The move allows the company to expand its customer base, which until now has focused solely on delivering internet services of around $100 per month to homes, primarily in areas that are not serviced by the Internet. traditional Internet service on the ground. He has hundreds of thousands of subscribers around the world.
The regulatory approval, issued Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission, also grants SpaceX the ability to extend its service to trains, ships and other vehicles, opening up a wide range of potential corporate customers. The company has also already announced its services for motorhome drivers.
Traditionally, airlines, ships and trains have relied on satellites in geosynchronous orbit, a band of orbit more than 22,000 miles away, provided by companies such as ViaSat. SpaceX’s Starlink takes a different approach to beaming the internet from space by placing thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, or a few hundred miles above the ground. The company claims this provides lower latency, or lag times, for its service.
Pricing for Starlink’s mobile services is unclear, but SpaceX already markets its service directly to businesses.
The FCC’s decision also marks another chapter in an ongoing battle over spectrum rights. Spectrum refers to a range of radio frequencies, and federal regulators closely monitor which companies are allowed to use which frequencies so the signals don’t interfere with each other.
Companies such as ViaSat, Dish Network and wireless company RS Access filed a petition against the FCC’s decision.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
