- SpaceX said in a public filing Thursday that Starlink has more than 10,000 users in the US and beyond.
- Elon Musk’s aerospace company launched Starlink’s public beta in October.
- In the filing, SpaceX requested that it be eligible for federal money to expand Starlink.
- Visit Insider’s Business section for more stories.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has amassed more than 10,000 users around the world just four months after entering beta, Elon Musk’s space company said in an application Thursday.
SpaceX said in a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that “more than 10,000 users in the United States and abroad are using the service today.”
In the petition, SpaceX asked the FCC to be designated an “Eligible Telecommunications Carrier” (ETC), making it eligible for federal money, including the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) money it won in December. .
The RDOF is a $ 20.4 billion effort to spread super-fast Internet across America, particularly to rural regions.
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The FCC awarded SpaceX nearly $ 900 million in December to expand Starlink in the US as part of the first phase of the RDOF.
But SpaceX didn’t get the money right away. It needs to overcome more hurdles and provide more detail on its plans – the ETC is part of this.
SpaceX said the ETC would help it quickly expand its service into new areas, most notably Alabama, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The petition noted that the aerospace company has been granted access to those areas under the RDOF.
SpaceX’s award under the RDOF angered small ISPs, who said Thursday that the company, like other large companies, were using “unproven” technology and called on the FCC to investigate “aggressively” winning applications.
Starlink’s public beta test called “Better Than Nothing Beta” is now operating in the northern US, Canada and parts of Europe. UK regulators approved Starlink in January and Insider spoke to one of the first UK users to receive the Starlink kit.
Speeds range from 50Mbps to 150Mbps, SpaceX said in an email to subscribers when the beta launched. Access costs $ 99 per month, plus $ 499 upfront for a kit that includes a tripod, a Wi-Fi router, and a terminal to connect to the satellites.
So far, the company has put more than 1,000 working satellites into orbit via its reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The most recent launch was on Thursday, when the Falcon 9 launched 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The goal is to build a super-fast internet service that spans around the world. SpaceX plans to launch up to 42,000 satellites by mid-2027.