Share with friends and circle of friends with wechat scan QR code < / P > < p > US local time on Tuesday, Elon Musk is expected to disclose the latest progress of SpaceX's satellite internet broadband service Starlink at the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC). However, this ambitious project is facing two major obstacles: high cost and unpredictable demand < p > < / P > < p > Don Joyce, a senior executive of Nokia, is working at his home in a remote lakeside cottage in Canada. Recently, he gave up the hopelessly slow phone line connection and switched to the satellite broadband service provided by SpaceX. He said that although he had to spend C $600 (US $486) on Star link hardware and a monthly subscription fee of C $150 (US $120), when uploading videos or watching movies, the speed of star link was "dazzling." However, as a test customer of star chain service, Joyce encountered problems when using Microsoft teams and zoom. "If you live in a city and have other Internet Options, I don't recommend star link," he said. But if you live in a remote village and the Internet service is very poor, the star chain is definitely your first choice. " For musk, the success of his Starlink project depends on the number of customers like Joyce < p > many people are concerned about the fate of the star chain. People familiar with the program said that if the service is successful, it could significantly expand the global broadband Internet coverage, connect Tesla cars, and even provide a new platform for traders and other people with special Internet needs. But to achieve these goals, it must first avoid the fate of previous similar Satellite Internet projects. "If we don't go bankrupt, it's going to be a big step forward and that's our goal," Musk said last year < p > in October 2020, SpaceX's star chain department launched the "better than nothing" beta test program in the United States, with data transmission speed as high as 150 Mbps, attracting many people to try. Early reviews of the network were mixed, and many users complained about the problem that has always plagued the satellite Internet, that is, being vulnerable to bad weather. The recent heat wave has caused new problems Gwynne shotwell, President of SpaceX, said in April that the company "still has a lot of work to do" to make the network more reliable. However, as more satellites are launched and other technical improvements are made, satellite chain services should be improved. So far, SpaceX has launched more than 1700 satellites weighing about 260 kg, and the total number is expected to exceed 40000 However, the huge cost of building star chain network is still daunting. Musk once said that the star chain can provide services to less than 5% of Internet users, but it can still generate $30 billion a year. Critics, however, call this a wishful thinking < p > Tim Farrar, President and analyst of TMF associates, asked: "will there be thousands of users at the current high price? In most parts of the world, if you tell people that broadband services cost $100 a month, they'll be unbelievable. " There may also be rich people in remote areas, "but not many," farar said. He said it would also be difficult for star chain to obtain enough capacity to support this level of demand, especially when people consume more data to watch videos. That would mean "a lot of extra spending on satellite upgrades and adding more satellites." < p > the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States has provided nearly $900 million in subsidies for the star chain to introduce the Internet into rural areas, which may alleviate the problem of high pricing. Novel coronavirus pneumonia highlights the necessity of accessing the high quality Internet anywhere in the world, SpaceX vice president Jonathan Hofeller (Jonathan Hofeller) said. p> < p > more importantly, SpaceX said it could reduce costs by producing its own satellite antennas and satellites. According to people familiar with the matter, SpaceX has hired engineers from chip manufacturers such as Broadcom and Qualcomm to design its own communication chips, which is similar to Tesla's approach < p > shotville said in April this year that SpaceX has reduced the cost of satellite antenna by more than half from $3000, and it is expected that the cost will drop to several hundred dollars in the next one to two years. "Reducing the cost of satellite chain antennas may sound mundane, but it's actually the most difficult technical challenge we face," Musk tweeted last year The < p > Star chain also benefits from SpaceX's low-cost launch capability. "When you have a part of the technology stack, you can do things that are really complex technically at affordable cost," says Misha leybovich, a former sales director at Starlink However, the competition is bound to be fierce. Kuiper, Amazon's subsidiary, has a project that directly competes with star chain, and oneweb, which has recently been aided by the British government and Bharti group in India, has vowed to join the competition. Meanwhile, ground telecom providers are competing to deploy high-speed 5g broadband services < p > the rapid popularization of wireless and terrestrial broadband, coupled with high prices, is an important factor to stifle the previous LEO Satellite Internet project. Iridium communications, a company invested by Motorola, went bankrupt after spending billions of dollars, while teldesic, a company invested by Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft, suffered a similar fate < p > Matthew Desch, chief executive of iridium communications, said SpaceX, Amazon and many other companies had "set off a very fierce competition, and no one was absolutely sure whether there was a big enough market."（ Small) < / P > < p >