Photo by MARIANA SUAREZ/ Contributor ( Getty Images)Elon Musk announced Tuesday that Starlink, a low-orbit satellite broadband provider, will be available worldwide for coverage starting in August. The exceptions are the north and south poles.AdvertisementMusk spoke via virtual conference at the Mobile World Congress 2021. He announced that Starlink's high-speed broadband service has been operational in 12 countries and that more will be added each month. This number is expected to increase exponentially as the service grows.Musk stated that we are well on our way to a few hundred thousand users and possibly more than 500,000 users in 12 months. It's easy to see that Starlink only had 10,000 users in February 2021. This means that the high-speed internet service customer base has increased sevenfold in four months.Starlink currently holds over 1,800 satellites, which have been launched into orbit by SpaceX, Musk's space exploration venture. Low orbit satellites have shorter latency, which means that signals take less time to reach Earth from satellites. Starlinks broadband has a shorter download time which makes it a great substitute for fiber and 5G when they are unavailable. This is especially useful considering that Starlink was specifically designed to service remote areas without other services.Musk teased two prominent wireless carriers about possible future partnerships during his remarks.Musk stated that we have two very significant partnerships with major [carriers] in the country. I would like to announce them now, but we will defer to our partners. We are also in talks with other [carriers] to offer Starlink access.This news follows a separate Musk announcement earlier in the month in which he stated that Starlink was in discussions with several airlines to provide WiFi for their craft.
