In June 2021, Elon Musk claimed that Starlink would span the globe within months. But nearly a year later, the service has, with a few exceptions, been exclusively made available in North America, Europe, and Australia. The issue of refunds to the waiting list in India is the latest in a series of stumbling blocks that have prevented Starlink from bringing the internet to the hardest-to-reach places on Earth.
SpaceX has pushed back rollouts in massive markets like South Africa, where, at the end of last year, the expected date for Starlink service to become available was delayed from 2022 to 2023, with no explanation. Last month, Starlink surpassed 250,000 subscribers across 25 countries. But according to Cloudflare and self-reported statistics on Reddit, 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. Although many of the delays come down to regulatory challenges, it’s also unclear whether the service is prioritizing existing markets or growing new ones.
Meaghan Tobin
Hardly surprising (and not just because of Musk’s inclination for making exaggerated claims). The service itself is not yet reliable enough (if it gets confused by a lone tree, I doubt it would fare better in the rainforest or in Himalayan valleys), and too pricey for most individual customers outside developed countries. The early adopters in North America were probably swayed more by the Musk aura than the practical benefits of having satellite internet.
As for expansion into other large markets… As the article mentions, Starlink has a bumpy road ahead to convince regulators. I think authorities outside the US have learned a thing or two from the previous ‘blitzscaling’ tactics employed by Uber and Airbnb, and are now more cautious of ceding their markets to American corporations, preferring to promote local competitors. The cooling of international relations and increased geostrategic competition contribute to this reluctance – you don’t want to depend on a single country or company for critical communications infrastructure. For India and China it’s an issue of information control as well: as they apply various degrees of censoring and propaganda on their local internet, these governments won’t allow an independent network based in a ‘free’ country, which could spread information contradicting official positions.
Starlink may have gotten a massive image boost with its donation of terminals to Ukraine, but I feel that their impact on the war has been overstated. According to estimates on Reddit, Ukraine terminals account for barely a half of a percent of Starlink users worldwide, or roughly 1,600 in absolute numbers, which feels minuscule for an army of hundreds of thousands. Granted, you could employ them on the most critical fronts. Even so, the number is suspiciously low, considering reports that USAID purchased over 1,300 satellite dishes […], with SpaceX donating a further 3,600 stations
. Were they not delivered in full, were they destroyed in battle, or simply never activated?
I stand by my earlier assessment that Starlink – and any other comparable satellite constellation – is an abomination for astronomy and space travel because of the exponential risks of collisions and space debris. Low global adoption would relegate it to the growing pile of Elon Musk vanity projects of little practical use.
Update: days after I posted this, SpaceX announced Starlink Maritime to bring its satellite Internet service to large boats, at a cost of $5,000 per month and an up-front hardware purchase of $10,000 – with the caveat that coverage is similarly limited to coastal waters around the US, Europe, Australia, and a few other areas. From a technical standpoint, it makes sense to run Starlink on the open seas, where there are next to no obstructions to the signals (except during storms). But I see it as further indication that Starlink is primarily built for a wealthy audience, not to bring Internet to the poor and underserved people of Africa, as many have hailed the service. And I would rather not pollute the entire night sky such that a handful of billionaires have fast internet connections on their private yachts – or islands.
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