Beginning with the first connections with the internet of space by Elon Musk

The Starlink program starts the public beta test for subscribers. $ 99 subscription. It also takes 500 to buy ground equipment

(image: Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images) Space X's satellite internet program is advancing. According to reports from The Verge and other newspapers, Elon Musk's company sent an email to users interested in the service to invite them to participate in the beta version of the satellite connection service developed in the Starlink program. This public test phase, called "Better than nothing beta", follows the first private tests that the company had conducted during the summer on an experimental and confidential basis.

According to reports, for the beta version users who subscribe will have to purchase the ground equipment necessary to receive the signal, together with the wi-fi router, for a total cost of 499 dollars. The monthly cost of the subscription will then be 99 dollars and will give the possibility of having a connection speed that varies between 50 and 150 Megabits per second with a latency between 20 and 40 milliseconds.

The company also warns the participants in this test that "there will be short periods of total absence of connectivity", and that the performance both in terms of navigation speed and signal latency will improve with the implementation of launches of new satellites, reaching a latency between 16 and 19 milliseconds in 2021.

Just a few days ago from the US Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral Space X launched another 60 satellites with a Falcon 9 rocket, which will join the more than 800 active satellites currently in low earth orbit. According to estimates, the aerospace company believes it can begin offering the first commercial services when there are at least 1,440 satellites in orbit, but overall it has stated that about 12 thousand satellites will be needed to be able to provide a global service that can also reach up to areas of the planet not reached by broadband.

At the moment, however, the satellites in orbit are sufficient to cover a limited area and in fact the test connection of the beta version will be usable at first only in the north of The United States and Canada, but in 2021 satellite internet services could be available worldwide.

A new impetus to the development of commercial services based on this technology has also recently arrived with the partnership between Space X and Microsoft, thanks to which the latter will provide Elon Musk's company with the ground infrastructure for the dissemination of the highlight services d computing.

In addition to competition from telecommunications companies, which according to data recorded by the Speedtest global index indicate an average download speed of 161.4 mb / s in the United States for broadband, the Starlink program will also have to face Amazon, one of the main competitors in the satellite internet sector with the Kuiper program, which provides for the launch of over 3,236 satellites and obtained approval from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in July.