Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON – SpaceX’s satellite broadband service Starlink is now being tested in the UK after the British telecommunications regulator Ofcom received a license for it.
Starlink issued an “Earth station network license” in November, an Ofcom spokesman told CNBC on Tuesday. SpaceX did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The £ 200 ($ 272) per year license enables Starlink to sell satellite dishes and other communications equipment in the UK, allowing people to record signals emitted by Starlink’s satellite network.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk and is an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company. It announced it would create the Starlink subdivision in 2015.
Musk, who is now the richest person in the world, said he wants to improve internet access in parts of the world that are not currently served by broadband providers. He plans to do so by placing thousands of small telecommunications satellites in a low-earth orbit that can radiate low-speed, low-latency Internet to the ground.
Musk said in an interview in March that SpaceX could earn up to $ 30 billion a year by providing broadband. He said that Starlink “will be useful for telecommunications businesses, because Starlink will serve the most difficult customers”, adding that 5G is not ideal for rural areas because ‘you need reach.’
Starlink, which will compete with the British OneWeb, aims to have 1,440 of its 260 kg (570 lb) satellites in orbit by the end of 2021.
The company, which is primarily aimed at connecting rural areas where internet is unreliable or unavailable, has been inviting people in the US and Canada since October to try and do their service.
According to reports and users of social media, people in the UK are now being invited by email. Starlink charges UK customers £ 439 for the satellite dish and other communication equipment, as well as a monthly fee of £ 89 and a delivery fee of £ 54.
Those testing the service can reportedly expect data rates between 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and 150 Mbps. The average broadband speed in the UK is 64 Mbps, but those in rural areas often struggle to get close to it. It is unclear how many homes and offices currently use the Starlink service.
Last August, SpaceX set up a British entity in London called Starlink Internet Services, according to a document addressed to the British business register Company House.
A photo of what appears to be one of the first Starlink episodes in the UK was shared on Reddit by Philip Hall, who lives in the Devon countryside in the south of England.
“As an unimaginable short-term (broadband) fiber enthusiast, I signed up for the beta pretty early on,” Hall told CNBC via Reddit on Thursday.
Hall, who once deployed air defense networks for the British military, said: “The technological capability in this, at the consumer level, is astonishing.”
In terms of performance, Hall said he can get 80 Mbps download speeds at home throughout.
He suspects he got a Starlink dish because the company wants data before a commercial implementation and he is on the right latitude.
Hall described the essay and said it is just like many other devices. He installed an app on his Android phone, checked to make sure the dish had a clear view of the sky (something that was easy in the Devon countryside) and plugged it in. “The app asks you to register a name and password and you are cooking,” he said.
Greece, Germany and Australia apparently also approved Starlink’s offer.