Re:SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites
by dr_orpheus on Thursday November 15, 2018 @03:23PM
(#18462930)
There is definitely a market for this. Orbcomm already does this for a lot of machine to machine communication. However, their data rates are quite slow on the order of kbps.
Re:SpaceX just got FCC approval to launch 7,518 satellites
by dzhiurgis on Thursday November 15, 2018 @04:28PM
(#18463538)
Same with Iridium Certus/Next - their devices are rumoured to be tiny chips (even with current constellation the hotspot is just slightly larger than modern 4G ones).
You don't really need much bandwidth for most IoT apps.
If I'm selling large HVAC units with cloud monitoring functionality, it'd be attractive to ship units that are pre-connected to SpaceX's satellite network. I wouldn't have to worry about setting up agreements with multiple cellular providers or having to depend on site-provided Wifi/ethernet.
The point is, those devices could very lucrative for SpaceX without requiring as much bandwidth (no need to stream Netflix).