‘Starlink,’ SpaceX’s internet service, is growing in Minnesota. What that could mean for the future of rural broadband.
October 29, 2021
When Kati Stage moved from the Twin Cities to Embarrass in rural northern Minnesota last summer, her only choice for internet was HughesNet, a satellite service she said was slow “since day one.”
Then, in November, she one day noticed a “strange long line of lights” pass above her in the sky. After some Googling, she found out what it was: Starlink.
The service, owned by Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, offers broadband through a growing network of low-orbiting satellites, which now number more than 1,700 and can look like a string of lights as they move.