Elon Musk stated Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), that SpaceX's satellite internet network Starlink should reach roughly 500,000 users in the next 12 months. Musk stated that SpaceX's goal is to provide broadband internet access to all of the planet by August.Musk revealed to MWC that the internet network is currently in an open beta phase and has launched more than 1,700 satellites into low-Earth orbit since 2018. It also recently exceeded a strategic benchmark of 69.420 active users. Starlink has been operating in 12 countries, and he said that Starlink is expanding. He said that Starlink is on its way to reaching a few hundred thousands users and possibly 500,000 users in 12 months.Starlink has ambitious goals. They aim to reach half a million internet users within the next year, and to unlock global internet coverage in the Arctic region in the next two weeks. The internet service will be sold directly by Starlink to rural consumers and governments seeking better internet connectivity for their military personnel. Individual users will pay $99 per month to get internet under the beta. The bundle includes a self-aligning Starlink dish, Wi-Fi router and a $499 bundle. SpaceX promises speeds of 100Mbps download speed and 20Mbps upload speed. So far, there have been mixed reviews.There are many challenges in opening up commercial service and providing internet coverage worldwide. Although each Starlink terminal costs $499, Musk revealed at the conference that SpaceX charges twice that amount, more than $1,000, for each terminal. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell stated in April that the company has cut the terminal price by half, from $3,000 to just a few hundred dollars. Musk stated that SpaceX's main goal is to avoid bankruptcy, even though it is going through severe cash flow problems. OneWeb, Starlinks main competitor filed for bankruptcy and has since been rehabilitated.Filling the gap between fiber and 5GMusk claimed that Starlink has signed deals with two large country telecom operators but didn't identify them. Musk considers Starlink as a complement to existing 5G providers, rather than directly competing against them. Starlink can be described as filling the gaps between fiber and 5G, and getting to those parts of the globe that are most difficult to reach. Musk answered the question about how much you should invest in Starlink. It all depends on how you define investment.It will be at least $5Billion before we can achieve positive cash flow. He said that it was a significant amount and that we need to continue investing in order to stay relevant to our competitors. He said that the total Starlink investment would be around $2030 billion. SpaceX expects that the network will generate $30 billion in revenue once it is operational. SpaceX may even be able to split Starlink with SpaceX to make it an IPO.The majority of the revenue will go to SpaceX's Starship system. This is Musk's centerpiece for his ambitions to transport humans to Mars and the Moon. Musk, who is known for presenting ambitious development timelines at conferences, stated at the conference that the first orbital Starship launch could happen sometime in the next few month, a slightly different schedule than July, as Shotwell indicated at a conference just a few days ago.Musk explained to one reporter via Twitter that there is an internal goal, if things go well, and that it should be aggressive. There will be internal and external problems, of course.
