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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday October 24 2019, @11:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the skynet-is-here dept.

SpaceX's Starlink division is on track to offer satellite-broadband service in the United States in mid-2020, a company official said today. Meanwhile, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted two tweets that show he's testing the broadband service.

"Sending this tweet through space via Starlink satellite," Musk wrote. Two minutes later, Musk sent a followup tweet that said, "Whoa, it worked!!"
[...]
SpaceX launched 60 satellites in May this year to test the system before preparing for a wider deployment. The company has FCC permission to deploy up to 11,943 satellites and is seeking permission to launch as many as 30,000 more.
[...]
"We need 24 launches to get global coverage," Shotwell said. "Every launch after that gives you more capacity." SpaceX previously said it could make 24 Starlink launches in 2020.
[...]
While SpaceX has said it intends to provide gigabit speeds and latency as low as 25ms, a big unanswered question is how much it will cost. SpaceX is apparently still trying to figure that out.

"Shotwell said millions of people in the US pay $80 per month to get 'crappy service,'" SpaceNews reported. "She didn't say whether Starlink will cost more or less than $80 per month but suggested that would be a segment of the public the company would target as well as rural areas that currently have no connectivity."
[...]
There are some other interesting tidbits in the SpaceNews article. SpaceX wants to offer Starlink both to home Internet users and the US government, and the company is already testing with the US Air Force Research Laboratory. "So far, SpaceX has demonstrated data throughput of 610Mbps per second in flight to the cockpit of a US military C-12 twin-engine turboprop aircraft," the SpaceNews article said.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/elon-musk-sends-tweet-via-spacexs-starlink-satellite-broadband/
https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:25PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 24 2019, @01:25PM (#911197)

    You don't need to contact a looking glass server, see, because TFS told you gigabit speed with 25ms latency. The only question you should be asking is how much to pay for the privilege of using Musk satellite internet. Open your wallet.

  • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:36PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Thursday October 24 2019, @04:36PM (#911259)

    My ATT gigabit doesn't get that.

    Musk should be making a lot of entrenched $CORPS very nervous.

    Just think of the many captive consumer options we are exposed to, and then some guy says "its 60 miles about wherever you are".

    Amazing...