Elon Musk, CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON – SpaceX Starlink’s satellite broadband service is being tested in the UK after British telecoms regulator Ofcom granted it a license.
Starlink received a “ground 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) annual license allows Starlink to sell satellite dishes and other communications equipment in the UK so that people can pick up the signals emitted by Starlink’s satellite network.
Founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, SpaceX is an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company. He announced that he was creating the Starlink subdivision in 2015.
Musk, who is now the richest person in the world, has said he wants to improve Internet access in parts of the world that are not currently served by broadband providers. It plans to do so by placing thousands of small telecommunications satellites in a low Earth orbit that can transmit high-speed, low-latency internet to Earth.
In an interview last March, Musk said SpaceX could earn up to $ 30 billion a year by providing broadband. He said Starlink will be “useful for telecom companies because Starlink will serve the hardest to serve customers,” adding that 5G is not great for the field because “you need autonomy.”
Starlink, which will compete with OneWeb in the UK, aims to have 1,440 of its 260 kg (570 lb) satellites in orbit by the end of 2021.
The company, which focuses primarily on connecting rural areas where the Internet is unreliable or unavailable, has been inviting people in the U.S. and Canada to try its service since October.
He now invites people to the UK via email, according to reports and social media users. Starlink charges UK customers £ 439 for satellite dish and other communications equipment, as well as a £ 89 monthly fee and £ 54 shipping.
Those testing the service can expect data speeds of between 50 megabits per second (Mbps) and 150 Mbps, according to reports. The average broadband speed in the UK is 64 Mbps, but those in rural areas often have a hard time getting close to that. It is unclear how many homes and offices currently use the Starlink service.
SpaceX created a British entity in London called Starlink Internet Services last August, according to a document filed in the British House of Companies register.
Philip Red, who lives in rural Devon in the south-west of England, shared a photo of what appears to be one of Starlink’s first deliveries in the UK.
“As an enthusiast who didn’t have short-term (broadband) fiber prospects, I signed up for the beta pretty soon,” Hall told CNBC via Reddit on Thursday.
Hall, who once deployed air defense networks for the British Army, said: “The technological capability in this, at the consumer level, is amazing.”
In terms of performance, Hall said it can always get download speeds of 80 Mbps at home.
He suspects he got a Starlink dish because the company wants to get data before a commercial launch and is at the right latitude.
Describing the setup, Hall said it is just like many other appliances. He installed an app on his Android phone, checked that the dish had a clear view of the sky (which was easy in rural Devon) and connected it. “The app asks you to register a name and password and cooking,” he said.
Greece, Germany and Australia would also have approved Starlink’s offer.