Elon Musk's SpaceX satellite internet provider, Starlink, will increase the service's speed later this year. The world's richest man tweeted that the goal is to have Starlink double the speed it currently offers which goes from 50 to 150 Mbps at the moment. Musk announced this in a reply to another tweet in which a user claimed to have received Starlink's beta kit.
Last October, Elon Musk started offering the beta version of Starlink to customers. The equipment is sold for $499 and the service costs an additional $99 monthly. Starlink announced that the service will vary from 50 to 150 Mbps with latency from 20 to 40ms during the first stages while the system is consolidated. Since the service is still in beta mode, connectivity issues shall be expected as well.
Elon Musk tweeted about what is coming up for Starlink during this year. He stated that the service's latency is expected to improve to 20ms as some users are experiencing current latencies of up to 44ms. Musk also mentioned that the goal is to get Starlink up to 300Mbps by the end of this year. In order to provide global coverage, at least 1000 satellites need to be launched so that the service can be offered worldwide.
At the moment, around 900 satellites have been launched but not all of them are operational as some of them failed to launch and others were removed by SpaceX. This year, SpaceX launched four other satellites and there are five other launches programmed for March. So far, all satellites were successfully meaning that, to this moment, there are almost 1145 in orbit.
Starlink's goal of offering 300Mbps is not unprecedented. Certainly, such internet speeds are also offered by other service providers. However, what makes Starlink such an interesting project is the idea of reaching places that no other service provider has been able to reach yet. So far, Starlink has 10 thousand registered users and is expected to get more as pre-orders have been opened to the public.
Even though some users have experienced decent speeds at around 100Mbps, Musk's promise of reaching 300Mbps should not be taken for granted. Previously, Musk's Mars project was also known to be glamourized to obtain funding. Even before sending a living crew into space, Elon Musk was heavily advertising the Mars colonization project at an event in Guadalajara, Mexico. Ultimately, the Starlink project is also going to serve for the Mars colonization project as the profits for the internet service will help fund SpaceX's upcoming plans.
Source: The Verge