Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, announced Friday that Starlink, his satellite internet service, will be ending its public beta phase in October. Although this would be great news, we recommend taking it with a grain of salt. Musk is the man who has been infamous for failing to meet deadlines over the years.
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Musk updated Starlink with an update, which provides internet via approximately 1,800 satellites in low orbit. He literally tweeted next month to answer a question. Musk had stated earlier this year that Starlink would likely be out of beta by the middle of the summer. However, with just a few days left, it is unlikely that the company will achieve that goal.
The company exiting the beta phase would signify that it is closer to a bigger launch of the service. Starlink claims to have received more than 500,000 orders in May.
Musks tweet created anticipation for Starlink. This is a vital service for remote residents and has already reached impressive milestones.
Starlink was the subject of Ookla internet speed tests that showed it was faster than HughesNet and Viasat, the two leading satellite internet options in the U.S. Starlink nearly performed as well in upload and downloading tests as fixed broadband. It also had a median latency that was similar to fixed broadband.
Ookla noted that Starlink's median download speed in America was 97.23 Mb during Q2 2021. This is compared to HughesNet's 19.73 Mb and Viasat's 18.13 Mb in the same time period. Starlink didn't reach the median download speed of all fixed broadband providers (115.22Mbps), but it wasn't bad.
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Musk also revealed in August that Starlink had shipped 100,000 Starlink Terminals for $499. This excludes the $99 monthly cost of the actual internetto 14 other countries. This announcement suggested that the satellite internet service had reached 10,000 users in less time than a month.
The only way to confirm that Starlink will end its beta phase, is to wait and watch. We were skeptical, but Musk might prove us wrong.
