In a public filing to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealed that its Starlink satellite internet service has “over 10,000 users in the United States and abroad.”
The filing was part of a petition to have the FCC designate Starlink as an ‘Eligible Telecommunications Carrier’ (ETC), which would allow it to provide service to regions in states like Alabama, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
CNBCreports that SpaceX was awarded access to those regions under the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunities Fund, an auction seeking to bring broadband services to rural areas.
SpaceX began its public beta program for its Starlink satellite internet last October and according to a public filing, the service now has over 10,000 users in the US and abroad. Starlink s performance is not theoretical or experiment… [and] is rapidly accelerating in real time as part of its public beta program, SpaceX wrote in the Thursday filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The Elon Musk-owned firm also reveals Starlink s service is meeting and exceeding 100/20 megabits per second (Mbps) throughout individual users and many are seeing latency at or below 31 milliseconds.
The public beta program, which is available in the US, Canada and the UK, has a $99 a month fee, plus an up-front cost of $499 for the Starlink Kit that includes the UFO on a stick terminal, mounting tripod and WiFi router.
SpaceX says its Starlink satellite internet service now has over 10,000 users
CNBC 2/4/2021 Michael Sheetz
Elon Musk s SpaceX disclosed on Thursday that its Starlink satellite internet service now has over 10,000 users in the United States and abroad.
SpaceX began a public beta program of Starlink in October, with service priced at $99 a month, in addition to a $499 upfront cost to order the Starlink Kit, which includes a user terminal and Wi-Fi router to connect to the satellites.
Starlink is SpaceX s ambitious project to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet.
Alabama urgently needs broadband for every community and family
Updated Dec 10, 2020;
By Marsha Folsom | Resource Fiber
When people ask how to bring business and jobs to our state, particularly in disadvantaged rural areas, I readily quip . broadband and bamboo.
My partners and I co-founded Resource Fiber, LLC nine years ago and we are the only American company bringing bamboo growing and manufacturing – a $60 billion industry dominated by China – to the U.S. beginning in the state of Alabama. We’re generating high-wage jobs in low-income communities. We manufacture high-value industrial products and we are introducing a high-dollar cash crop to local areas suffering from high poverty rates, stagnant wages and out-migration.