Hacker News Reader

Maybe when the open source community successfully executes manned space missions, we can free ourselves from the tyranny of proprietary satellite technology…

View on HN

They could've published their documentation so it would be possible to build a client terminal yourself out of readily available parts. You'll still have to pay for the service itself, obviously. And I'm not talking about satellites themselves, only about the user equipment.

I don't think you understand the complexity of what you're suggesting. I doubt there are any off-the-shelf chips suitable to build a Starlink terminal and even if there were it would still cost over $10M and maybe more like $100M to design the terminal.

This isn't WiFi. A starlink terminal is complex. It isn't something you can cobble together with readily available parts.

For that matter, it's amazing to me what WiFi can do, and yet you can buy a WiFi device for a couple of dollars!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com