Starlink internet service - News and Discussion

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Starlink V1 satellite

Starlink - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by American aerospace company SpaceX,[3] providing coverage to over 70 countries. It also aims for global mobile phone service after 2023.[4]

SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As of early January 2024, it consists of over 5,289 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)[5] that communicate with designated ground transceivers. Nearly 12,000 satellites are planned to be deployed, with a possible later extension to 42,000. SpaceX announced reaching more than 1 million subscribers in December 2022,[6] 1.5 million subscribers in May 2023,[7] and 2 million subscribers in September 2023.[8] Starlink has had a key role in the Russo-Ukrainian War.[9]

The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing and orbit control facilities. In May 2018, SpaceX estimated the total cost of designing, building and deploying the constellation would be at least US$10 billion.[10] In January 2017 SpaceX expected annual revenue from Starlink to reach $12 billion by 2022[11] and exceed $30 billion by 2025.[12] Revenues from Starlink in 2022 were reportedly $1.4 billion accompanied by a net loss, with a small profit being reported by Musk starting in 2023.[13] This performance was characterized as "falling short" of SpaceX's growth estimates.[11][13][14][15]

Astronomers have raised concerns about the effect the constellation may have on ground-based astronomy, and how the satellites will contribute to an already congested orbital environment.[16][17] SpaceX has attempted to mitigate astronometric interference concerns with measures to reduce the satellites' brightness during operation.[18] They are equipped with Hall-effect thrusters allowing them to orbit raise, station-keep, and de-orbit at the end of their lives. They are also designed to autonomously and smoothly avoid collisions based on uplinked tracking data

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Starlink Reports 2.3 Million Customers

SpaceX says in a new company report that its Starlink division is providing service to more than 2.3M customers. That is up almost 10 times since March of last year, when an executive at Starlink said the business, which provides internet service through a fleet of satellites launched on SpaceX roc

www.barrons.com

SpaceX says in a new company report that its Starlink division is providing service to more than 2.3M customers.

That is up almost 10 times since March of last year, when an executive at Starlink said the business, which provides internet service through a fleet of satellites launched on SpaceX rockets, had 250,000 subscribers.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has talked over the years about potentially listing Starlink, which many investors see as the main driver of SpaceX's valuation.

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Starlink - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

#	Continent	Country	Debut	Notes
1	North America	United States Puerto Rico United States Virgin Islands Guam Northern Mariana Islands	Limited trials August 2020,[177] public beta November 2020[51]	Service expanded to Guam and Northern Mariana Islands in November 2023[178]
2	North America	Canada	January 2021[152]
3	Europe	United Kingdom Pitcairn Islands	January 2021[179]	Free trial in Pitcairn Islands started in November 2022.[180]
4	Europe	Germany	March 2021[181]
5	Oceania	New Zealand	April 2021[182]
6	Oceania	Australia	April 2021[183]
7	Europe	France Saint Martin Saint Barthélemy Guadeloupe Martinique	Original debut May 2021,[184][185] Revoked April 2022,[186] Re-approved June 2022[187]	Approval originally given in February 2021 but the Conseil d'État annulled that Decision on 5 April 2022 due to lack of public consultation.[186] Approval was given again after consultation was completed on 2 June 2022.[187] Service expanded to Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy in July 2022.[164] Service expanded to Martinique and Guadeloupe in September 2022.[188]
8	Europe	Austria	May 2021[184]
9	Europe	Netherlands	May 2021[189]
10	Europe	Belgium	May 2021[190]
11	Europe	Ireland	Limited trials April 2021,[191] public beta July 2021[192]
12	Europe	Denmark	July 2021[193]
13	Europe	Portugal	August 2021[194]
14	Europe	Switzerland	August 2021[195]
15	South America	Chile Easter Island	Limited trials July 2021,[196] public beta September 2021[197]	Service expanded to Easter Island in November 2022.[198]
16	Europe	Poland	September 2021[199]
17	Europe	Italy	September 2021[200]
18	Europe	Czech Republic	September 2021[201]
19	Europe	Sweden	October 2021[202]
20	North America	Mexico	November 2021[203]
21	Europe	Croatia	November 2021[204]
22	Europe	Lithuania	December 2021[205][206]
23	Europe	Spain	January 2022[207]
24	Europe	Slovakia	January 2022[208]
25	Europe	Slovenia	January 2022[209]
26	Oceania	Tonga	February 2022[210]	Emergency relief provided one month after the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption and tsunami, ground station established in neighboring Fiji for six months
27	South America	Brazil	January 2022[211][212]
28	Europe	Bulgaria	February 2022[213]
29	Europe	Ukraine	February 2022[134][214][135]	Initially supplied as emergency relief in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. See Starlink satellite services in Ukraine.
30	Europe	Romania	April 2022[215]
31	Europe	Greece	April 2022[216]
32	Europe	Latvia	April 2022[217]
33	Europe	Hungary	May 2022[218]
34	Europe	North Macedonia	June 2022[219]
35	Europe	Luxembourg	July 2022[164]
36	North America	Dominican Republic	July 2022[220]
37	Europe	Moldova	August 2022[221]
38	Europe	Estonia	August 2022[222]
39	Europe	Norway	August 2022[223]
40	Europe	Malta	September 2022[149]
41	Asia	Iran	September 2022[224]	Activated in response to Iranian censorship as a result of Iranian protests against compulsory hijab.[225]
42	Asia	Japan	October 2022[226]	First in Asia[contradictory].
43	North America	Jamaica	October 2022[227]
44	Europe	Finland	November 2022[228]
45	South America	Peru	January 2023[229]
46	Africa	Nigeria	January 2023[230]	First in Africa.
47	South America	Colombia	January 2023[231]
48	Europe	Iceland	February 2023[232]
49	Africa	Rwanda	February 2023[233]
50	Asia	Philippines	February 2023[234][235]
51	North America	Haiti	March 2023[236]
52	South America	Ecuador	March 2023[237]
53	North America	El Salvador	April 2023[238]
54	North America	Panama	May 2023[239]
55	Africa	Mozambique	June 2023[240]
56	South America	Trinidad and Tobago	June 2023[241]
57	Europe	Cyprus	July 2023[242]
58	North America	Guatemala	July 2023[243]
59	Africa	Kenya	July 2023[244]
60	Asia	Malaysia	July 2023[245]
61	Africa	Malawi	July 2023[246]
62	North America	Bahamas	August 2023[247]
63	Africa	Zambia	October 2023[248]
64	Europe	Georgia	November 2023[249]
65	Africa	Benin	November 2023[250]
66	Asia	Maldives	November 2023[251]
67	North America	Costa Rica	November 2023[252]
68	North America	Honduras	December 2023[253]
69	Africa	Eswatini	December 2023
70	South America	Paraguay	December 2023

 

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SpaceX says in a new company report that its Starlink division is providing service to more than 2.3M customers.

The key here is how safe from censorship will the provision of such crucial pipelines to the outside world be for its consumers?

 

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The key here is how safe from censorship will the provision of such crucial pipelines to the outside world be for its consumers?

 

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https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-mini-dish-coming-later-this-year-elon-musk-says

Starlink Mini Dish Coming Later This Year, Elon Musk Says​

The dish will be small enough to fit into a backpack, SpaceX's CEO says. Musk also talks about the upcoming cellular Starlink service, which will offer 7Mbps in bandwidth per cell.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says a portable version of Starlink is set to arrive in the coming months.

“We’ll be introducing the Starlink mini later this year, which can fit in a backpack,” he said in a speech to SpaceX employees.

On Friday, SpaceX took to Twitter/X to post Musk’s speech, which provided an update on the company’s businesses, including the progress in expanding Starlink, its satellite internet service.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

Back in September, the FCC approved SpaceX’s application to operate the Starlink mini dish, which is supposed to be the size of a MacBook. But the company had been quiet about the product until now.

No pricing, specs, or image were provided. But Musk said the model will be "pretty cool for anyone who wants a very portable Starlink.”

In his speech, Musk also talked about the company’s next-generation “standard” Starlink dish, which the company began inviting users to order in November. The hardware itself costs $599, the same price as the current second-generation dish. However, Musk signaled that the new Standard dish costs less for SpaceX to manufacture.

“We’ve now shipped our next-gen hardware. That’s version four of the user terminal. So that allows us to lower the cost of Starlink,” he said. (Meanwhile, users have told PCMag the next-generation dish seems to excel at delivering more consistent higher download speeds and better upload rates.)

(Credit: SpaceX)

Previously, a single Starlink dish cost $3,000 to produce, but the company has been steadily driving down the manufacturing costs. This has involved opening a new Starlink factory in Texas, which Musk referred to in his speech.

The company’s other major goal is to operate a cellular version of Starlink that can beam data to phones on the ground, giving a way for consumers to digitally communicate even in the most remote regions. On Thursday, SpaceX demonstrated that the technology works, successfully relaying text messages from a batch of newly launched “Direct to Cell” Starlink satellites to unmodified phones on the ground.

 

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Starlink now targeting internet providers

https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlinks-latest-offering-gigabit-gateways-starting-at-75000-per-month

Starlink's Latest Offering: Gigabit Gateways Starting at $75,000 Per Month​

These 'Community Gateways' promise to help internet service providers bring high-speed internet to remote areas. But the business program isn't cheap.



SpaceX is advertising a new Starlink service that can deliver gigabit speeds for the satellite internet service—but only if customers pay $1.25 million up front.

In return, SpaceX won’t just send a dish; it’ll help build an entire facility dedicated to receiving up to 10Gbps in broadband speeds from the company’s fleet of orbiting satellites.

The company has updated Starlink.com site to promote the new “Community Gateways” option. The offer isn’t a new service tier for consumers, but rather a business program meant to appeal to internet service providers trying to find ways to bring high-speed broadband to remote areas.

(Credit: Starlink.com)
“With Community Gateways, Starlink satellites are able to deliver fiber-like speeds with local providers distributing connectivity to homes, businesses, and governments using last-mile fiber, fixed wireless and mobile wireless,” SpaceX said on its website.


In September, the company revealed it had built its first Community Gateway for residents of Unalaska, a town located on an island near Alaska. Local ISP OptimERA is now using the satellite connectivity from the gateway to bolster the broadband for most of its customer base.

The Starlink site adds: “Our first Community Gateway on the remote island of Unalaska, Alaska, is able to provide 10 gigabits of symmetric uplink and downlink throughput, enough to serve thousands of new customers while operating at over 99% uptime.”

Images of the Community Gateway in Unalaska also show that the equipment looks very similar to Starlink’s existing ground station facilities, which are connected to fiber networks and beam internet to the company's orbiting satellites above.

It now appears SpaceX has decided to take the Community Gateway concept and expand it to all interested ISPs. But the offering won’t be cheap. In addition to the $1.25 million upfront fee, the company plans on charging business customers $75,000 per Gbps per month. ISPs will also need to provide the land, power, and “lifting equipment.”

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Unalaska, AK (Dutch Harbor)​

 

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Here comes the avalanche of businesses seeing the advantages of Starlink when leveraged for worldwide markets

https://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/john-deere-taps-starlink-connect-autonomous-tractors

John Deere taps Starlink to connect autonomous tractors​

Farmers access data from John Deere's connected vehicles via a smartphone app.

John Deere has chosen SpaceX’s Starlink low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network to supplement LTE coverage for farmers using its connected and autonomous farm machinery. The agriculture equipment maker spent more than a year reviewing proposals from satellite providers before announcing Starlink as its choice.

“We are bringing satellite communications service to the farm at scale so farmers with cellular coverage challenges can maximize the value of connectivity to their operations,” said Jahmy Hindman, SVP and CTO at John Deere, in a statement.

Farmers who want to connect their equipment to the satellites can have a Starlink terminal installed directly on their machines if they’re compatible with the new solution, the companies said. The vehicles are also equipped with Deere’s JDLink LTE modems, which the company manufactures itself.

The machines will try to connect to LTE, and if they cannot reach a tower they will use the satellite network, explained Doug Sauder, director of produce management and user experience at John Deere. In the U.S., Deere’s connected farm equipment uses AT&T’s LTE network.

Farmers connect to their machines through Deere’s Operations Center app, which gives them a real-time view of their equipment, as well as status reports about the land they’re working on. The app is part of a cloud platform that also supplies users with information about emissions and soil health. The sustainability tools in Deere’s Operations Center app earned the company an honoree designation at the CES Innovation Awards this year.

The app gets its data from sensors and smart cameras deployed on John Deere’s tractors, which connect to an onboard processing unit and to the AWS cloud. Time-sensitive information is communicated to the farmer at once, while the rest of the data goes to the cloud, where it is processed and analyzed to prepare extensive reports which the farmers use to determine optimal use of labor, fertilizer and other resources. It’s also aggregated with input from thousands of other connected farm vehicles, creating a valuable dataset for Deere.

Autonomous tractors

Connectivity enables tractors to share data in real-time, and for some of them it also enables autonomous operation. Sauder said tractors can currently till the fields on their own, and by 2030 Deere wants to automate all steps of farming, including tillage, planting, fertilizing and harvesting.

Sauder said autonomous tillage is important because in the fall months, farmers often need to harvest and till at the same time. The labor supply can be tight, and they need people to drive combine harvesters and trucks headed to crop storage facilities. So they might have to delay tillage, potentially jeopardizing the next planting season.

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Deere demonstrated its autonomous tractor at CES, controlling a vehicle in Central Texas from the Las Vegas show floor. The company showed how farmers can use the app to accelerate, steer and stop the tractor, and how the tractor sends alerts through the app if it encounters something unexpected in the field.

“The SATCOM solution unlocks the John Deere tech stack so every farmer can fully utilize their current precision agriculture technology in addition to the new innovative solutions they will deploy in the future,” said Hindman.

Satellite backup​

Last year, a Deere executive predicted 10-15% of the company’s connected machines will ultimately rely on satellites. He said Deere would target speeds of 5 Mbps for both the uplink and the downlink via satellite.

SpaceX has already launched more than 5,000 Starlink satellites, and has said it wants to more than double that number. So far, the service has been marketed primarily to consumers, but the company is expanding its enterprise business in several forms. In addition to the deal with Deere, SpaceX has a partnership with T-Mobile to provide satellite connectivity directly to cell phones. And earlier this week, BT confirmed it’s talking to Starlink about possibly using the LEO satellites to improve connectivity for its customers. BT reportedly wants to use the satellites to supplement its existing network, but it does not plan to sell terminals to consumers to use as their primary internet connections.

Starlink itself has sold millions of the terminals and recently told the Federal Communications Commission it has 2.2 million internet customers worldwide, 1.3 million of whom are in the United States. The company shared these numbers with the FCC in December, after the agency reaffirmed its decision to deny Starlink access to the government’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, which the satellite operator wanted to use to subsidize the buildout of its network. The FCC said Starlink “failed to demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.” Starlink’s initial application said the satellites could deliver 100 Mbps on the downlink and 20 Mbps on the uplink.