Satellite internet provider Starlink is still very supply contained, with a backlog of reportedly around 600,000 pre-orders the company is still struggling to fill.
At present, the company is only producing around 5000 dishes/week, at a run rate of 260,000 per year, which means it will take the company years to catch up, but at Tuesday’s Satellite 2021 conference in Maryland, SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen have promised things will get better soon.
According to tweets from attendees, he said:
Johnsen: we’re producing 5,000 Starlink dishes a week, and will have “multiples of that” in coming months. New, lower cost unit coming out later this fall. #SATShow
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) September 7, 2021
The new run-rate will be enough to catch up on the 600,000 backlog.
@spacex #starlink CFO at #satshow – We are producing around 5000 dishes per week. When Q4 new dish production comes on line, should be able to fill backorder.
— Doug Mohney (@DougonIPComm) September 7, 2021
Johnsen also confirmed the new dish will be cheaper to produce than the current $1300 version.
Bret Johnson, #SpaceX: new user dish this fall, while cheaper to produce, will still cost SpaceX money, so no price drop for consumers. Turning out 5K of them a week now; this next gen dish means will be able to turn out multiples of that. @Comm_Daily
#satellite2021 #SATShow— Matt Daneman (@mdaneman) September 7, 2021
Unfortunately, while it will cost SpaceX less money to produce, the company also confirmed that the cost of the hardware is still above the $499 it costs to purchase a dish, meaning the company is not looking to cut the cost of the hardware yet.
Presumably, the people who form part of the 600,000 pre-orders have already made peace with the price, and will just be happy to receive their broadband satellite internet sooner than 2 years.
via PCMag
