Not to Norway this year
Many are waiting for Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite network, which consists of more and more satellites and covers a larger and larger part of the globe.
Lightning fast satellite network
The service is especially free for those who live in more pig-ridden areas, with limited opportunities for fiber line or good mobile coverage. In the United States alone, there are 28 million households that do not have access to a proper internet connection.
With a clear view of the sky and a satellite receiver on the ground, on the roof or on top of a pole, Starlink can for many offer network speeds that it has previously been possible to fantasize about.
I Starlink subredditen several report speeds of both 100 and 200 Mbps, with a low enough ping that it is possible to play online. The weakness so far is that now and then you have to be prepared for a few minutes of downtime because you lose contact with the satellites.
Recently, the company also launched Starlink Premium, where with the help of a more advanced receiver you can reach speeds of 500 Mbps, with ping times of 20-40 ms. When the entire system is up, it should theoretically be possible to deliver 1 Gbps to each end user.
Delayed in Norway
When we wrote about the service last year, we also checked a handful of addresses spread around Norway. For all addresses, we were informed that the service was expected to be delivered this year.
When we do the same check today, we see that it is 2023 that applies in the east, south, west and farthest north. From the coverage map from the Satellite map above, it is probably most natural to assume that those furthest south will have access first.
It was hardly helped by the accident last Thursday, where SpaceX launched 49 new Starlink satellites, but up to 40 of them were taken by geomagnetic storms, according to NBC. They therefore did not get high enough and will therefore not be able to operate as planned.
According to satellite maps, Starlink has so far lost 171 satellites, ie almost one in ten.
Not alone
At the time of writing, Starlink has just over 2,000 satellites in orbit around the earth. SpaceX has ambitions of over 30,000 of them if approved by the International Telecommunication Union (UN agency).
SpaceX is not alone in launching satellites that will give people internet access. Amazon will launch the first satellites in its Project Kupier last quarter this year, and aims for just over 3,000 satellites in total. Early tests show that the Amazon variant will have a network speed of up to 400 Mbps, reports Screenrant.
Another player is London-based OneWeb, which already has around 400 satellites in orbit around the earth.
Turns alarm
Astronomers are no longer disappointed with the twist from Elon Musk and Starlink. I one study publisher The Astrophysical journal letters It was recently reported that a Starlink satellite is present in as much as 18 percent of all astronomical observations of the sky, and that satellites will be in virtually all images when there are 10,000 of them.
A NASA spokesman warns above Wall Street Journal that this will interfere with ground observations, and that it may be difficult to distinguish satellites from comets and asteroids.