Starlink: Is it the cell phone annihilator?
On June 13, 2020 we saw a new launch of SpaceX executing another Starlink mission, to be exact we talked about the 9th launch mission and the 8th batch of operational satellites for the new low-cost satellite broadband network that will be It builds, there were 58 more satellites, which join this new network under construction to reach more than 450 satellites in the space of the same company. As SpaceX is the operator of the largest constellation of satellites worldwide, the long-term objective is the creation of a network of 12,000 satellites, which in its first stage aims to put some 1,600 into space. Now it must be understood that this is only a secondary project with which they seek to raise resources for the ambitious project of colonizing Mars, however Starlink by itself is a supremely interesting project due to its dimensions, complexity and its objective of wanting to offer service. of satellite internet at low cost, but what if the evolution of the business allowed you to offer satellite phone services at ridiculous prices later?
When Martin Cooper in 1973 showed the first prototype of a cell phone on the street, it was seen as something innovative, however the same father of the cell phone in his interview with Vodafone in 2016, admits that thanks to this: "In the future they will all be connected, what I did not know is that it would be a camera connection, with a powerful processor, with an internet connection, I could not have imagined all that because in 1973 when we made that first mobile, there were no such things mostly". the truth is that this was the beginning of the end of wireline telephony.
Now almost 50 years have passed since that day, and the world is different, today according to figures collected from different sources, everything points to the fact that there are more active cell phones than inhabitants on the planet, seeing the "Digital Around the World" study by April 2020 shows us as a definitive figure that there are currently 7.9 Billion Cell Phones connected in the world vs. 7.7 Billion of human beings on the planet. (worldometers.info).
If we add to this the fact that this cell phone market has great protectors such as the 10 largest telecommunications companies in the world, which we find in “The World's Top 10 Telecommunications Companies 2020” by investopedia.
Considering the muscle of the competitors in this sector, it must also be understood that all these companies have close relationships with the main cell phone manufacturers, and that they have billions of investments in cell phone networks, which begins to draw us a scenario. which warns that it would not be easy for Starlink if it decides to enter the business in the future.
Going further when we investigate the big cell phone manufacturers: Samsung, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi and Oppo, to see what they are dealing with the issue of satellite phones. There we find that since December 2019 it was published in Forbes that Apple is working on satellite technology to connect their phones to the Internet without requiring a terrestrial operator and Xiaomi has announced the start of a previous investigation on the development of satellite internet, but in general it gives the impression of little interest for the rest of the phone brands, the development of satellite phones.
On the other hand, we wanted to review what the largest telecommunications operators in the world have today to compete, if in the future it would happen that Starlink, in addition to offering low-cost broadband service, adds as a new service the satellite phone, what What we find is bittersweet: 1) AT&T frozen on the subject Perhaps it is a product of the failure of 2010, where TerreStar Networks launched its first satellite smartphone, the "TerreStar Genus".
3) Vodafone instead offers continuous satellite connectivity to remote sites as an additional service.
4) Japan Softbank since 2013 offers satellite phone service in combination with inmarsat.
5) Deutsche telekom in europe together with inmarsat in 2017 successfully completed the first flight tests to test the satellite and complementary ground network for its European Aviation-oriented Network, after that nothing.
However, there is a company that, due to national security criteria, since 2017 has been developing its own satellite telephony network, we refer to 6) China Telecom that, unlike all the aforementioned, is dealing with the subject with the aim of not depending from foreign satellites.
It seems that satellite telephony is not a passion for large telecommunications companies or large cell phone manufacturers, since in recent decades they have been focused on competing with each other by improving service, coverage and cellular mobile technology. But satellite telephony is as if it were something of minor importance to them except for China Telecom.
So what would drive Starlink to then take the step to satellite telephony? What have not others seen? Perhaps he will see a poorly developed business with possibilities of being promoted, or perhaps he can come to believe that the following step of telecommunications will be satellite communication available to everyone or suddenly you see that the future will be to sell phones worldwide without having to bother with local operators, dead zones without coverage, roaming and long contracts with operators, ¿ What would be your strategy if it came out on the market with satellite telephony?
The truth is that the current satellite phone manufacturers (Iridium, Inmarsat, Globalstar and Thuraya) present robust satellite phones mainly for communication via voice or voice and text, this is because they were designed with customers with very specific communication needs in mind. in remote places and for emergency situations, that is why the additional benefits in terms of entertainment, Social media and mobile internet are practically nil, except for the Thuraya X5Touch that does house these benefits as it is a phone with an android system. What we see here is perhaps a gap on the part of current manufacturers, where competition may enter in the future if it comes offering satellite telephone equipment with all the benefits of the best high-end cell phones.
But in the current times, why aren't there so many users using satellite phones? perhaps beyond the almost non-existent offer of attractive equipment in design and features that seduce the masses, another reason is the limited offer of satellite telephony by the large operators justified by the immense investment of money required to build a satellite network. But on the consumer side, perhaps the problem is in the rates, we are talking that the cost of one minute of satellite phone call is valued at approximately $ 1.19, as long as it is communication between satellites on the same network, when it is between satellites from different networks the price per minute of a call can reach almost $ 10.
Therefore, if tomorrow Starlink decides to focus its efforts on satellite telephony, it must first think about how it solves: 1) The obstacles that may appear promoted by the telecommunications giants. 2) Somehow manage to integrate the big manufacturers into their network. 3) It offers equipment that has nothing to envy to the cellular equipment and 4) Define a strategy of accessible telephone rates that, despite being satellite telephony, compete with the rates of conventional telephones. Only then can we see how the cell phone gradually begins its decline at the hands of Starlink.
