I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the previously posted materials on the Starlink (SL) project:
‣ Part 20. Internal structure of the SL terminal ‣ Part 21. SL and polarization problems ‣ Part 22. Problems of electromagnetic compatibility with other satellites. ‣ Part 23. Interim results of the RDOF auction ‣ Part 24. Laser Channels -2 ‣ Part 25. EPFD ‣ Part 26. First results. Part one - positive ‣ Part 27. First results. Part two - problematic ‣ Part 28. Using Starlink on moving objects
One Starlink fan, researching his IP addressing and IP space, found the following:
I have written a script that runs through all IPs advertised by the Google ASN used by Starlink, and have come up with some interesting observations:
- Any / 23 or / 24 IP block is chopped up into / 27 blocks, then assigned to a country.
- 15 countries have IP blocks assigned to them: GB, GR, ES, PL, IE, AT, US, AU, NZ, CL, DE, NL, BE, FR, IT (Edit: one result is blank / no country found! )
- The country with most blocks is the US, with 306. Second, surprisingly, is Chile, with 18, then Australia with 16, and Belgium with 12. UK gets 9, and at the bottom are Greece and New Zeland with 2 blocks each. This can give you an idea of relative market size, as you can only stretch CGNAT so far!
- The "IATA-code" identifiers don't align to countries, except for the US. For example, the UK is served by / 27 blocks "assigned" to FRA1, FRA2, LHR1, LHR2, LHR3, LHR4, MAD1, and MAD2.
- If we were to equate identifiers to POPs, which I'm no longer so sure about, the US is served by 34, and most other countries between 6 and 8, with some having 2.
This allows us to conclude that the Starlink service will be available in the near future in the following 16 countries: Great Britain, Greece, Spain, Poland, Ireland, Poland, Austria, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Canada not mentioned above, which is probably united here in part of the blocks of addresses with the United States.
Perhaps, taking into account the information below, Portugal will also be included in the list, but as part of the Spanish market.In
addition, searches among vacancies on the SpaceX website showed that they need engineers for technical support with knowledge of the following languages:
French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (seems to be the most recent addition), Spanish, German (service already started there)
For connoisseurs of Greek, work is offered in the third shift - in fact, at night, when it is day in Greece.
As for Portuguese, there are 2 options: Portugal and Brazil. The latter is more desirable and interesting - after all, 200 million and poor infrastructure in the countryside and the Amazon, but Brazil has very strict rules for admission to the domestic market for foreign companies, and now there is a successful satellite operator Hughes Brazil.
You can estimate the ratio in the number of subscribers that SpaceX expects, for example, in Greece and New Zealand there will be about 150 times less than in the United States and Canada.
Definitely, the list includes EU countries with a high level of population income and / or large population (Poland), poor or complex infrastructure (Greece with its islands), sparsely populated countries with complex geography (Australia and New Zealand, partly Chile (one of the most developed countries Latin America, but also difficult in geography)). And in all these countries, the local regulator has given SpaceX all permits to operate, plus there is a local 100% subsidiary of SpaceX.
And another interesting thing ...
Starlink may also be accepted in Russia on a narrow strip of the border of the Kaliningrad region and Poland, which runs along the 54th parallel. Considering an inclination of 53 degrees for grouping, it is physically quite possible to direct the beam northward by 1 degree.
But the question remains: what will SpaceX itself prefer: to admit that a weakened signal periodically "creeps" into Russian territory 10-20 km from the border (which is a violation of ITU rules), or simply refuse to serve the villages of Poland along its border with the Russian Federation?
It will be extremely difficult to detect the signal from the Starlink satellite - the beam is narrow, continuously jumping over service areas with a diameter of 24-70 km, and the position of the satellite in the sky for pointing the antenna needs to be known very accurately.
There will be no real interference with Russian RES in the Kaliningrad region, especially since there are practically no Russian VSAT terminals in the Kaliningrad region.
And for sure Starlink can work further south on the border of Poland with Belarus and Ukraine. Moreover, given the political realities of Ukraine: craving for the West, the status of the United States as its closest ally, and close economic relations with Poland, I do not exclude that Ukraine may allow SpaceX to operate on its territory through a gateway in Poland.
It is clear that with the current prices for the terminal and a monthly subscription fee of 99 USD + taxes, the number of subscribers in rural areas of Ukraine will be in the hundreds and thousands, which will not justify investments in a gateway, an access node, technical support, etc.
But theoretically, it is possible to provide a service without the formation of an operator on the territory of Ukraine (for example, with the acceptance of money at StarLink Germany GmbH), although at the moment such a scheme is categorically contrary to the legislation of Ukraine in the field of communications and frequency allocation.
I repeat - these are my idle speculations, but with a certain political desire “at the top” to “like” and be “in a friendly family of civilized countries” is technically possible ...