(Credit: Getty Images)
SpaceX has revealed that Starlink has 1.3 million customers in the US, or about 59% of the satellite internet service’s total customer base.
The company disclosed the figure after the Federal Communications Commission reaffirmed its decision in 3-2 vote to deny $866 million in funding to expand Starlink in rural areas. The FCC says SpaceX failed to prove it can supply high-speed broadband to users in 35 states by 2025.
SpaceX hit back in an FCC filing that notes Starlink's continuing upgrades and growing user base. “Enabled by this growth, Starlink now has more than 2.2 million customers around the world—of which more than 1.3 million are in the United States—and is producing and selling tens of thousands of user terminals each week,” the company said. "The growth is not slowing.”
(David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)In September, SpaceX revealed that Starlink had reached over 2 million customers. But the company has largely been mum on US growth until now. In the FCC filing, SpaceX describes the progress it’s made to serve US customers, including those in rural areas.
“This year alone, Starlink has nearly doubled the number of Americans on the network, adding customers in all 50 states including the northernmost regions of Alaska,” the company said.
SpaceX was hoping to receive the $866 million through the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) fund. But a key factor in the commission’s denial is its skepticism that Starlink can supply 100Mbps download/20Mbps upload speeds in 35 states by December 2025.
In the original denial, the commission noted that Starlink’s speeds declined in 2022, citing third-party data from Ookla’s Speedtest.net. However, SpaceX alleges the FCC is holding the company to an unfair standard by denying the funding when the company still has two more years to reach the 100/20Mbps speed goals.
“This decision directly undermines the very goal of RDOF: to connect unserved and underserved Americans,” the company wrote. “Starlink is demonstrably one of the best options—likely the best option—to accomplish the goals of RDOF.”
SpaceX also faults the FCC for pulling the funds when some rival ISPs are dropping out of the RDOF program, citing inflation and rising construction costs to build the broadband networks in the rural areas. “Critically, Starlink can already provide high-speed, low-latency service in otherwise unserved locations within days of a customer placing an order, an outcome that no other RDOF winner can come close to matching,” it added.
On Twitter/X, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also weighed in on the FCC’s decision. “Doesn’t make sense. Starlink is the only company actually solving rural broadband at scale!” he tweeted.
Still, the latest data from Ookla found that Starlink download speeds in the US continue to lag behind 100Mbps, although in recent months they’ve been trending upward, from 70Mbps to 79Mbps. SpaceX’s own official Starlink map also shows that many users in the eastern US currently receive download speeds ranging from 35Mbps to 120Mbps.
The other concern is network congestion. In 2022, some users reported unusually slow speeds and suspected that Starlink's rapid growth was putting a strain on the satellite internet system's capacity. In response, SpaceX experimented with imposing a high-speed data cap but scrubbed that plan in May.
The company continues to launch additional Starlink satellites in orbit to bolster the internet system's capacity. "SpaceX has grown the constellation to include more than 5,000 satellites on orbit, along with a comprehensive ground infrastructure to support it," SpaceX told the FCC.
The FCC filing also indicates that SpaceX has maintained Starlink speeds in the US even as the company has "nearly doubled the number of Americans on the network."
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by PCMag parent company Ziff Davis.