SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the Starlink satellite-broadband service should emerge from beta in October. The time-frame was given in response to a question from a Twitter user. Musk said the service will come out of beta “next month”.
SpaceX began sending email invitations to Starlink's public beta in October 2020, ArsTechnica reported, noting that the service is still not perfect, as trees can disrupt the line-of-sight connections to satellites and the satellite dishes go into "thermal shutdown" in hot areas. The service is expected to improve as more satellites gets launched and the software gets refined.
The company said in late August that it had already shipped over 100,000 of its Starlink terminals for satellite internet, and that the service was available in 14 countries, with applications pending in many more countries.
It is still possible to place preorders and submit USD 99 deposits at the Starlink website, but the site notes that "depending on location, some orders may take 6 months or more to fulfill." The deposits are fully refundable. Musk said in May that the first 500,000 people will "most likely" get service but that SpaceX will face more challenges “when we get into the several million user range." The company noted in June that it was on track to have half a million users within a year.
SpaceX has US permission to deploy 1 million user terminals across the country and is seeking a license to deploy up to 5 million terminals. The number of Starlink preorders is up to 600,000, and SpaceX is reportedly speeding up its production of dishes to meet demand, PCMag wrote last week.
In beta, SpaceX has been charging a one-time fee of USD 499 for the user terminal, mounting tripod, and router, plus USD 99 per month for service.
The company has a license from the FCC to launch nearly 12,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites and is seeking permission to launch an additional 30,000. Amazon, a competitor for LEO satellites, has been urging the FCC to reject the current version of SpaceX's next-generation Starlink plan. Satellite operator Viasat supported Amazon's protest and separately urged a federal appeals court to halt SpaceX launches, but judges rejected Viasat's request for a stay.
