> Starlink’s special sauce is the low earth orbit.
Arguably Starlink's special sauce is quantity of satellites and massively higher bandwidths combined with high-gain, electronically steered beams on both sides (i.e. terminal and satellite).
None of these are net-new as technologies: We've had LEO based telecommunications satellites for over two decades now (Iridium and Globalstar, the former of which even has in-space forwarding as well), as well as directional beams on both sides, but rarely all in one system and never at this scale.
Arguably Starlink's special sauce is quantity of satellites and massively higher bandwidths combined with high-gain, electronically steered beams on both sides (i.e. terminal and satellite).
None of these are net-new as technologies: We've had LEO based telecommunications satellites for over two decades now (Iridium and Globalstar, the former of which even has in-space forwarding as well), as well as directional beams on both sides, but rarely all in one system and never at this scale.