Sunday, June 23, 2024

Starlink signs Comcast Business as a reseller

Comcast Business agreed to provide Starlink Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite service to its enterprise customers.

The collaboration enhances Comcast Business’ Managed Connectivity portfolio with advanced satellite capabilities, providing fast, reliable connectivity for enterprise customers, including those in underserved regions.

“As the first major network provider to collaborate with Starlink, we’re excited to uniquely enhance our extensive managed connectivity portfolio with advanced satellite capabilities to better serve our enterprise customers,” said Jon Friedman, Sr. Vice President, Product Strategy and Operations, Comcast Business. “Starlink's LEO satellite technology complements our existing network infrastructure, extends our reach and further enhances Comcast Business’ ability to deliver reliable connectivity solutions to enterprises with a human touch.”

“Starlink is excited to work with Comcast Business to deliver reliable connectivity to customers,” said Jason Fritch, Vice President of Starlink Enterprise Sales at SpaceX. “This agreement with a leading service provider is an acknowledgement of Starlink’s growing role as a critical element in modern enterprise networks.”

Some recent developments at Starlink:

  1. June 2024: Starlink Mini dish is announced. The Starlink Mini is designed to be highly portable, fitting into a backpack. It measures 28.9 cm by 24.8 cm, making it comparable in size to an iPad Pro and more compact than the standard Starlink dish. Elon Musk revealed that the Starlink Mini dish would cost about half the price of the standard dish, which is priced at $599. This suggests a potential cost of around $299 for the mini dish. Musk also revealed that the mini dish could be set up in under five minutes and would support multiple 4K video streams simultaneously. The dish also features a built-in WiFi router and LAN ports, supporting both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands with 802.11ax and 3x3 MIMO technology​
  2. June 2024: SpaceX launched additional Starlink satellites, reaching a milestone of 3 million customers and expanding service to the Republic of Fiji. The service now is offered in 100 countries. 
  3. May 2024: Starlink introduced the first set of satellites for what the National Reconnaissance Office called “proliferated systems featuring responsive collection and rapid data delivery.”
  4. May 2024: Starlink's revenue jumped from $1.4 billion in 2022 to $6.6 billion in 2024.
  5. May 2024: SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 carrying the first set of satellites for the Starshield program, a classified derivative of Starlink designed to be operated for and can host payloads for military or government purposes.
  6. May 2024: SpaceX launched 21 Gen2 (or V2) Mini satellites, representing the next and upgraded version of its V1 and V1.5 satellites.
  7. May 2024: The deployment of the first 1,440 satellites in 72 orbital planes of 20 satellites each, with a requested lower minimum elevation angle of beams to improve reception.
  8. May 2024: Starlink introduced the ability to rent Starlink equipment instead of outright purchasing it.
  9. May 2024: SpaceX launched the first batch of Starlink satellites equipped with direct-to-cell capability, allowing users to connect to the internet directly through their mobile devices.