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Elon Musk's Starlink Internet Nets One Millionth Subscriber, Dunks on the Haters

Products with Elon Musk's name on them range in usefulness from his trademark flamethrower to a microsatellite system bringing reliable, high-speed internet to the masses. For the moment, we'll be celebrating the latter of those two. The remarkable Starlink system, which just netted its one-millionth subscriber.
Starlink 33 photos
Photo: SpaceX
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With a base cost of $599 for all the hardware and $110 a month for internet service, according to the website, Starlink is perhaps the most successful Elon Musk venture outside of Tesla and SpaceX's Falcon/Dragon space vehicles. This recent milestone is the perfect opportunity to explain just why Starlink is one of the most significant advances in Wi-Fi technology of the 21st century.

Before the days of Starlink, satellite-based Wi-Fi systems were the domain of a handful of companies. Global internet service providers from AT&T to Verizon and everyone in between essentially had free reigns to charge whatever figure they desired for often shoddy and unreliable satellite internet.

The concept of large formations of satellites flying in Very Low Earth Orbit in what's known as a colony was conceptualized as far back as the Reagan administration under the Strategic Defense Initiative program. Their use for civilian internet wouldn't blossom until the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. Perhaps the most successful satellite-internet colony from this time was the Iridium series, optimized for real-time voice and video calls rather than full-fledged internet service.

It wouldn't be until 2004, when Elon Musk founded SpaceX, did the concept for a satellite colony that could fill gaps in civilian Wi-Fi services was formally proposed. It'd take another 11 years before the development phase would begin. Between 2015 and 2020, Starlink underwent a stringent development phase involving as many as 60 full-time engineers at SpaceX's Redmond, Washington facility.

From the beginning, the goal was to develop an easily-manufactured, reliable satellite colony system that, over time, could provide areas normally devoid of quality internet a connection with unprecedented data speeds. Be it rural farmers in America's Appalachia region, working families in economically exploding parts of South America, or the most remote parts of Europe.

It's not hard to see how Starlink's benefits became known worldwide to the tune of a million customers and counting. That's without mentioning Starlink's military intelligence capabilities. Said capabilities have been used in abundance in Eastern Europe thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The first bank of 60 Starlink satellites launched aboard a Falcon 9 booster rocket on May 23rd, 2019. Between then and the present day, the system provided relatively stable satellite internet to as many as 45 unique places across the globe, with more undoubtedly still to come. Say what you will about Elon Musk, but his Starlink system is perhaps the most effective initiative he's ever undertaken. Assuming you can cover installation costs and the monthly subscription, that is.
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