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Elon Musk said his rocket company SpaceX is ready to spend $ 30bn set up Starlink, its satellite internet which now has 70,000 users in 12 countries.
Musk said Starlink is on a global distribution campaign – “everywhere except prices” – by August and expects to have half a million users “in twelve months.”
SpaceX currently has 1,500 satellites in low-bandwidth network offering Starlink internet, a function that fills gaps between regions with fiber and 5G connections, Musk said. In total the project will have 12,000 satellites.
“It’s made for low-income areas,” Musk said, speaking from California in an interview with a Mobile World Congress video in Barcelona. “We’re coming to some hard-to-reach countries – very difficult to reach 3 percent, maybe 5%.”
The $ 30bn revenue raised by Musk was new and higher than previously predicted, although it is unclear if the show could be compared to previous estimates. Musk said the number varies depending on the size of the 9 rocket included.
In a 2018 TED Talk, chief executive Gwynne Shotwell said setting up 12,000 satellites costs “about $ 10bn or more”.
Musk said SpaceX expects to invest between $ 5- $ 10bn in Starlink before the money runs out, and doubts its value between $ 20bn and $ 30bn. “That’s a lot, really,” he said.
Musk has not yet commented on Starlink’s revenue, but has previously predicted it could generate an annual revenue of $ 30bn by 2025.
Musk acknowledged that all the initial efforts to provide electronic communications systems, since the 1990’s, have failed. He joked that, a few years ago, his goal was simply to avoid bankruptcy.
The price of a Starlink “terminal”, or satellite satellite, is $ 499, plus a recurring monthly price of $ 99.
The billionaire businessman also claimed Starlink had signed two major relationships, but declined to name them.
In December, the Starlink project received approximately $ 900m from US agencies to help connect to rural Broadbands. The award took up about one-tenth of the $ 9.2bn sold by the Federal Communications Commission and will be distributed monthly for ten years.
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