SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service has established ‘direct.starlink.com’ for its Direct-to-Cell service promising “seamless access to text, voice, and data for LTE phones across the globe”. The new service will be available from 2024/2025 (depending on its service partners). Those initial reciprocal cellular partners are named as: T-Mobile, Canada’s Rogers; Australia’s Optus; New Zealand’s One NZ, […]

The FAA last week issued a report to the US Congress expressing concern over how the growing number of satellite constellations will dispose of their failed craft and what the FAA says are the risks to human life and property. The report says: “The dramatic rise of non-geostationary satellites, particularly those in low Earth orbit […]

Starlink, Elon Musk’s broadband-by-satellite service, is still missing some major potential markets. A few days ago, news emerged that India could be close to granting Starlink permission to operate. But a new study suggests there’s still some way to go for Starlink. Data from analysts at Payload says that 2024 will see Starlink services start […]

There was a time when satellite dish owners in certain countries would be forced to disguise their dishes because of local bans and prohibitions. Owners in Saudi Arabia used to cover their large C-band dishes with parasols so that observing helicopters could not ‘see’ the equipment. Indeed, some owners in nearby Qatar, where a dish […]

SpaceX’s Starlink service has expanded availability over the US. Heavy demand in some parts of the US has meant that Starlink was severely limiting new subscribers owing to limited bandwidth. However, with almost 1,000 new broadband satellites launched over the past few months, and the latest full Version 2 craft now being launched with four-times […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has licensed Elon Musk’s Starlink service to test a ‘Direct-to-device’ service. SpaceX will launch the first of a new batch of enabled satellites in December which when fully established will permit users to make calls via Starlink. Apple and Globalstar already have a similar service running, while Omnispace is planning […]

Last week it was India which said that it was about to grant permissions for Starlink to operate over the nation. Now Turkey says that Starlink can apply for licences. The news follows on from an in-person meeting that Elon Musk had with Turkey’s President Erdogan in New York on September 18th. Erdogan reportedly wants […]

Local reports in India say that SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service will be approved for operation and distribution in October. One report, quoting local officials, said: “Processing Starlink’s application took a long time because the company was slow in completing the necessary documentation.” Starlink has completed the full application process and India is now prepared to […]

A SpaceX rocket has successfully placed into orbit another batch of its Starlink satellites, and again equipped with inter-satellite laser links. Starlink says its satellites are able to connect thousands of kilometres apart, beyond the view of ground stations, and maintain pointing accuracy to enable data transfer up to 100 Gbps on each link. The […]

SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service has reported that it now has more than 2 million “active customers and counting” in over 60 countries – double the number from just nine months ago. Some observers have asked ‘what is an active customer?’ and questioned why Starlink doesn’t use the commonplace description of a paying ‘subscriber’. However, Starlink […]