Tag: Elon Musk

Speed abstract

Will Starlink Double Speeds This Year?

Christian Leave a comment

When I got invited to Starlink’s beta, the company included this message in my invitation email:

During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.

Yesterday, a Starlink user tweeted a screenshot showing a download speed of 130Mbps and a latency of 44ms. Here’s the reply Elon Musk left:

It’s an audacious goal. While some tests with Starlink have already shown sub-20ms latency, that kind of performance is far from typical. Getting speeds to 300Mbps this year would be a real accomplishment.

In the last several months, Musk has made a handful of bold predictions. He has claimed humans will probably land on Mars in the next 6 years and that Tesla will be capable of Level 5 autonomous driving by the end of 2021. While I don’t think either of those predictions will come to fruition, I find Musk’s speculation about Starlink’s performance more plausible. I think there’s about a 50% chance the prediction will look basically correct a year from now.

Starlink Expansion

Christian Leave a comment

Several bits of news about SpaceX’s Starlink came out yesterday.

#1 Pre-orders are open

Starlink started accepting pre-orders in a whole bunch of countries. If you’re living in an eligible area, you can enter your address on Starlink’s website and get a rough estimate for when Starlink service will be available to you. A pre-order can be placed by putting down about $100

#2 More beta invites

It looks like Starlink may have sent out a record number of invitations to the beta program yesterday. And I got one!

I paid about $500 for the satellite dish and router plus about $100 more for shipping and taxes. Starlink is suggesting shipping may take 2-4 weeks right now since the company is dealing with a heavy volume of orders.

In an email I received, Starlink doubled down on some performance claims (emphasis mine):

During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.

As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically. For latency, we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021.

I’m excited to get started testing Starlink, and I’ll try to share details about my experience as soon as possible.

#3 Starlink tweets

SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk, recently shared a few noteworthy tweets about Starlink. One vague tweet touched on a potential Starlink IPO:

Another tweet included some sober details about the difficulties of running a satellite internet business:

Finally, I thought this exchange was great:

When Will Starlink Be Available In More States?

Christian 4 Comments

February 12, 2021 Update: Starlink has expanded availability substantially since this page was first published. You can check availability at your location on Starlink’s website.

Users on a Reddit thread are logging information about the locations of Starlink beta testers. At the moment, it looks like Starlink has sent invites to people in latitudes between 45.3°N and 48.4°N. Some invites have been sent in at least seven states:

  • Idaho
  • Michigan
  • Minnesota
  • Montana
  • Oregon
  • Washington
  • Wisconsin

Tweet updates

Today, Elon Musk suggested more invites are about to go out:

Follow-up comments shed a bit of light on Starlink’s expansion plans:

While a comment on Twitter falls short of a formal statement, Musk’s comment provides the most recent information I’ve seen about Starlink’s timelines. We might only be a few months away from Starlink offering service in a lot more places.