In May, Nextbigfuture projected that Starlink could reach 3.5 to 5 million customers at the end of 2024 and SpaceX has revealed they are passing 4 million customers this week. 5 million customers is possible for Starlink. 1 million were added from late May to the end of September. Starlink has increased its rate of growth. If the rate of growth increases from 270,000 per month to 340,000 per month then another million could be added in 3 months.
SpaceX will add about 2.7 million in 2024 from the 2.3 million at the end of 2023 and 1 million in 2022.
SpaceX is just short of doubling its subscriber base from the prior year. This should mean about 9-10 million customers at the end of 2025 and 14-18 million at the end of 2026.
BREAKING: The President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell just said that Starlink is going to pass 4 million subscribers this week pic.twitter.com/PXoZVrgQTk
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) September 26, 2024
Congratulations to the @SpaceX team on passing 3 million customers in 99 countries!
And thanks to you for buying @Starlink!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 20, 2024
In March 2024, the FCC authorized SpaceX to conduct communications in the 71.0-76.0 GHz (spaceto-Earth) and 81.0-86.0 GHz (Earth-to-space) frequency bands (collectively, E-band), with the 7,500 Gen2 Starlink satellites. Starlink using the E-Band increases the bandwidth by four times.
SpaceX second-generation satellites have performed even better than expected so SpaceX has sent a request to the FCC to allow operation at about 350 kilometer instead of 530 kilometers. This would be 68% of the height which would enable 68% latency. This would get latency from 28-35 milliseconds down to 15-20 milliseconds.
In 2022, the FCC cleared SpaceX to operate 7,500 second-generation satellites in 525, 530, and 535 km altitudes or within the same region as the company’s first-ten satellites. China recently proposed a competing satellite network to operate at the 330 kilometer altitude.
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.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
for each million customers spaceX is 5% closer to surpassing NASA’s 25 billion yearly budget.
and that’s not including commercial falcon payloads.
and soon they’ll be adding military Star Shield satellite revenue.
SpaceX is going to have a HARD time spending that much. expect way more exploration than just mars in the future, odds are they’re starting to think of other projects they can throw money at, space telescope fleets, asteroid mining, planetary rovers and probes…
Too bad Russia has been made the US enemy. Imagine how many back woods Siberians would love starlink service. Maybe things could change under a Trump administration.
Russians use Starlink to kill innocent Ukrainians. This is a Trump idea, that the US is the enemy and the Russians are the good guys.
If you mean the Russians use Starlink enabled drones and operations in Ukraine, sure. The antennas are geolocated and disabled in Russian territory, but in Ukraine they work.
Ukraine’s territory is covered by Starlink service and the Russians can get and use the antennas there, for war purposes even.
There’s no good way to tell friend from foe, when dealing with mac/ip addresses with GPS coordinates.
Yes there is. If Ukraine doesn’t register the serial/MAC of their device, disable it in Ukrainian territory.
If the bulk are residential, which averages $120/month, that is 480 million a month or close to $6 billion a year.
Not bad.
What is the intercontinental latency?
I have about 200 ms from Asia to Europe now, but wonder if starlink could get closer to 80 Ms.
The great-circle distance halfway around the world is 2×10^7 m, and the speed of light is 3×10^8 m/s. Thus the two-way request-and-response latency is at least 133 ms with no processing time at all.
Yep. How does starlink compare to cable?
Right now I think the just bounce the signal to the closest ground station, so it should actually be slower, but when they get laser link between satellites going it should be faster. They can run a speed of light, when fiber cables run at 2/3 speed of light and have to follow the oceans.