The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk told during MWC 2021 that the global internet coverage offered by the Starlink satellites should be ready by August 2021. The Mobile World Congress 2021 has been the starting signal for major international events and trade fairs worldwide.
The company aims to provide a quality satellite internet connection, moving away from current services with speeds and latency that are too high for tasks such as online gaming or video conferencing.
Elon Musk’s Starlink project will offer global internet coverage by August
“We are on our way to having a few hundred thousand users, possibly over 500,000 users within 12 months,” Musk said. Very few considering that he still has around 40,000 satellites to put into orbit. Following that thread, the SpaceX founder has also announced that global internet coverage will be possible with Starlink satellites by next August.
Just over a month for users interested in this technology to apply for a connection. Prior to Musk’s appearance at Mobile World Congress and just a few days ago, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell announced global coverage for September when 1,800 active satellites will be reached. The only regions that, for the time being, will remain without Starlink coverage are the North Pole and the South Pole.
Currently, the Starlink service is contracted to more than 10,000 users. This number is far below the 500,000 connection requests that the service already has. Something that has not prevented it from reaching a record number of connections on the night of June 25, with 69,420 simultaneous connections and generating 30TB per second, something that Elon Musk mentioned in his conference at the MWC.
Another of the points he mentioned is the goal of reducing latency to “below 20 milliseconds”. As for Starlink’s interaction with its goal of colonizing Mars, Musk has pointed out that the company’s satellites could be used as a link in broadcasts and even provide connectivity on the red planet. “Although the first goal is not to go bankrupt,” he said with a laugh.
