By
Svetlana Soroka
April 18th, 2024
Bookings for Starlink Premium started on the SpaceX website on Tuesday night. The deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2022.
American aerospace company SpaceX has launched a new tier for its Starlink satellite internet service. Called “Starlink Premium,” the version is quite expensive, it requires a $500 refundable deposit, a $2,500 fee for the antenna and router, and the service itself costs $500 per month. For comparison, the Starlink that SpaceX rolled out back in October 2020, has a $99 refundable deposit, a $499 hardware fee, and $99 per month for service. However, according to SpaceX, the cost of Starlink Premium is justified as it ensures high-speed, low-latency broadband internet across the globe, with fulfilling orders on a first-come, first-served basis.
Starlink Premium by SpaceX
As the SpaceX website states, Starlink Premium enables video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities that have never been possible with satellite internet. Besides, it promises download speeds between 100 Mb/s and 200 Mb/s as well as low latency – 20ms in most locations. By the way, speaking of locations, Starlink Premium is perfect for areas with unreliable or completely unavailable connectivity.
Further, with Starlink Premium, users can expect great performance even in extreme weather conditions. SpaceX has not revealed more, but we can expect something extremely extraordinary like functioning in heavy snow, rain, and lightning.
Bookings for Starlink Premium started on the SpaceX website on Tuesday night. The deliveries will begin in the second quarter of 2022.
Last June, Elon Musk said that their aim is to have 500,000 Starlink users within the year. Currently, there are about 1,900 active Starlink satellites in Earth’s orbit. The standard service program has over 145,000 users in 25 countries as of January.
About Starlink Project
Starlink is an extremely important project of SpaceX in its quest to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites. Also termed “Constellation,” the project aims to build a high-speed internet delivery to consumers located in every corner of the Earth. SpaceX plans to spend up to $10 billion installing 12,000 small satellites into low-Earth orbit.
Since SpaceX created Starlink in 2015, the space internet service had bases in Buckinghamshire and Cornwall, both in England. In August 2021, SpaceX set up a Starlink station on the Isle of Man, a small autonomous island in the Irish Sea. Completion of this initiative provided comprehensive internet coverage throughout the UK for the Starlink service.
In November 2021, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), another company owned by Elon Musk, announced it would start taking advantage of Starlink to deploy its antennas at Supercharger stations to provide free internet to customers. The service is based on satellite, and customers can easily tap into the free WiFi while charging their Tesla cars.