Elon Musk\u2019s satellite network Starlink is on track to beam broadband internet everywhere in the world except the polar regions by August.<\/p>\n
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has launched more than 1,500 satellites so far and has Starlink operations in about a dozen countries, Musk said during a presentation at the Mobile World Congress conference on Tuesday. That\u2019s costing a lot. SpaceX\u2019s total investment in the network will be between $5 billion and $10 billion before cash flow is positive, he said.<\/p>\n
Some $20 billion or $30 billion may be needed in the longer term to maintain Starlink\u2019s competitive position, Musk added. The service, which has more than 69,000 active users, may reach half a million in the next 12 months, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is not to go bankrupt,\u201d he joked, referencing the tumultuous history of the industry. \u201cStep No. 1 for Starlink is don\u2019t go bankrupt. If we succeed in not going bankrupt then that\u2019ll be great and we can move on from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX aims to offer broadband to as much as 5% of the world\u2019s population where conventional fiber and wireless networks can\u2019t reach. Musk said he\u2019s signed two deals with \u201cmajor country\u201d telecom operators but he couldn\u2019t name them yet, and he\u2019s in discussions with more. Starlink will provide so-called \u201cdata back haul\u201d spines for their networks. The satellite network currently moves about 30 terabits of data per second, and Musk said he\u2019s targeting a user latency — or network response time — of less than 20 milliseconds.<\/p>\n
Musk, who turned 50 on Monday, discussed several additional upgrades in the works during an update on the $74 billion SpaceX business.<\/p>\n
The company is set to launch a new version of Starlink\u2019s satellites next year that will have inter-satellite laser links to help them cover polar regions. Its engineers are developing a new ground terminal to stem losses: the dishes customers are currently installing on rooftops cost more than $1,000 to make but only retail for half that, he said.<\/p>\n
SpaceX is also planning an orbital flight of its giant Starship rocket \u201cin the next few months\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk\u2019s satellite network Starlink is on track to beam broadband internet everywhere in the world except the polar regions by August. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has launched more than 1,500 satellites so far and has Starlink operations in about a dozen countries, Musk said during a presentation at the Mobile World Congress conference on Tuesday. That\u2019s costing a lot. SpaceX\u2019s total investment in the network will be between $5 billion and $10 billion before cash flow is positive, he said. Some $20 billion or $30 billion may be needed in the longer term to maintain Starlink\u2019s competitive position, Musk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-798683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}