- This is a more niche product (just due to sheer numbers). Therefore, supporting it for each user will have higher overheads.
- Competition is expensive, e.g. BGAN at $284/GB of data transfer or more, while offering lower speeds (700 Kbps for a $6.5K Cobham Explorer 710, Vs. 350 Mbps for this).
- Competition likely won't be able to directly compete on offering for a while.
The next step will likely be commercial aircraft over the ocean. "Because they can [charge this]" is obviously the primary reason, but if you go look at what is available in this space right now, this isn't nuts, far from it.
Internet over the ocean is an incredibly hard/expensive problem. You cannot directly compare it to over-the-land offerings where the consumers are 1:1M.
Astrospace is also planning mobile broadband trough the satellites, their target audience also rural areas, I wonder they will support ocean as well, if so that would help competition.
- Competition is expensive, e.g. BGAN at $284/GB of data transfer or more, while offering lower speeds (700 Kbps for a $6.5K Cobham Explorer 710, Vs. 350 Mbps for this).
- Competition likely won't be able to directly compete on offering for a while.
The next step will likely be commercial aircraft over the ocean. "Because they can [charge this]" is obviously the primary reason, but if you go look at what is available in this space right now, this isn't nuts, far from it.
Internet over the ocean is an incredibly hard/expensive problem. You cannot directly compare it to over-the-land offerings where the consumers are 1:1M.