Vratislav Holub The futuristic Starlink project is heading to the Czech Republic. Elon Musk, under the auspices of his company SpaceX, is sending hundreds of satellites into orbit, which should then provide access to the Internet around the world, even in areas where the Internet is not yet available. The service should officially become available for the Czech Republic next year, while it is already possible to check availability at your address and possibly pre-order space internet (albeit at a relatively space price). But what exactly is Starlink, what is Elon Musk's vision and where will the project move in the future?
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Flying around the world with Apple What exactly is Starlink?
As mentioned above, the project named Starlink is backed by SpaceX, led by founder and CEO Elon Musk. Specifically, SpaceX is trying to build an internet network available everywhere, which is provided by satellites orbiting the planet Earth. Currently, the company has already sent more than 1500 satellites, while the goal is 42, which according to the original plans we should expect in the middle of 2027. The goal of the entire project is, of course, to provide an Internet connection available all over the world and at high speeds - especially in developing and hard to reach areas.
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Starlink speed
What is interesting about the Starlink Internet is also interesting from the point of view of transmission speeds. First of all, it should be noted that this is not an optic, but a satellite connection, which is why you cannot count on, for example, 1 Gbps - yet. In the e-mail that Starlink sent this week as part of its newsletter to those interested in the Czech Republic, there is talk of speeds ranging from 50 Mbps to 150 Mbps. In addition, it is mentioned here that we will encounter short periods when the Internet connection will not be available at all.
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In any case, it is promised to be easy, but for real numbers we have to go into practice. Fortunately, as part of beta testing, which is officially called "Better Than Nothing" (better-than-nothing-beta), the service is available now for lucky people in selected countries. In any case, the users so far shared their knowledge and the results were surprisingly even better. The best results were measured in December 2020 in the US state of Utah, where the download speed showed a cool 214,65 Mbps. Even in worse conditions, specifically in sub-zero temperatures, strong winds or snow, Starlink was able to offer a download speed of 175 Mbps, which compared to previous providers wireless connection great result.
In any case, we are still rather at the beginning of the whole project and it is clear that the speed will gradually increase. According to Elon Musk, it should already reach 2021 Mbps by the end of 300 (again for downloads). How fast the connection will be upon completion, i.e. in the aforementioned year 2027, when Starlink will provide 42 thousand satellites, is unfortunately difficult to estimate now. However, we can say one thing for sure - the speed will move forward.
Starlink response
In any case, it is not only speed that is important, but also, of course, responsiveness. This has proven to be important especially in the current "covid era," when people have moved from offices to home offices and students to distance learning. The whole world has come together through conference software such as Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. And it is with these programs that latency, or response, is extremely important. Currently, the response of the Starlink Internet ranges from 40 to 60 ms. Although these are rather average results, there is still room for improvement. In February of this year, Musk announced via his Twitter that by the end of the year the latency will drop to 20 ms.
Speed will double to ~ 300Mb / s & latency will drop to ~ 20ms later this year
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 22, 2021
Starlink price
So far, the Starlink space internet looks really promising and definitely has a lot to offer. It's even worse when we look at the price, which we could also describe with the word "universal." Internet provision itself costs 2 crowns per month, but it doesn't end there by any means. It is still necessary to pay a one-off fee of 579 crowns for the necessary hardware, followed by postage in the amount of 12 crowns. All in all, purchasing Starlink internet will cost you 999 crowns, but you will pay "only" 1 crowns each month.
Starlink availability
In the picture attached above, you can notice that Starlink internet will be available in the Czech Republic as early as next year.
I don't understand the pricing policy. The entire republic is "soaked" by wifi providers, where your hardware costs a few thousand and the monthly flat rate is 300. Who will buy Elon's madness for ten times as much? It will end up similar to satellite phones.