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Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX. A?
- Elon Musk said SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service should be “fully mobile” this year.
- This would allow Starlink customers to use it at different addresses and in moving vehicles.
- Musk also said Friday that Starlink could be out of beta this summer.
- See more articles on the Insider business page.
Elon Musk he said on Friday that SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Starlink, should be “fully mobile” by the end of the year, which means customers can use it in moving vehicles or at different addresses.
Musk also posted on Twitter that Starlink will “probably” be out of beta this summer. More than 10,000 people have signed up for Starlink since its launch of “Better Than Nothing Beta” in October 2020.
During beta, customers can’t move their hardware from address to address – they can only use it where they registered it.
-Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 15, 2021
In March, Musk filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission for Starlink to become mobile, which would allow customers to operate Internet service on ships, planes, RVs and trucks – but not Tesla cars, which are not large enough to carry the Starlink terminal.
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In the request, David Goldman, policy director for SpaceX, said the expansion would “serve the public interest” and “allow operators and passengers to access services that increase productivity.”
Musk also posted on Twitter that “Starlink service uptime, bandwidth and latency are improving rapidly.” In February, Musk promised that the speed of Starlink’s Internet would double and that latency would decrease by the end of 2021. Insider previously reported that Starlink subscribers were getting internet faster than SpaceX said they should expect.
Even at freezing temperatures, strong winds and snow, Starlink has reached speeds of 175 Mbps, users told Insider.
SpaceX has already launched 1,300 Starlink satellites into orbit and eventually wants up to 42,000 to orbit the Earth.
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