SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service has already received over 500,000 orders.
SpaceX mentioned the number on Tuesday during the company’s 26th mission to launch satellites for the Starlink system. “To date, over half a million people have placed an order or put down a deposit for Starlink,” said Siva Bharadvaj, a space operations engineer for SpaceX.
The news underscores the massive consumer demand for Starlink, which has been successfully supplying high-speed broadband to users in rural and remote regions of North America and Europe. Nine months ago, SpaceX told the FCC nearly 700,000 people had signed up for the company’s free email newsletter on Starlink’s availability. Now it appears many of those same customers have submitted real money to try it out.
Starlink costs $99 per month, but also requires a $499 one-time equipment fee. Unfortunately, the demand has been outpacing supply. You can sign up for Starlink at the official website, which will allow you to pre-order the service. But you may have to wait months for the service to become available in your area.
In our case, the website said: “Starlink is currently at capacity in your area through 2021, your order might not be fulfilled until late 2022.” But this may be due to SpaceX not serving our location in San Francisco, California.
It remains unclear how many users the satellite internet system is currently serving. But in February, the company said its subscriber count was at over 10,000 users.
Starlink’s goal is to eventually serve millions of subscribers across the globe. The latest launch means SpaceX now has over 1,400 Starlink satellites in orbit, which will enable the company to increase the system’s coverage and improve the broadband quality.