The total cost of the Starlink satellite Internet project can achieve several tens of billions of dollars. Reports about it Reuters with reference to the chapter Spacex Ilona Mask.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona by video link, Mask revealed the sum of common investments in Starlink. According to the entrepreneur, the total cost of the project can be 20-30 billion dollars. “In principle, it’s a lot,” he noticed.
The head of Spacex and Tesla also stressed that the project needs to be invested from five to ten billion dollars so that Starlink began to profit.
Currently, terminals for receiving satellite Internet are sold by StarLink for $ 500 (about 37 thousand rubles) apiece. Subscribers pay the cost of satellite plates in parts. At the same time, the mask admitted that the company sells equipment at a loss, since the cost of one plate exceeds a thousand dollars. “We now lose money on this terminal,” – quotes the words mask edition Slashgear.
The entrepreneur told that Starlink work on the second version of the terminal, which will reduce the cost of the company twice.
At the end of June, Starlink representatives stated that the company plans to provide stable coverage of the Internet on its territory of the Earth to the fall. “We have successfully unfolded about 1,800 satellites, and as soon as all these satellites have achieved their working orbits, we will have continuous global coverage,” said Spacex President Gwynn Sotwel (Gwynne Shotwel).