On Tuesday, SpaceX’s Starlink began taking orders for its satellite broadband Internet service. This moves the service from the beta stage to the point where it is open and generally available to the public.
Users who wish to subscribe to the service can do so through the Starlink website. They are required to enter their email and physical addresses. Depending on the location, they may be eligible for a connection in the middle towards the end of this year.
Image source: Getty Images.
To date, only interested parties in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom are eligible for pre-order registration. Starlink says that the required $ 99 fee – incidentally, the monthly service charge – is refundable, although receiving a connection is not guaranteed. After a user’s addresses are entered, a payment page informs that orders are being fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis.
Starlink is yet another space-themed venture in which Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO and handlebar Elon Musk is involved. SpaceX is approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to deploy a “constellation” of 11,943 Starlink satellites in orbit for the project. These will provide broadband internet service, promised with low latency (lag), worldwide.
So far, just over 1,000 Starlink satellites have been launched into orbit. The beta program started in October and, according to the company, has more than 10,000 users. These people were forced to buy a $ 499 kit to set up their access. This package includes a satellite dish and a WiFi router to channel the signal.
Unlike Tesla, Starlink – as part of SpaceX – is privately held. But Musk, who brought Tesla to the stock market in 2010, said that Starlink would eventually be spun off and made public. He did give some details about when this might happen, however.