SOURCE- NEWS ATLAS- SpaceX has launched 20 of its Starlink satellites up into Earth’s orbit, enabling direct-to-cellphone connectivity for subscribers anywhere on the planet. That completes the constellation’s first orbital shell, following a launch of an initial batch of six satellites for testing back in January.
The satellites were launched with a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on December 5 at 10 PM EST; they were then deployed in low Earth orbit. SpaceX founder Elon Musk noted on X that the effort will “enable unmodified cellphones to have internet connectivity in remote areas.” He added a caveat for the first orbital shell – “Bandwidth per beam is only ~10 Mb, but future constellations will be much more capable.”
That’s in line with Musk’s previous statement on the strength of Starlink’s service back in January. “While this is a great solution for locations with no cellular connectivity, it is not meaningfully competitive with existing terrestrial cellular networks,” he noted. However, the current 10-Mb bandwidth is a step up from the 7 Mb the initial test satellites managed at the start of the year.
Indeed, you’ll currently get only text service through the end of 2024; voice and data will become available sometime next year, as will support for IoT devices (such as smart home gadgets). The company hasn’t said how much its service will cost. One vaguely relevant reference to consider is Starlink’s roaming broadband service, which works with a receiver mounted on your car or RV: that costs US$50 per month for subscribers in the US with a 50-GB cap.
The big deal with this new venture is that unlike previous attempts at providing satellite-to-phone service, you don’t need a special handset or even a specific app to get access anywhere in the world. Starlink uses standard LTE/4G protocols that most phones are compatible with, partners with mobile operators like T-Mobile in the US and Rogers in Canada, and has devised a system to make its service work seamlessly with your phone when it’s connecting to satellites 340 miles (540 km) above the Earth’s surface.
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BABLYON is fallen!!! Come out of her my people!
I doubt it’s his intention but Elon is creating the technology required to implement the Mark of the Beast…worldwide connectivity, brain-computer links. The prophecies always come to pass
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