Space X May Soon Give The US Broadband Sector A Much Needed Kick In The Ass

Space X May Soon Give The US Broadband Sector A Much Needed Kick In The Ass

5 years ago
Anonymous $4ckUSNo_FL

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190916/11404743001/space-x-may-soon-give-us-broadband-sector-much-needed-kick-ass.shtml

Could Space X finally give the busted US telecom sector a much needed kick in the ass? Since 2017, Musk's Space X has been promising that it would launch 800 low orbit satellites capable of delivering cheaper, lower latency broadband to large swaths of the United States by 2020 or 2021. By and large Musk and company appear to have been successful sticking to that promise, insisting recently that this proposed timeline was "pretty much on target." That said, Musk had to fire some folks to ensure that the project was meeting its goals, which itself suggests they may not have been.

More recent government filings indicate that the company may be able to accelerate the deployment of fast low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites across broad swaths of the Southern US. The company says that a number of improvements were discovered in the wake of launching 60 LEO satellites back in May. In a filing (pdf), the company says an adjustment in orbital spacing and other efficiences may bring the service (which will be sold under the "Starlink" brand) online sooner and more broadly than expected: