Starlink cuts satellite dish price from $600 to $300 in excess-capacity areas

The $600 standard price was replaced with regional pricing of $500 or $300.

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[jandrese]

The list of states that get discounted rates is really interesting. Big state, small state, large population, small population, there isn't much obvious pattern to it. Weirdly it seems to slightly favor liberal states over conservative states. It is probably something like states where ISPs are better run and have good coverage.

 

[jandrese]

It is essentially science fiction coming true to have a phased array antenna in the GHz range as a consumer device which has a $300 price tag. Twenty years ago you needed to be a major world military to build such a thing and the price tag would be seven digits. That is essentially what electronically steered radar is just at much higher power output.

To be fair, looking at what is actually involved with phased array dishes I've long thought that the manufacturers were ripping off the clients. They were historically very low volume products sold to organizations with deep pockets, so the prices were never anywhere near reality. If you were an ordinary person with an interest in one you were just plain out of luck.

It's basically just a bunch of fixed antennas controlled by some clever logic in an IC. The development costs are high due to the complexity of the math, but once you have that each copy should be pretty cheap to make, at least as far as satellite antennas go. It also helps a lot that Starlink is LEO so you don't need an enormous concentrator to get your link margin. You can be pretty sloppy with your pointing and still get a usable signal when the bird is that close.