{"id":25397,"date":"2021-01-02T08:34:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T08:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=25397"},"modified":"2021-01-20T15:16:19","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T15:16:19","slug":"report-claims-first-uk-customers-to-receive-starlink-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2021\/01\/report-claims-first-uk-customers-to-receive-starlink-broadband.html","title":{"rendered":"Report Claims First UK Customers Receive Starlink Broadband UPDATE2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few weeks ago SpaceX’s new Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite<\/a> broadband service, Starlink<\/a>, began sending out beta invites to selected trial applicants in the United Kingdom and now there are unverified indications that the first customer connections may soon be going live. We also know how much it will cost UK users.<\/p>\n

As it stands the satellite<\/a> operator already has around 960 LEOs<\/strong> in orbit and their initial ambition is to deploy a total of 4,425 by 2024, which could potentially be followed by up to 12,000 at a later date (possibly late 2026). SpaceX<\/strong> now has enough LEOs to start a limited commercial service and a growing number of people in the USA and Canada have already joined their beta, but they now seem set to be joined by the UK.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> The low altitude of Starlink<\/a>’s LEO constellation makes relatively fast latency times of c.20-40ms (milliseconds) viable.<\/div>\n

The first UK customer invites for the “Better Than Nothing Beta<\/em>” programme appear to have been distributed during mid-December 2020 and were then widely discussed on social media (Reddit<\/a>). The invites, which have now been received by quite a few people (albeit only a fraction of those who expressed an early interest), largely echoed the language of those previously issued to those in the USA and Canada (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The message told participants to expect broadband speeds of 50-150Mbps<\/strong> and warned about the likelihood of there being brief periods of no connectivity (well.. it’s a beta). In terms of pricing, selected beta customers in the UK were informed that the hardware (dish, terminal, router etc.) would cost \u00a3439 (vs $499 in the USA), then \u00a354 for shipping and \u00a389 (vs $99 in the USA) for the monthly subscription.<\/p>\n

According to a new article on the Tesmanian<\/a> (via Reddit<\/a>), which is a site that reports on and sells Tesla accessories, the first customer in the UK is now in the process of going live in rural Devon<\/strong> (England) at 50.8N (latitude). However, we have not been able to get any solid confirmation of this, so take that with a pinch of salt until more users surface.<\/span><\/p>\n

At present SpaceX has not built any ground stations for their Starlink<\/a> constellation in the UK itself, but during the summer of 2020 they did select three locations in France<\/strong> that would be used to serve almost all of the UK and Ireland, as well as a big chunk of Western Europe (i.e. Gravelines<\/strong>, Villenave-d\u2019Orbon<\/strong> and Belin-Beliet<\/strong>). We assume that at least one of those sites must be ready and all 3 can cover South England, while Gravelines alone can reach up to mid-Scotland.<\/p>\n

Sadly, we don’t know the process by which SpaceX selects people for their beta trial, but hopefully more of those who were invited a few weeks ago, and then subsequently placed an order, will soon start to receive their kit. Naturally, we’d love to hear from anybody in the UK who has been lucky enough to be accepted.<\/p>\n

In terms of pricing, we hope that Starlink<\/a> intends to offer a cheaper entry-level plan in the future as the current pricing is too high for mass adoption, although Satellite<\/a> services have traditionally been quite expensive. Unlimited data is a tricky thing for such platforms to do without incurring a lot of costs.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 3rd Jan 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

SpaceX also appears to have a ground station at the popular Goonhilly Earth Station<\/a> in Cornwall (hinted here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

UPDATE 11th January 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

In an unsurprising development it’s now been confirmed that Ofcom<\/a> has indeed formally granted permission (licence) for SpaceX to launch their new ultrafast Starlink satellite broadband service in the United Kingdom (i.e. supply dishes and receivers), which took place in November 2020 (this explains the above developments). Starlink has also set up a company in Berkshire<\/strong> to managed the distribution (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

UPDATE 20th January 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest batch of Starlink’s has just launched via a SpaceX rocket and the company used that opportunity to confirm the expansion of their beta programme to the UK, which is the first time that they’ve officially confirmed it (even though, as above, the cat is already out of the bag). The relevant segment is pasted below.<\/p>\n