Starlink is SpaceX’s satellite Internet network that already has more than 1,700 operational satellites in orbit. The service is operational in a large part of the United States, and can already be contracted in European countries such as the United Kingdom. In the second half of the year it will be possible to hire in Spain, and now its president has set a date.
Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX , has stated that the SpaceX satellite network will be fully operational worldwide from September. Thanks to this, it will be possible to hire it from any area and have coverage. However, although they can offer service, the company has to receive approval from the regulatory entities of each country before being able to offer services as an operator.
Worldwide coverage: Starlink has enough satellites
The company affirms that it already has 100,000 active users using the service, and they have 500,000 more registered people who have already paid for the reservation and are waiting to receive the equipment and start using the service. The company is suffering from the problems of chip and component shortages worldwide, and for this reason they cannot manufacture as many antennas and terminals as they would like, hence the deployment continues to go somewhat slow.
Starlink is operational in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, but they have already registered subsidiaries in Austria, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, France, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines. , South Africa and Spain .
Watch out for the heat and Starlink antennas
A few days ago we learned that the Starlink antenna does not work well at all if there is a lot of heat in the environment. One user claimed that when it reached nearly 50 degrees Celsius where he lives in Arizona, the antenna went off and he was unable to use the internet. As soon as the temperature dropped to about 40 degrees, he was able to use it again. The antenna is white in color to avoid unnecessary excess temperatures, but this is indicative that we will have to be careful where we place the antenna.
SpaceX is working on new designs for the antenna that make it more compact, so it would not be unusual for them to make models oriented to high temperature areas with built-in ventilation in the future. They are currently trying to reduce the cost of manufacturing, as they have been selling the first equipment at a loss. The manufacturing cost , however, has not stopped falling since they began to manufacture them.
The price of the reservation is 99 euros , with a hardware cost of 499 euros , to which must be added 60 euros for shipping , since they are manufactured in the United States and shipped from there. Their goal is to manufacture millions of these antennas in a plant that they are going to create in Austin (Texas). In addition, the Internet access fee is 99 euros per month .