Satellitemap.space has a real-time view of the Starlink low earth orbit satellite constellation. Each dot is a Starlink satellite. You can see how many are over any particular country or region.
There are some string of dots. Those are recent launches that still have to move to their final positions.
Starlink is currently serving mainly North America and have about 500,000 customers.
Nearly 80% of users to date are located in North America, with another 18% in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Just 2% of Starlink users live in the rest of the world.
Starlink is permitted to operate in about 25 countries. There are bureaucratic and regulatory delays getting permission to sell and provide services in countries like India.
India’s permitting process has bogged down. If this turns and India permits Starlink to operate then they were expecting 200,000 users as fast as they could be provisioned.
There are many rural and underserved areas in Africa, India, South Asia and South America. There could be a very large number of users in those areas as Starlink is completely built out.
Mobile Starlink Markets
Gaining regulatory approval to access new markets is Starlink’s biggest global challenge, said Jose Del Rosario, a Manila-based consultant at satellite industry firm Northern Sky Research. Mobile roaming will greatly increase its commercial appeal. “A few thousand aircrafts and hundreds of cruise ships can close the business case,” said Del Rosario.
There are about 26,000 active commercial passenger jets.
A private yacht captain based in the Caribbean started using Starlink last year because the price was so much lower than the up to $6,000 per month he had paid for commercial internet on the open sea.
In 2016, it was estimated that there were about 10,000 luxury yachts 79 feet in length in the world – 20 percent of them were sailing yachts. There are around 22,000 private jet aircraft in operation around the world.
In 2021, there are 314 cruise ships operating worldwide, with a combined capacity of 537,000 passengers. There are also hundreds of navy ships. Each large ship could use several Starlink dishes to provide service to crew. There is a limitation on how many can be used. A ship by itself in the ocean could have exclusive use of a satellite. This would mean 230 dishes per ship could be used to tap into 23 gbps of capacity for a satellites. Each dish would not necessarily be fully utilized. A ship that really wanted connectivity for everyone on board could theoretically justify one thousand Starlink dishes.
Starlink is able to provide services for RV (recreational vehicles). RV ownership is at a record high with 11.2 million households owning an RV in 2021. There are about 400,000-500,000 RVs sold every year. About 46 million people in the US take an RV trip each year. There is substantial RV activity and usage in Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Germany, France and Japan.
SOURCES- Restofworld, Satellitemap.space
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
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Note that a chunk of the US in Arizona and New Mexico doesn’t have a hex.
That’s the area with the big dish radio telescopes and also White Sands missile range, so I’m guessing that the satellites get shut off over those areas.
Paid sign up fee 6 months ago. Sure hope starlink puts satellite over me where I have service.
Need it bad for business and personal
Its interesting that china sees starlink as a threat to their info control yet they want to launch their own constellation. why? its not like people prefer the curated news outside china.
While Musk is doing a lot of good things, I think he has his fingers in too many pies. He COULD control economy, transportation, food distribution, medical, monetary, education, population, et al. I may be paranoid, but just saying.
Elon Musk was in Brazil just last month, meeting the president Bolsonaro, mainly talks about Star Link and Twitter freedom (so Bolsonaro followers can post fake news)
Oh no self posted “fake news” for all the people who confuse tweets with news.
How will we survive without China-style-top-down-enforced-groupthink?
We are paying 155$ for 25MGB per second. Live in a rural area with slow internet. We are on athe waiting list until 2023 with no chance of knowing when will get Starlink. However, we are excited and can’t wait and we do hope it’s sooner but will see.
Can we still fly to Mars with potential collisions increasing at this rate or are we going to wait till Elon saturates the orbital real estate with 4 green houses across the board and then decides to build red hotels… basically even bigger satellites.
Space is big and the satellites are small and in a low orbit that you don’t want to spend time in when travelling to Mars.
It’s possible that SpaceX know where their own satellites are, and hence would not fly their spaceships into a collision.
Or to put it another way, look at the maps showing current ship or aircraft positions, and marvel that anyone is ever able to go anywhere without dying in a firey crash.
not affiliated with
spaceX or starlink
Waiting for in my city/ country, (Ontario Canada) already deposited money .
We live in a remote area in rural Australia & have just been told by a friend about StarLink. Where we live internet is slow or unreliable & no NBN here. We are getting Starlink next month. Can’t wait to see Netflix again lol but husband needs net for remote work. Fantastic thanks
Nigerians are readily waiting for the lunch of starling, this will reduce the cost of internet in the country
What are the green hexagons?
There is a limit to no of dishes per cell, I think it’s 300, so 230 dishes on one ship would only work when they are far from other ships.
But I do wonder if you could make a hektodisc with the speed of 100 regular discs.
Go Elon go!
Interesting that the areas covered were the ones that were hot the hardest by covid…
Areas best covered are northern and southern parts of the world. Areas near the equator will require more satellites.
Its pure coincidence if your statement is even true. Per capita Alaska had lots of Covid (and survived just fine).
There seem to be zero coverage over the north and south poles. Alaska and Northern Siberia also seem to be excluded. This means that areas and any ships/planes traversing are not included. Bad.
Corrently SpaceX are filling their main 2 plain of 52deg inclination, they started one launch to the 97deg inclination and for some reason delayed next launches (probably due to problems in their free space sat to sat laser link, that allow remote sats to be connected to the network through other sats and not through ground base stations).
When they will launch the 97deg plain, they will have converge of the polar areas.
Good.
Are the red dots ground stations?
I think so – but also notice there are a few space stations shown, as well as the occasional ellipse showing where a Starlink sat is expected to burn up!
There is many countries like France where internet not available in countryside with a decent speed , million of people will need it! In Belgium we don’t have that situation because of the people density although some zone might need it surely.