SpaceX Starlink Broadband Internet Service Is Now Available Across All Of Germany

Featured Image Source: @ErcXspace via Twitter 

SpaceX is building the world’s most advanced satellite broadband internet infrastructure, capable of connecting even the most remote regions on the planet. The company already operates approximately 1,797 satellites out of over 20,000 that will be deployed in the years to come. The Starlink constellation already provides Beta internet service to over 100,000 customers across 16 countries, including: United States, Canada, Chile, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany.

This week the company emailed potential customers living in Germany –“Starlink has expanded and is now providing service across all of Germany!” SpaceX announced. “You can check availability at your service address and learn more at Starlink.com. If Starlink is at capacity in your area, you can place a preorder to hold your place in line for future service,” they wrote. To connect to the Starlink network, customers purchase a $499 USD kit that includes a Wi-Fi router and dish antenna. The monthly internet service fee is $99 USD. Company officials state the service has no data caps and is the same price worldwide.

In May this year, the Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany Andreas Scheuer announced that they plan to incentivize Starlink to improve broadband internet in rural areas across the country. “We want to help here quickly and unbureaucratically, more or less as a stopgap until the fixed network is also expanded in these areas....” Minister Scheuer said, “(...) by the private sector or with funding. That's why I would also like to set up a voucher program that would enable the households affected to improve their Internet coverage in the short term. (…) In this way, we could provide around 200k households nationwide with fast Internet overnight, enabling them to participate digitally,” he said. Scheuer intends to subsidize rural households that have slow internet speed below 10Mbps (megabits per second) with a €500 voucher, according to a local news media report in German language by Online Focus.

In July some regions in Germany went through heavy thunderstorms that caused severe, life-threatening floods in multiple communities. The German government’s Supervision and Services Directorate of Rhineland-Palatinate deployed SpaceX's Starlink satellite dish antennas to rural districts of Ahrweiler, north of Rhineland-Palatinate, where there was severe damage caused by the storm. SpaceX’s space-based internet system is unaffected by weather, making it ideal for first responders when disaster strikes, unlike terrestrial internet infrastructures that largely depend on cables and antennas to transmit data.

 Featured Image Source: @ErcXspace via Twitter