Starlink satellite tv for pc web has about 90,000 customers

SpaceX added subscribers to its Starlink satellite tv for pc web service, with Elon Musk’s firm saying it now serves about 90,000 customers around the globe.

The corporate gave an replace on Starlink’s progress in a July 29 name with Federal Communications Fee officers, noting that the service now has customers in 12 international locations. The brand new person complete, which seems to depend the variety of households with a Starlink dish, marks an addition of about 20,000 customers in a month, as Musk mentioned in late June that the corporate had handed “the strategically notable variety of 69,420 energetic customers.”

Starlink is the corporate’s capital-intensive venture to construct an interconnected web community with hundreds of satellites, recognized within the house business as a constellation, designed to ship high-speed web to customers anyplace on the planet. SpaceX first rolled out the service with a beta program for choose customers for $99 a month, and previously yr has sought regulatory approval to check the community inflight and increase the service to massive shifting autos, like ships and vans.

SpaceX additionally advised the FCC that Starlink has “over half one million orders/deposits globally,” with Musk having mentioned in June that the corporate might add that many customers by summer time 2022.

Starlink is the world’s largest satellite tv for pc constellation, with greater than 1,700 satellite tv for pc launched up to now.

The corporate additionally gave the FCC an summary of the “next-generation satellites” the corporate plans to start launching. The brand new Starlink satellites will characteristic “quicker speeds,” “decrease latency,” and “extra backhaul capability” to serve extra customers, SpaceX mentioned. Latency is the quantity of delay in an web community. It measures how a lot time it takes for a sign to journey forwards and backwards from a vacation spot.

SpaceX additionally emphasised to the FCC its plans to start launching Starlink satellites with its huge Starship rockets. The corporate’s management has beforehand touted the elevated functionality Starship would convey. Its Falcon 9 rocket can launch 60 Starlink satellites at a time, however Starship would be capable of “take 400 satellites at a time,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell mentioned in 2019.