News flows daily from the wellspring of SpaceX and its Starlink Roam (formerly known as “RV”) subsidiary. Often it has to do with the rapid increase in the Starlink and Starlink Roam subscriber bases. The overall Starlink satellite broadband user base is 1.5 million, with Starlink Roam surpassing 300,000 users.
- Sometimes, the news is about SpaceX satellite orbiter deployment achievements. So far in 2023, SpaceX has blasted 32 rockets into space, and last week a Falcon 9 rocket propelled another 56 V1.5 satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). There have now been more than 4,000 Starlink satellites launched en route to a total of as many as 42,000.
- At this point, SpaceX/Starlink revenue exceeds $3 billion annually from broadband customers, including individuals and small land-based businesses, commercial maritime transportation subscribers, yachts, cruise ships, and airlines. Wall Street is beginning to take notice, with financial industry pundits beginning to forecast an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Starlink’s future. This makes sense because as the company reaches revenue and profit objectives set by Elon Musk, it would naturally follow that the technology pioneer would take his company public.
- Though it is presently unknown what the Starlink market cap or offering price might be at the time of an IPO, it is reasonable to believe that it will be a good investment, given everything the companies have achieved. The enterprise appears to be on track to reach $30 billion in annual revenue, the early stated goal of founder and CEO Elon Musk.
- AT&T weighed in on May 18, 2023, with a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against the SpaceX/T-Mobile joint venture aimed at increasing cell coverage worldwide and eliminating areas of unreliable coverage. You can read the complaint here. The essence of the dispute is that AT&T is raising concerns that the SpaceX/T-Mobile initiative would interfere with terrestrial cell phone coverage. It is reasonable to expect that engineers from SpaceX and T-Mobile, as well as the FCC’s own technical staff, will be able to assuage AT&T’s concerns in the weeks ahead.
- China launching satellites for a low Earth orbit broadband constellation to challenge SpaceX’s Starlink. GalaxySpace launched six test satellites into LEO in 2022 and is ramping up plans along with the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) to begin launching a large array during Q3 or Q4 2023. A Long March 8 rocket will be coupled with a Yuanzheng-2 second stage and launched from the Wenchang spaceport in the second half of the year. China’s goal is to achieve the launch of up to 13,000 satellites in LEO for its “Guowang” network to rival Starlink and other Western ventures.
- SpaceX offers new U.S. customers a $100 discount on Starlink satellite internet hardware kits. The discount is available for the standard Starlink dish through retail giants Best Buy and Home Depot. As of Thursday, both retailers have reduced the regular $599 price tag to $499.
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Starlink Roam has been great for us, although the two price increases have made us cringe. We’ve used it from Northern Idaho to eastern North Carolina and everywhere in between mostly without any issues.
Loving our Starlink setup here out west! We used it all winter as a snowbird in Arizona and are continuing to as we travel through Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and Eastern Nevada! It’s simple to setup, is online within minutes and we have speeds that allow for uninterrupted streaming, online video calls, and all the usual Internet needs we have on the road.
We depended on cellular solutions for years, having hotspots and plans on each of the big three networks. But – as those who travel the vast reaches of the western United States know, there are many, many areas with no cellular service, especially for the Internet use scenarios described above. Starlink solves that problem for us!
As always, your mileage may vary!
Thank you! Still not a customer, but good to follow the progress, both in terms of coverage AND pricing. My choice of RV internet access might flip from cell phone/hotspot to satellite as things on both sides change.
The alphabet soup used here could be confusing, for many years LEO meant Law Enforcement Officer, now it’s low earth orbit. WOW. meaning wow!
Maybe verizon and tmobile should concentrate more on the services they promise rather than law suites and sports stadiums. In North Florida my neighbors and I do not have cell phone service until we reach the bigger cities. Complaints do no good. I would not trust the even more expensive services of the twitter fixer either. He is all fluff
Where in north FL are you located? I’ve been all over FL and never lost cell service. Now ATT has limited areas of coverage but I still had service through other carriers.
“All fluff”? Have you ever heard of Tesla or SpaceX?
Seems to be working out. That’s a Lotta fluff stuff.
Besides not desiring to give Apartheid Boy any money, the costs for Starlink are vastly more than I want to pay. When there’s no cell service for hot spot, no park wifi, I can read a book or just sit out and enjoy nature. $1800/yr + $600 for the equipment? Hard pass.
I’m guessing no problem sending a known race divider money though? You know, the guy who when he was a senator filibustered the Civil Rights Act and said at the time he didnt want to turn our schools into “racial jungles.” And “You ain’t black” both quotes attributable to JB himself.
Just checking for the consistency in your chant of racial outrage.
100% fluff please give me “meat and potatoes” like upload and download speeds, cost per month, caps on data…
Visit the Starlink website for most of your needs. Speed varies based on how many people are trying to use it at the same time. We get 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload on a regular basis. $120 per month for Residential service in Texas area. Your speeds may vary and ours may also. I have been using it since April 2002 since T-Mobile and ATT quit providing service to our local area. So Starlink was our only option.
2002?
10mi south of Corning, NY. Download speed varies 40-200 megabits/sec. Averages around 100. Upload is around 20 megabits. Latency 20-30 ms. No glitches in the month or so we’ve been using it. Happy so far.
$120/month basic plan is what we pay. $150/month is the basic roaming plan.
No data caps on either. On land use only.