using in the UK at the lower price, otherwise profits are affected and the service becomes less viable. Whether we think they could offer it cheaper or not is irrelevant, the company has invested billions and must continue to do so, and that money needs to come from somewhere.
3. Bandwidth is already an issue. Wireless services always suffer saturation, there's only so much spectrum available and when you work from space this problem gets gradually worse with distance since one satelite sprays signal potentially over a whole hemisphere. The further the distance the lower the bandwidth too (physics and reliability stuff). As a result, for static broadband, if you sell all of the capacity and some beatnik comes along in their VW campervan expecting Starlink to work, service levels will drop. Starlink deals with this in multiple ways. Data prioritisation allows them to favour local people, but only up to a point. If there are too many dishy's in one location then they will saturate the spectrum and prevent the connection from working, and therefore priority ceases to work as expected. Setting limits for roaming ensures that roamers keep moving, making service levels easier to implement.

Hope that helps, all of this needs to be dealt with by every satelite provider and the answers will most likely be the same when the same problems are addressed.

For those hoping for price reductions, it's actually likely that prices will go up as services get more popular as bandwidth is fixed. There is a physical limit based on physics to how many satelites can be added while increasing capacity. Beamforming antennas (the reason dishy is massive) help and will improve over time, but again there are limits. Adding mobile phones to this mess is probably not going to be a positive change...

 

[st599]

How much of that is down to the CEO?

For once, not much. The Federal Communications Commission are the US representative at ITU.

 

[CPD]

There are three issues that must be dealt with (that I can think of):
1. global reach is technically possible, but needs permission to operate in each location. This means that in some locations the service cannot be sold and others it must not operate. In the regions it cannot be sold, it can operate but needs a way to prevent sales from elsewhere simply operating in that region indefinitely. Two month rule appears to satisfy that need. Starlink have done the legwork here and found ways to allow operation which others can and most likely will copy. Unless others get permission then they pretty much have to do things this way.
2. Pricing becomes a bigger issue than you'd imagine. In theory just set a global price in USD and translate, right? Nope! France is a great example where they regulate broadband pricing, meaning that French Starlink undercut everywhere else for a long time. There must be a way to stop people buying in France and perpetually using in the UK at the lower price, otherwise profits are affected and the service becomes less viable. Whether we think they could offer it cheaper or not is irrelevant, the company has invested billions and must continue to do so, and that money needs to come from somewhere.
3. Bandwidth is already an issue. Wireless services always suffer saturation, there's only so much spectrum available and when you work from space this problem gets gradually worse with distance since one satelite sprays signal potentially over a whole hemisphere. The further the distance the lower the bandwidth too (physics and reliability stuff). As a result, for static broadband, if you sell all of the capacity and some beatnik comes along in their VW campervan expecting Starlink to work, service levels will drop. Starlink deals with this in multiple ways. Data prioritisation allows them to favour local people, but only up to a point. If there are too many dishy's in one location then they will saturate the spectrum and prevent the connection from working, and therefore priority ceases to work as expected. Setting limits for roaming ensures that roamers keep moving, making service levels easier to implement.

Hope that helps, all of this needs to be dealt with by every satelite provider and the answers will most likely be the same when the same problems are addressed.

For those hoping for price reductions, it's actually likely that prices will go up as services get more popular as bandwidth is fixed. There is a physical limit based on physics to how many satelites can be added while increasing capacity. Beamforming antennas (the reason dishy is massive) help and will improve over time, but again there are limits. Adding mobile phones to this mess is probably not going to be a positive change...

Lustyd thanks for taking the time .......... hugely informative. Thanks again !!!