We are no strangers to total internet shutdowns — a time where all our communication devices are rendered useless in this country. Well, Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has launched more than 1,000 satellites for its Starlink internet service and is signing up early customers in several countries including the U.S., U.K. and Canada. SpaceX has told investors that Starlink is angling for a piece of a $1 trillion market made up of in-flight internet, maritime services, demand in highly populated countries, and remote rural customers.
SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, California, is primarily known for launching rockets for global satellite operators, the U.S. military, and NASA. Last year, SpaceX made history by becoming the first private company to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. Starlink marks SpaceX’s first foray into a truly consumer-facing product. Maintaining strong service while growing the customer base is something SpaceX has never tried before.
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The cost of a starlink connection
Whit the recent closure of Google’s Project Loon, that some citizens had some in people are now exploring other solutions. But clearly this is not a cheap solution at least for now. According to Starlink testers who have used the service since November 2020 initial costs of equipment is about UGX 1.8 million ($500) for the equipment, which includes a flat dish and antenna. Beta testers have been paying about UGX 365k ($99) a month for speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second for downloads and 15 to 20 for uploads — far faster, than any 4G network we have tested.
This will be a huge disruption in the telecoms space given the massive coverage that satellite technology offers. Space X has been able to achieve this by launching Starlink satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets in batches of 60 at a time, and the 17th Starlink launch was on Jan. 20. There are now roughly 960 functioning satellites in orbit, heralding an age of mega-constellations that have prompted worries about visual pollution for astronomers.
But the Starlink array in low-Earth orbit, closer to the planet than traditional satellites, is enough to enable SpaceX to roll out service globally. As SpaceX sends up more satellites, the coverage area will grow, expanding the potential customer base — and revenue stream — beyond the initial stages of today.
The competition & Regulation
There is no doubt that Starlink will be facing plenty of competition. While fiber optic cable is widely considered too expensive to lay down in remote regions and many rural locations, cellular connectivity is expected to make big advances with 5G and then 6G. It is the massive government internet shut downs in some countries that will make their service worthwhile. However their service may not be accepted in certain countries where internet control is under the tight group of its leaders and we expect the company to work with individual countries in order to roll out their service especially when it come to building ground stations in different geographic areas.
What we know for sure is that as they launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will all improve dramatically. The company is currently accepting beta testers to try out its service in the USA.
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