SpaceX’s satellite-based Internet service Starlink has more than one million active subscribers, the company claimed.
The rocket company made the announcement on Twitter, the social media company owned by its CEO, Elon Musk.
Caleb Henry, satellite and space sector senior analyst at Quilty, noted that “at this rate, Starlink is months away from eclipsing Hughes (which has ~1.2M subs) as the world’s largest satellite-based consumer Internet provider.”
Back in September, Musk said that the company had manufactured one million terminals, around two years after the service launched. However, as new users came online, individual speeds have declined – something that is expected to improve with further satellite launches.
This month, SpaceX filed a request to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to equip its second-generation Starlink satellites with direct-to-cellular hardware. The FCC previously approved the company’s Starlink Gen2 application for the deployment of 7,500 satellites.
This year, SpaceX also announced a partnership with T-Mobile to use Starlink to bring Internet services to remote areas of the US.
Source: datacenterdynamics.com
