SpaceX has ended the waiting game for hopeful Starlink subscribers in the US, and is now offering access to its satellite internet service across the country. The aerospace company attributes this increased level of access to the enhanced capabilities of its latest Starlink satellites, and comes nearly a year after Starlink expanded to cover all of Canada.
The second-generation Starlink satellites boast an impressive four-fold increase in capacity compared to their predecessors. This enhancement has allowed SpaceX to extend Starlink’s coverage to every corner of the US. Potential subscribers will no longer have to endure lengthy waits to access the residential Starlink tier, but there should also be benefits for existing subscribers who have had to grapple with network congestion issues.
SpaceX’s second-generation satellites not only deliver greater capacity but also promise speedier internet connections for subscribers. To further improve performance, SpaceX is gearing up to unveil next-generation antenna hardware.
Deployment of our second generation Starlink satellites, which have 4x more capacity than the first gen, enable us to connect even more people no matter where they live.
Starlink is now available across the United States → https://t.co/G1myzWJQ6j pic.twitter.com/jUMcGCrrcY
— Starlink (@Starlink) October 2, 2023
SpaceX has been steadily bolstering Starlink’s capacity by launching hundreds of additional satellites into orbit every month, slowly easing access restrictions throughout the US over the past year. Most of the country could access Starlink immediately, but the southeast corner of the country still had waitlists. That is no more after SpaceX sent their latest batch of 22 Starlink satellites into orbit last week, bringing the total number of satellites in orbit to over 5,000. The company eventually hopes to grow the constellation to 42,000 satellites, but currently only has approval for up to 7,500 from the FCC.
While SpaceX is now available across the entire US, it has been that way for Canada for nearly a full year. In November 2022 Starlink announced their service was available across all of Canada, just a few weeks after expanding coverage of their satellite internet service to include the far northern reaches of the country.
