SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service will have global coverage (save for the North and South Poles) by August, Elon Musk said during a Tuesday keynote at Mobile World Congress.
Starlink targets “the most difficult-to-reach 3%, possibly 5%” of the global population, Musk said. “Think of Starlink as filling in the gaps between 5G and fiber. We’re really getting to the parts of the world that are the hardest to reach.”
Starlink is operational in 12 countries, with more added every month, he said. It has more than 1,500 satellites up, and recently topped 69,000 users. “We’re on our way to having possibly over 500,000 users within 12 months,” Musk said.
Because of the large “spot size” of the satellite beams, Starlink is “really meant for sparsely populated regions,” Musk said. “In high-density areas, we will be able to serve a limited number of customers.”
Musk and Starlink executives have never pretended at anything else. But the mystique around Musk and his companies has led to a widespread misunderstanding of Starlink’s capacity, with one survey suggesting that 60 million Americans want the service. We have a map of the rural counties we think are most in need of Starlink.
More people than Starlink directly serves will be able to take advantage of the system without knowing it, though, as the company is marketing itself to cellular firms for data backhaul, Musk said. “Using Starlink for data backhaul to their network can be a very cost effective form of data backhaul,” he said.
Making the Money Math Work
The satellite internet field is littered with companies that have been through bankruptcy or changes in ownership, and “step number one for Starlink is, don’t go bankrupt,” Musk said.
He intends to sink $5-$10 billion into the company even before it hits positive cash flow. Getting there will involve bringing equipment and launch prices down. Starlink loses money on its $499 user terminals, each of which cost the company “more than $1,000,” he said.
“Selling terminals for half price is not super compelling at scale, and over time we would like to reduce the terminal cost from $500 to $300 or $250,” he said.
Newer satellite and launch vehicle technology will also help costs, with Starlink’s upcoming “version 1.5” satellites able to network to each other to extend coverage across the Poles, and its Starship vehicles able to bring more satellites into orbit at once. “If we succeed in not going bankrupt, then that’s great, and we can go on from there,” Musk said.
