Starlink Extends LEO Satellite Broadband Coverage in the UK

V_R

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In a brief announcement Starlink (SpaceX) has today confirmed that their new constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband satellites is “now available in parts of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England,” which is in addition to existing service areas across southern England.

At present SpaceX has already launched around 1,200 LEOs into orbit (space) around the earth and their initial ambition is to deploy a total of 4,425 by 2024, which could potentially be followed by up to 12,000 at a later date (possibly late 2026). The service has already gone live in the USA, Canada, parts of the UK and is now extending into Europe, albeit mostly still in the beta and early pre-order phase.

Customers typically pay £89 per month for the service itself, plus £54 for shipping and £439 for the kit (dish, router etc.). For that you can expect unlimited usage, good latency times to 20-40ms, downloads of between 50-150Mbps and uploads of c.20Mbps. During the beta phase there’s still the potential for some connection drops, but this should be ironed out as the network expands.


Bit pricy, but if its you can't get fibre...
 

Ian

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Absolutely crazy that they have 1200 sats in LEO - absolutely mad. Those speeds are waaaay higher than my FTTC connection too.

If those prices dropped to ~£50/month, I'd be tempted to go for it!

I put my address in to the starlink site and I should be able to get it by mid 2021 :).

Anyone here got this already?

edit: Just saw that the dish is phased array... I'm genuinely surprised by the price of the dish for all the stuff it has to do (it's not pointing at geostationary sats, it's quickly tracking them as they fly past, without physically moving).
 
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