SpaceX says its low-earth orbit Starlink satellite broadband service could be operational in September. That’s according to President/COO Gwynne Shotwell.
“We’ve successfully deployed 1,800 or so satellites, and once all those satellites reach their operational orbit we will have continuous global coverage so that should be [in the] September timeframe,” Shotwell told the virtual Macquarie Technology Summit.
The company still needs regulatory approval from any given country to be able to provide telecom services, she said, according to ZDNet.
SpaceX has run beta services in 11 different countries. “We’ve got almost 100,000 users. Half a million people want to be users, but we need the electronic piece part situation to settle down so that we can actually build the user terminals for the folks that want the service,” Shotwell said.
The FCC awarded SpaceX $885 million in grant funding last December to bring the satellite broadband service to people in 35 U.S. states, Inside Towers reported.
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