If you’re still waiting to try out Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, there’s good news: the company is building a factory in Texas to help it serve millions of future Starlink customers.
The upcoming factory was mentioned in a job posting SpaceX made for a Starlink automation and controls engineer, which the Austin, Texas, news channel KXAN noticed. “To keep up with global demand, SpaceX is breaking ground on a new, state of the art manufacturing facility in Austin, TX,” the job posting says.
“The Automation & Controls Engineer will play a key role as we strive to manufacture millions of consumer facing devices that we ship directly to customers (Starlink dishes, Wi-Fi routers, mounting hardware, etc),” it adds.
The job posting goes on to say the role will involve “high volume manufacturing,” and the plan is to ship the Starlink satellite dishes to consumers in over 25 countries by the end of this year. The engineer will also need to travel to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, until the Austin facility is completed.
Consumers stuck with slow internet plans, particularly in rural areas, have been clamoring for Starlink ever since it launched as a public beta last year. The satellite internet system can deliver broadband speeds at 150Mbps download/30 Mbps upload to theoretically any place on the planet, making it a godsend for users saddled with speeds closer to 2Mbps.
Last month, SpaceX revealed Starlink is only serving over 10,000 subscribers, many of them based in the northern US and lower Canada. However, the company says “hundreds of thousands” of consumers across the US have all expressed interest in trying out the service.
Interested customers can go to Starlink.com to learn about its availability in their area. They can also pre-order the system, but the company doesn’t plan on rolling out Starlink to many places in the US until mid to late 2021.
Starlink costs $99 a month, plus a $499 one-time fee for the satellite dish and Wi-Fi router.