Starlink – the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband provider backed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture – has indicated that it will emerge from its beta testing phase next month. The time frame was revealed by Musk himself, via a discussion on Twitter.
The number of pre-orders for the service has now topped 600,000, although SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen recently disclosed that the company was only producing 5,000 Starlink satellite dishes per week. However, the firm is confident of meeting the backlog when it boosts its manufacturing programme later this year.
TeleGeography notes that SpaceX seeks to become the world’s first high speed, low-latency satellite ISP, coordinating the largest fleet of operating satellites to deliver a consistent broadband service to the most disconnected areas. The public beta programme commenced in October 2020 and Starlink began accepting pre-orders – priced at USD99 – in February this year.
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2021/09/20/starlink-to-emerge-from-beta-next-month-musk-says/
