Demand for Starlink RV, the latest offering for SpaceX’s satellite internet service, has already hit 30,000 customer orders and counting.
SpaceX mentioned the number in a Thursday tweet that comes a mere three weeks after the company first introduced the service.
SpaceX VP for Build and Flight Reliability Bill Gerstenmaier also revealed SpaceX is ramping up the number of Starlink dishes it can manufacture. “We’re building 20,000 home-user Ku-band phased array antennas out here for the Starlink system per week. That’s unheard of,” he recently told Aviation Week. (Last year, SpaceX said it could churn out 5,000 dishes per week.)
The high demand for Starlink RV isn’t a surprise. Since SpaceX first launched Starlink in 2020 as a public beta, customers across the US and the globe stuck with poor broadband access have been signing up to try the satellite internet service, which can offer download speeds ranging from 50Mbps to 250Mbps.
Initially, SpaceX limited the number of Starlink installations per cell area, forcing some consumers to wait until the company added more bandwidth to the growing satellite internet network. But last month, SpaceX removed the waitlist by introducing Starlink RV, which is immediately available to customers.
The service plan is designed for users who want high-speed broadband on a RV or camping trip. But it can also be used at home or anywhere Starlink offers coverage. The catch is that Starlink RV service will be downgraded when used in areas already full of other residential Starlink subscribers. It also costs $135 per month, up from $110 for the standard Starlink plan. But you pay on a month-to-month basis and won't have your service cancelled if you skip a month.
As a result, download speeds for Starlink RV can range from 5Mbps to 100Mbps “in congested areas during times of high usage,” according to the company’s spec sheet. Over the long haul, though, SpaceX plans on improving internet speeds and bandwidth by launching thousands of more Starlink satellites in Earth's orbit.