Why You Can Trust CNET SpaceX president: No plans to add price tiers to Starlink satellite internet
"We're going to try to keep it as simple as possible and transparent as possible," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said during a virtual panel Tuesday.
- 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
SpaceX has no plans to introduce tiered pricing to Starlink, the company's satellite internet service, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said during a virtual panel Tuesday.
"I don't think we're going to do tiered pricing to consumers," Shotwell said during the Satellite 2021 Leo Digital Forum. "We're going to try to keep it as simple as possible and transparent as possible, so right now there are no plans to tier for consumers."
Currently in open beta and boasting more than 10,000 users across the US, Canada and other select regions, Starlink costs $100 per month after a $500 deposit to cover the cost of the receiver dish. A tiered pricing approach would offer multiple plans with different capabilities at different prices -- but SpaceX seems more inclined to go with a single, straightforward offering.
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In our initial tests, Starlink's satellite internet service was able to hit average download speeds of about 78 megabits per second, with latency or lag of about 36 milliseconds. Both of those figures are quite decent for satellite internet, which promises to bring connectivity to places that lack access to ground-laid fiber or cable infrastructure. Earlier this year, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that Starlink's top speeds would rise as high as 300Mbps by the end of 2021.
Service coverage is expected to spread as SpaceX is able to successfully launch more satellites into orbit. To date, the company has launched over 1,200 satellites into its "constellation," with plans to add thousands more in the coming years.
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