Tech

Starlink: date, price, speed, all about very high speed internet access by satellite

Starlink, very high-speed internet access by satellite, is available in beta in the United States and has just obtained the necessary authorizations to launch in France. Date, price, speed, operation… we take stock of this file!

Starlink dish
Credits: SpaceX / Starlink

Starlink is one of those projects that is in danger of revolutionizing internet access around the world. The aim is to deliver an Internet access offer that is relatively affordable intended for areas that are inaccessible, poorly served, or simply too outlying to have internet access worthy of the name.

When will Starlink be available in France?

For the moment Starlink is only available in beta in the United States. In France, Starlink has obtained the essential authorizations from Arcep, and the service has been available in France since May 10, 2021. Note that Elon Musk presented a premium Starlink formula at 500 Mb / s, at a price astronomical on the other hand. A subscription of 500 dollars per month is requested, while it will be necessary to pay a deposit of 2500 dollars for the material.

You should also know that the European Union is interested in the idea of ​​launching its Internet network by satellite. By acquiring its own constellations of satellites, the EU intends to secure the Internet network and communications of European countries, and to maintain them in the event of major cyberattacks. According to the statements of the European Commission, the first devices would be put into orbit in 2024.

How much does Starli.nk subscription cost?

starlink sky
Credits: Starlink.com

In the USA, beta customers pay their subscription $99. We imagine a price of the same order in euros. This price does not include the connection kit billed at $499 and the start-up costs of around fifty dollars.

Is Starlink fast (bandwidth, latency)?

The Starlink constellation is under construction. Corn, as the number of satellites increases, so does the constellation capacity.

The first independent speed tests conducted in North America show that bandwidth averages around 150 Mbps descendants. Others report similar, albeit lower, numbers. On average, we can expect a throughput between 50 and 150 Mbps. That said, Elon Musk promises that in the coming months the average speed will be doubled to 300 Mbps with a latency of around 20 ms.

Originally, Elon Musk presented Starlink as a service that would eventually allow download speeds of up to 1 Gbps. However, it seems that Starlink has since revised its objectives upwards, and plans to eventually deliver a 10 Gbps internet connectionor as much as the fastest consumer Internet access by fibre.

Starlink is the first satellite constellation to have theambition to deliver very high-speed Internet access with very low latency across the entire surface of the globe. For this SpaceX must put into orbit approximately 12,000 satellites in low orbit by 2025. In total, counting the 1015 satellites already deployed by Starlink, there are today only 2000 satellites in activity around the Earth.

Deployment of Starlink satellites
Simultaneous deployment of around sixty Starlink satellites / Credits: Starlink.com

And we do not count the authorization to launch several tens of thousands of additional satellites. Until now, the only satellites delivering internet access were placed in geostationary orbit at an altitude of 36,000 km. This has the advantage of being able to cover a large area with just one satellite. But this also has the disadvantage of necessarily causing high latency (> 600 ms) due to its very high altitude while limiting the capacities of the infrastructure.

To avoid this, Starlink prefers to place a large number of satellites in orbit very close to the Earth. A first fleet of satellites (7,500 eventually) is thus planned at an altitude of 340 km. 1,600 satellites must be placed at an altitude of 550 km. Finally. 2800 satellites must be placed at an altitude of 1150 km. A given user’s Internet connection is ensured by a succession of satellites traveling at a high frequency.

To ensure the coordination made necessary by this scrolling, the satellites will communicate with each other by laser link. Communication with base stations and clients is done through a system of so-called phased array antennas. These can direct the signal without moving parts. A motor in the customer’s dish nevertheless assists the orientation of the antenna for a better signal.

What equipment do I need to connect?

Starlink Router Antenna
The Starlink antenna and its internet router / Credits: Reddit

Starlink customers receive a extremely simple installation kit. It consists of a motorized dish with phased array antennas, a long Ethernet cable with PoE, a power brick that also serves as a PoE injector and a sort of switch. As well as a triangular shaped router.

starlink kit in box
Credits: Reddit

All of these elements arrive already plugged in for simplicity. The instructions are quite simple: place the dish outside, on the ground or on your roof – so that it has a clear view of the sky. Open your smartphone, connect to the hardware and follow the instructions. The connection is established in seconds.

official starlink kit
Credits: Starlink.com

This kit is not free – it is billed at $499.

Does Starlink work in town?

On paper, nothing a priori prevents Starlink from operating in town. However, this technology is generally unsuitable for dense areas, while it is ideal in sparsely populated or rural areas. The reason is simple: because they are closer to the ground, each of the constellation’s satellites covers a fairly small area.

However, in cities, this can potentially lead customers to saturate their satellite cell. Furthermore, Starlink’s rate is currently significantly higher than the cost of fiber internet access. So we can say without getting too wet that‘there will be no question of subscribing to Starlink if you live in town. Note, however, that Tesla, another company of Elon Musk, has started the deployment of Starlink dishes in its Supercharger stations, in order to help motorists pass the time during recharging.

Starlink Dish
Credits: Starlink

Note also that the help pages specify that you won’t really be able to move your Starlink installation to another address. In any case if the latter is outside your usual satellite “cell”. The delivery of internet access is indeed a kind of synchronized and coordinated dance of satellites which appear and disappear in front of the antenna every second.

If you leave this cell, you will not be in the right place to receive internet from one of the satellites programmed to serve you. You will no longer have access to the service.. This therefore means for those who are considering subscribe in their second home to enjoy it in town that unfortunately will not work.

Starlink emphasizes that this is a matter of geometry, not a voluntary restriction. Even if de facto, this seems to suit the service well since, as we explained above, Starlink is not suitable for heavily populated areas.

Also read: Starlink – satellite internet access will allow latency-free streaming of video games

Is the internet connection via Starlink weather sensitive?

Starlink Snow weather
Credits: @jemes via Twitter

The various tests are beginning to be sufficiently numerous for it to be possible to say that Starlink is relatively insensitive to weather. Speed may drop slightly in the event of heavy rain, snow, strong winds, and other weather events, but nothing, normally, that does not become prohibitive.

In addition the Starlink antenna can detect snow. A specific mode is then activated to melt it, to clear the view to the sky as much as possible, which strengthens its resilience to the elements. Starlink nevertheless notes in its help pages thatin the event of heavy snowfall, it will be necessary to ensure that the snow has not accumulated too much around the dish.

What is Starlink’s coverage map?

For now, as Elon Musk revealed a few months ago, Starlink is technically only functional on “high latitudes”, ie the northern United States and Canada, or Central Europe and Northern Europe on this side of the Atlantic. Over time, Starlink will become available closer and closer to the equator, until we can truly speak of planetary coverage.

But if we explore precisely this fascinating subject that is the cover of Starlink, it is also necessary to take into account its kinetic aspect. Unlike 5G antennas which are fixed, and whose coverage can be plotted on a map, the constellation of Starlink satellites is in perpetual motion. This interactive map gives a very detailed idea of ​​the coverage everywhere in the world at a given time:

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