What Is Starlink? SpaceX’s Much-Hyped Satellite Internet Service Explained

Are you curious about Starlink and whether Elon Musk’s satellite internet technology is right for you? We answer the most pressing questions about the system that’s currently shaking up the ISP market.

Installing fiber in a city, and bringing Gigabit broadband to million of customers is certainly lucrative, but not so much in a rural area home to only a few hundred people.

The satellite internet system from SpaceX is capable of delivering 150Mbps internet speeds to theoretically any place on the planet. All the customer needs is a clear view of the sky.

Starlink currently costs $99 a month. You’ll also have to pay a one-time $499 fee for the Starlink satellite dish and Wi-Fi router, which the company will ship to your home.

Starlink is currently delivering 80Mbps to 150Mbps in download speeds and about 30Mbps in upload speeds, according to users. Meanwhile, latency comes in at around 30 milliseconds, which is on par with ground-based internet. Later this year, SpaceX plans on bumping up the download speeds to 300Mbps, while bringing down the latency to 20ms.