Oliver Haslam·

Elon Musk’s Starlink Internet Service Will Be Available Worldwide This August

Elon Musk says that his Starlink satellite broadband service will be available worldwide this August, although there are caveats. The main one? North and South Poles will be out of luck.

Musk made the announcement via a video call at the virtual Mobile World Congress 2021 event, as reported by CNET.

Musk says that Starlink is now available in around a dozen countries, with new ones being added monthly.

“We are on our way to having a few hundred thousand users, possibly over 500,000 users within 12 months,” Musk said. Starlink had about 10,000 users as of February, but this month it neared the 70,000 mark, Musk said.

The Starlink system is made up of more than 1,800 low-orbit satellites that have been launched by SpaceX. The system’s low orbit means for a relatively low latency connection, while the fact the satellites are in space means they can reach corners of the globe that might otherwise be without high-speed internet access. Not including the north and south poles, of course.

 

“The latency for the Starlink system is similar to latency for ground-based fiber and 5G, so we’re expecting to get latency down under 20 milliseconds,” Musk said.

Hardware for Spacelink costs around $1300, but Starlink charges just $499. A subscription fee is also required to keep the service running, of course.

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