SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter yesterday that the company has shipped 100,000 Starlink broadband satellite internet terminals in North America and Europe. He also shared a list of countries in which the Starlink high-bandwidth low-latency broadband is currently available (listed below).
Musk also said that SpaceX is seeking to expand the Starlink internet service globally, “Our license applications are pending in many more countries. Hoping to serve Earth soon,” he tweeted.
The Starlink satellite internet service expansion started in the UK, New Zealand, and Germany earlier this year in March. Now the service has spread across the following 14 countries:
- United States
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- France
- Austria
- Netherlands
- Ireland
- Belgium
- Switzerland
- Denmark
- Portugal
- New Zealand
- Australia
My friend and Tesla owner Steven Peeters was one of the first Starlink customers in Belgium. He received his Starlink dish (Dishy McFlatface) back in May this year. Steven also happens to be a Tesla YouTuber so he posted the following first impressions and unboxing video of the Starlink terminal.
Although he lives in a densely populated city of Belgium and has access to high-speed broadband internet (850 Mbps down / 50 Mbps up), Steven bought Starlink for testing, review, and helping SpaceX in its mission to Mars.
Starlink also comes with a mobile app that lets the user find the best spot or placing the dish antenna. The “check for obstructions” option at the application start page (both iOS and Android) asks the user to tilt their phone up and then sideways to allow the app to find an unobstructed area which allows for maximum bandwidth inflow.
Speedtest.net score gave a max 251 Mbps download and 35.8 Mbps upload speed of the Starlink satellite broadband internet in Belgium when Steven tested it back in May 2021 (screenshot and video below).
Transporter 2 was the last mission on 30th June 2021 when SpaceX sent 3 laser-linked Starlink satellites to the polar orbit. The total number of Starlink satellites launched to date is 1,740 of which 121 units were either deorbited or failed. So the total number of currently working Starlinks is 1,619 of which 1,414 are operational (source: Wikipedia).
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